Institutional Quality Assurance Directorate

Abatihun Alehegn Sewagegn (PhD)

Institutional Quality Assurance Directorate Director

Phone number: +251913061791

Email: abatihun_alehegn@dmu.edu.et

            abatihunalehegn@gmail.com

Office Number: 206  

Building: 28

Overview of Institutional Quality Assurance Directorate

Debre Markos University is one of the second generation universities in Ethiopia, which was officially opened in 2005/06. The University has the vision to become one of the top ten Applied Universities in East Africa by 2030. To realize this vision, the University has given special attention to teaching-learning, research, technology transfer, and community and consultancy services. The University’s missions in relation to the above focus area are preparing knowledgeable, skilled, and attitudinally mature graduates; promoting and enhancing research focusing on knowledge and technology transfer consistent with the country’s priority needs; designing and providing community and consultancy services that shall cater to the developmental needs of the country through active engagement of the community and stakeholders.

Since its establishment, the University has contributed a lot to the country and the surrounding community by producing a skilled workforce and serving the community in various ways. To realize the vision and meet the mission, the University has prepared five and ten-year strategic plans focusing on quality education and quality service. The university has also quality assurance policy in order to assure and maintain quality and standards of its programs. In the policy, the university has given an emphasis to quality assurance mechanisms. Issues of quality assurance and quality enhancement have been a major focus of attention for most higher education institutions in the world. This is because no university will survive the present competition with other universities in the country, in the region and in the world without paying attention to quality assurance.

Institutional Quality Assurance Directorate of the University is working strongly to the successful for the implementation of the strategic plans in collaboration with the university community. Institutional Quality Assurance Directorate is one of the University’s directorates and organized with one director, four officers, one secretary and one courier. In addition, there are ten college/institute/school quality assurance coordinators including Burie campus in the positions of vice dean. The directorate is accountable to the president.

Duties and Responsibilities of the Directorate stated in the Legislation

1. Develop policies and instruments for quality assurance
2. Coordinate quality assessment for the overall university activities
3. Insist and support course, program and institutional self-assessment, peer review, external review, and accreditation
4. Assist in developing quality standards for academics and research and community service
5. Benchmark best practices in other institutions
6. In collaboration with colleges, propose improvement plans based on quality assessment recommendations
7. Assist colleges in developing standards for academic, research, and community service centers resources like classroom technology, laboratories, etc.
8. Prepare institutional quality enhancement plan
9. Carries out a performance audit
10. Perform other related activities

Tasks accomplished by the directorate

• Tracer study:

Tracer study has been conducted each year by collecting data from undergraduates

• For 2002-2008 graduates
• For 2009 graduates
• For 2010 graduates
• For 2011 graduates

• Survey study on:

• DMU staff, student and partner satisfaction of service quality
• Practice of teaching learning process at DMU: From students’ perspective
• Practice of different assessment methods at DMU: From students’ perspective and document review
• Practice and challenges of freshman programs at DMU: Perception of students, instructors and higher officials

• Supervisions

Supervisions have been made at least two times per year to:

• Identify best practices and area of improvement
• Find joint solutions to visible problems/gaps/
• Develop an action plan to implement the proposed solutions

Supervisions have been made on:

• Classroom readiness
• Facilities (students’ dormitory, cafeterias, Clinic, etc.) readiness
• Library readiness
• Registrar
• Lab and workshop
• Office and its facilities

• Organizing a discussion forum

• With students as well as student representatives
• With deans of colleges /institutions/schools
• With Institutional Quality Assurance Coordinators at Colleges /Institutions/Schools
• With committee members for various activities at the university level

• Checklist and criteria development for different sections

Due to lack of clarity, appropriateness and availability, the following checklists, criteria, policy and guidelines have been revised.  

• Exam evaluation checklist
• Workshop and laboratory manuals and checklist,
• Dormitory service checklist,
• Clinic service check list and
• Cafeteria service checklist

• Strategic plan, policies and guidelines revised and developed

• Participated and developed the university five and ten yeas strategic plans
• Revision of quality assurance policy
• Revision of student assessment guideline
• Revision of motivational guideline
• Development of curriculum design, and review policy
• Coordinate for nine curriculum revisions in health science college

• Quality audit and participation on quality awards

• Fifty-one program-level quality audit is conducted and their own self-evaluation documents have been prepared
• Institutional level Internal quality audit has been conducted and its self-evaluation document have been prepared
• Depend on the program and institutional level quality audit results, Quality enhancement plan developed at university and colleges/institutes/school’s level
• External quality audit is conducted by higher education relevance and quality agency (HERQA)
• Participated in 8^th round Ethiopian quality award
• Based on Ethiopian Quality Award (EQA) requirements, University level self-evaluation document has been prepared.

• Training and workshop

• Induction training has been given to newly employed and transferred teachers focusing on; Overview about the DMU, Active learning, Assessment techniques and Classroom management,
• Training on internal quality audit has been given by experienced and certified staffs for the selected committee in collaboration with:

1. Jhpiego, the training focuses on: Customizing of standards, methods of data collection and quality audit procedures and documentation of the audit report, Competency based curriculum development
2. ETA (the late HERQA), the training focuses on: Purpose of internal quality audit, Internal and external quality audit procedures and preparation self-evaluation document.

• Training has been given for all office clerks focusing on customer handling and modern information organization and management
• Internal quality assurance review workshop on quality of education has been conducted in collaboration with HERQA and Jhpiego-Ethiopia. The workshop focuses on brief overview on quality audit, discussion on program level quality audit reports and discussion on quality Enhancement plan.