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also been a major expansion of private HLIs from none in 1991 to 276 in 2021, and if branch campuses are included, the total number reaches 1162 (HERQA, 2021).
Although the progress observed in the past few years is significant, the coverage of higher education in Ethiopia still remains limited when compared with the size of the eligible age group. For instance, the higher education gross enrolment ratio which was only 1.5% by the year 2003 (World Bank, 2003) had only increased to 12% by the year 2018 (MoE, 2018a). In Table 3.1 above, it can be noted that the private HLIs have a 16% share of the overall enrolment. In addition, the percentage of female undergraduate enrolment in private HLIs (50.9%) is almost equal to that of their male counterparts, whereas the percentage of female undergraduate enrolment in government HLIs (34.1%) is less than that of their male counterparts. Moreover, their participation at the master’s and PhD levels in both public and private HLIs is very low.
The student participation rate is also very low for people with disabilities, for semi- agriculturalist and pastoralist areas of the country, and for the underserved regional states such as Somali, Afar, Benishangul‐Gumuz and Gambella (MoE, 2018a).
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styles through experience with time and training/education. To be effective, leaders need to possess technical, conceptual, and human/interpersonal skills. They must also possess integrity and honesty, confidence, vision, ability to inspire others, passion and commitment. Furthermore, they must have good communication, participatory, and decision-making capabilities. Leaders also need to be accountable, innovative, resilience, and transparent. Therefore, in order to accomplish the vision, mission and goals of an organisation (including an HLI), the leader must be equipped with these leadership qualities and skills.
In section 3.3, selected literature on the topic related to leadership in the context of higher education was reviewed. From the literature review, it can be noted that leading an HLIs is challenging due to the high expectation of internal and external stakeholders and organisational complexity. To address those challenges, academic leaders need to build a community of scholars by empowering staff members to participate in different decision-making processes and creating a favourable working environment for them to be devoted and loyal to their discipline and social responsibility. The quality of leadership in HLIs creates a significant difference in assuring the quality of education and improving student outcomes, maintaining the reputation of the institution, addressing social responsibilities and thereby contributing to national development.
Therefore, to address the demands of different stakeholders, leaders of HLIs need to be visionary, knowledgeable, self-motivated and experienced. Moreover, they need to create a system through which both external and internal stakeholders can participate and contribute their share in achieving the goals of the institution.
In section 3.4 of this chapter, the quality assurance system in HLIs was discussed. In this section, selected literature on the topics related to quality and quality assurance in the context of higher education was reviewed. This review highlighted that the perception of quality in general and in higher education, in particular, varies from person to person, and this makes it difficult to reach a single definition of the term.
Various scholars define quality in higher education in different ways. According to the authors in the field, these definitions can be categorised into six approaches: quality as consistency, as exceptional, as value for money, as fitness for purpose, as transformation and as conformance to standards. The higher education sector has
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many stakeholders; therefore, the diverse definitions reflect the diverse demands and concerns of the stakeholders.
Defining quality in higher education is essential to finding a way to create the mechanism that assures quality. Different scholars also define the term quality assurance in different ways, but the overall content of these definitions is similar, in that mechanisms are put in place to evaluate and assure the quality of a higher education system. The review of the literature revealed that the concept of quality assurance in higher education came into being because of increased demand for accountability, lack of stakeholders' confidence in traditional academic quality management capabilities, diversity of the education environment, increase in global competitiveness, budget restrictions, and decline in academic standards due to rapid expansion of the sector.
Assurance of the quality of higher education has two aspects: internal quality assurance, which is an activity performed by the HLIs themselves, and external quality assurance which is mainly performed by an external body. Most scholars agree that the internal quality assurance system is the most effective way of assuring and improving the educational quality of HLIs, provided that the leadership and all stakeholders (internal and external) are committed to and participate in the task. In many countries, quality assessment is considered a process of enhancement; but compliance, accountability, and, on some occasions, controls in the sector are also emphases of the evaluation.
In sections 3.5 and 3.6, the different approaches to quality assurance in higher education and the quality assurance experience of four selected countries were reviewed. To compare with international experience of quality assurance approaches, the quality assurance approach of Ethiopia was also discussed in section 3.6. As explained in the literature review, periodic assessments using audit, accreditation, and peer review are mainly carried out by external bodies in collaboration with the institutions. Among them, accreditation and audit are the most frequently used approaches to quality assurance in higher education. What these approaches have in common is that in order to assure the quality of higher education, institutions should take the primary responsibility to assess themselves and produce a self-evaluation report based on standards set by external quality assurance agencies and their own
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internal standards. This self-evaluation document is vital for the institution to identify its strengths and weaknesses and to take appropriate action. At the same time, the document is a reference for external quality assurance reviewers. To assure the quality of higher education, the four selected countries adopted either accreditation or audit, or both. However, in the accreditation or audit process, the primarily responsible body for managing the quality of education in HLIs is the institution itself, and academic leadership is considered as the key actor. It is clear from the literature review that the approach adopted by many HLIs to assure the quality of education is an internal quality audit by the institutions themselves, together with an external quality audit by external quality assurance bodies.
Having highlighted and discussed various aspects of the literature reviewed in this chapter, the next chapter focuses on the research design and methodology used in this study.
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RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY