The final HAQAA 2 event that was held in Accra, Ghana from the 6th to 9th of December 2022 brought together the astute names in the African and Global Higher Education management spaces to share and deliberate on the projects impact in harmonizing quality improvement and standards in African higher education in corroboration with global standards.
The HAQAA2 initiative has been an ambitious endeavor to promote African continental harmonization in quality assurance, as well as African regional integration in higher education more generally, in line with the ambitions of the Pan African Quality Assurance Framework (PAQAF) of the African Union and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA). A continuance of HAQAA1, the initiative has been adjusted and re-positioned over the past 3 years, responding and adapting to the Covid crisis and tackling new, important policy themes where required.
The HAQAA 2; an initiative by the European and African Union commissions was implemented and steered by Obreal Global, European Association for Quality Assurance and Higher Education ( EQA ) The Association of African Universities and the German Academic Exchange Service ( DAAD).
The 3 day event began with a hybridized stakeholders forum on the “ACTS national workshop” involving 25 Ghanaian universities and government stakeholders on site and followed by the most anticipated HAQAA Advisory Board meeting which were all Hosted at the AAU headquarters in Ghana.
At the launch of the event at the Alisa Hotel in Accra-Ghana, featured representatives of all implementing organizations who expressed their respective and collective contributions towards the realization and advancement of the HAQAA 2 project. This began with opening remarks by Prof.Olusola Oyewole, Secretary General, Association of African Universities (AAU), Irchad Razaaly, Head of Delegation, EU Delegation to Ghana ,Elizabeth Colucci, Director of Global Projects and HAQAA2 Coordinator – OBREAL Global, Stefan Bienefeld, Head of Transnational Education and Cooperation Programmes, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Douglas Blackstock, President, European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and the special guest of honorHon. John Ntim Fordjour, deputy minister of Education , Ghana.
The initiative that has been structured around the three core action areas namely : Capacity building, training, and support for CESA (the policy component) ignited the interest and enthusiasm of participants to assess the developments made thus far..it has engaged diverse stakeholders from the higher education sector at institutional, country, and regional levels.
The final HAQAA 2 event was a showcase event, that culminated efforts of higher education stakeholders across the various divides of the African continent to assess the progress made as well as prospects in achieving the underlying objectives of HAQAA 2 such as ; promotion and dissemination of results of training and capacity building done in IQA and EQA, discussion on the future of the African Standards and Guidelines (ASG-QA) on this basis, as well as continued capacity building and training needs, presentation on a road map and clear vision for the future set-up of the Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency, according to a major stakeholder consultation, presentation of a road map for capacity building for coherent higher education data generation in Africa, presentation of a road map for how the African Credit Transfer System should be taken forward in Africa, concrete actions that can be taken at institutional, national and regional level and a discussion on the overall policy impacts of HAQAA2, both towards African regions and towards the African Union and the CESA agenda.