By: Mr. Chheng Sangvath
Quality assurance is a part of educational reform in Cambodia. Whole institution accreditation is the main work for all assessors in addition to strengthening the quality of higher education institutions with 9 standards and 73 instruments. In order to keep a good record of assessors, a training workshop was conducted for sharing experiences with the Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA) on topics such as: the roles and responsibilities of the assessor, guidelines for accreditation, tools for assessors before, during and after assessment, and how to write a narrative report on program accreditation.
In order to strengthen the quality of human resources for social responsibilities, the Ministry of Education places a high emphasis on continuous quality improvement. The workshop focused on quality assurance of higher education, governance of future quality assurance development, and good practices in reference to the ASEAN quality assurance framework. The Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA) was established in 1997 for program accreditation. Tools were developed to meet the demands in quality assurance for both local and regional standards. The National Qualification Framework was developed based on evidence that was supported by real implementation in higher education institutions. Student learning outcomes are the main key variable to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the institution as an implementer on quality assurance strengthening.
Recruitment Assessors are key people in the process of accreditation in the Malaysian higher education system. There are some guidelines and requirements to become an assessor and one must continue to implement these before, during and after assessment of the program. For a provisional level on training, the accreditation process by MQA takes around three months and three weeks, and the full accreditation process may take up to seven months. Whereas the site visit at the HEI takes roughly five days.
As a lesson learned from the Malaysian Qualification Agency, this workshop was very important for higher education institutions in order to learn more about the process of quality assurance and the importance of having good internal assessors. MQA found that quality assessors are fundamental for an organization. IQA mechanisms and management structures should comply with the Cambodian National Quality Framework.
