Institutional strengthening and capacity building of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) and the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Council (AQAC)

Sector

Education

Project budget

The maximum budget for this project is € 1.5 million.

Organisations

This project has been developed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR). It has been put out to tender twice. The first tender (NICHE-YEM-026) expired on 4 October 2010. The second tender (NICHE-YEM-080) expired on 13 December 2010.

Nuffic has awarded this tender to BMB Mott MacDonald, which has formed a consortium with the Maastricht School of Management.

Project description

The project will address the development and improvement of services delivery in the higher education and scientific research sector in Yemen by strengthening the role of MoHESR and the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Council (AQAC) in steering, managing, monitoring and controlling the sector.

The sector is currently facing the following major issues and shortcomings:

• Demand for higher education seriously exceeds the absorption capacity of institutions.
• The quality of higher education programmes needs to be improved both in terms of content and in teaching and learning methods, combined with a need for quality assurance.
• As Yemen's higher education institutions are directly financed by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the MoHESR has little leverage to steer and direct universities in line with its policies.
• Coordination in the higher education sector is complex, due to the presence of three education ministries (MoE, MoTEVT and MoHESR).
• There are still no job descriptions for MoHESR staff and there is a lack of accountability and performance assessments.
• At the university level, staff's civil service status hinders the introduction of modern human resources management systems.

The specific challenge of this project is to strengthen the role of the MoHESR in steering and managing the higher education and research sector and to enhance the introduction and application of quality assurance systems in higher education and research.

Building on previous results

The project will build on the results of NPT project 187 (March 2006 - April 2009) which aimed to strengthen the MoHESR and provide it with a clear mandate to supervise, control and monitor the tertiary education sector. The focus of this project was on institution building, restructuring of the organisation and management of MoHESR and a strategic plan for upgrading the skills of MoHESR staff.

New bylaws

In 2009 a new bylaw on higher education was prepared which addresses the abovementioned shortcomings in the sector. The bylaw on the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Council (AQAC) was adopted by the Government in 2009. These bylaws provide a positive policy context in which to address the shortcomings.