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Quality
Observing & Measuring
The Council observes and measures
quality of higher education
universities working in Palestine and in the Arab countries,
through its network of specialist and certified Quality
observers working with the Council in every Arab country.
The Council sets forth qualitative and quantitative
standards to control and assess academic institutions, to
measure and evaluate the quality
of their educational programmes, to try to prevent these
institutions from maximizing their financial profits at the
expense of quality outputs. Such standards are indicated in
the Council's "Appraisal Form" in use by our observers.
Quality
Control
The difficulty of measuring
education quality is one of the major problems facing higher
education in general. Nevertheless, there are various
quality control approaches that can be used, as follows:
1- Quality measurement
based on inputs:
In this approach the focus is directed to enrolled students,
their cumulative averages, and the pass ratio in admission
tests.
2- Quality measurement
based on processes:
This approach focuses on education and learning processes,
such as the quality of a study plan, in terms of content and
level, the quality of educational resources, and the
experience of teaching-staff members, including the criteria
for their selection and promotion, and their capacity
building programmes.
3- Quality measurement
based on outputs:
This approach especially appraises graduate students, in
terms of their academic level, and the basic specialization
skills they have acquired. This is
done by means of holding "placement tests", recording their
pass percentage in the professional exams conducted by
syndicates and other production sectors, in addition to
identifying the proportion of those graduates who work in
their specialty fields, and the number of those who assume
leading positions.
4- Quality measurement
based on experts’
opinions:
Quality measurement is made on the
basis of external evaluation known as peer review conducted
by specialist committees which examine key Quality
requirements and standards to be met by the educational
programmes, as well as by the teaching and learning
environment in the higher education institutions.
5- Quality measurement based on
satisfaction of the
benchmarks of good
practice, and the endorsed Quality
standards.
Here Quality is controlled by assessing how far the existing
policies, infrastructure, educational and learning
environments in higher education institutions are controlled
to the Benchmark of good practice, in addition to the
Quality standards laid down by local and international
accreditation agencies and associations.
Quality
indicator:
The Council adopts special indicator to assess and control
quality of Arab universities. The Council will post the
assessment results on its webpage by the end of each
academic year. The Council will also distribute the findings
to all universities involved in the assessment, in addition
to Quality institutions.
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