Higher Education reform: a study of quality assurance and the reform policy of Higher Education in the Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Abstract

The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Kurdistan Region Government (MoHESR_KRG) has initiated a reform policy in 2009. The reform has been initiated in order to bring high standards of quality of higher education to the Kurdistan higher education. The reform process has covered all the higher education institutions in the region, whether they are public or private institutions. Generally, the reform process has focused on reforming areas of management and academia but, only the academic area is considered in this study. The academic areas which are covered in this study are teaching quality assurance and curricula development, academicians’ further development, postgraduate and research, assessment and accreditation, and social justice and safety.

The sample selected for this study consists of two public and two private universities and one higher education institution. They have been selected directly based on their students’ and lecturers’ capacity, and academic programs. The sample included 1131 students of whom 801 have responded and 282 lecturers of whom 201 have responded to the questionnaires. Yet, eight junior and senior managers and policy makers have been directly chosen and interviewed. The results of the study show that i) students have negative attitude towards teaching quality assurance program; ii) lecturers have neutral attitude towards the program; iii) policy makers, senior and junior managers have positive attitude about the program; iv) the type of university, whether being in a public university or a private one, has an impact on students’ attitude; and v) gender has no role in students’ attitude towards the quality assurance program. This study is significant for policy makers, decision makers, and academic leaders in higher education institutions in the Kurdistan region because i) it studies the reform policy based on data collected from lecturers, students, junior and senior managers, and policy makers in higher education institutions in the region; ii) it is based on academic interpretation of the reform policy supported by literature on policy studies and reform process; and iii) it can be considered as an academic
assessment of parts of the reform policy to be considered for progress purposes while conducting other assessment studies in the future.

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