Ministry of Higher Education Advisor sheds light on Quality Assurance Plan
Regarding the Human Capacity Building Programme, Dr. Saeed said, "Based on the latest statistics of the Ministry of Higher Education, recorded during the 2014 academic year, 670 students out of 4,351 scholarship-holders from the Region completed their studies abroad and reintegrated into the Region’s workforce."
The Human Capacity Development Programme is a joint programme overseen by the Ministry of Higher Education and Ministry of Planning. It aims to develop professional skills in the Kurdistan Region. The programme provides an opportunity to thousands of young men and women to continue their higher education abroad with a view to developing human resources, capable of leading the process of development in various sectors in the Region.
"The ministry has established a language center to provide scholarship-holders with an opportunity to improve their language skills before commencing their academic courses abroad," Dr. Saeed told KRG.org.
He indicated that “in the past two years, the ministry has exerted great effort to overcome all sorts of obstacles for the sake of the right implementation of the programme." He added that by early last academic year "the ministry had spent more than $82 million for the candidates of the Human Capacity Development Programme. It is the ministry’s priority, and all effort will be exerted to develop the programme.”
The Quality Assurance Plan also includes providing skill improvement programmes for both primary school teachers and university graduates.
The ministry has opened evening courses at the College of Basic Education at the University of Salahaddin, "where primary school teachers learn new skills and modern teaching techniques. Eventually, this will improve the quality of basic education provided by the KRG Ministry of Education," Dr Saeed told KRG.org.
He also said that the Ministry of Higher Education has maximized its admission capacity for the 2013-2014 academic year through opening new colleges and departments, reintroducing evening classes, and licensing new universities.
"This year, the ministry has admitted 36,214 high school graduates at 13 public universities, 4,000 more than the previous academic year and 12,000 at 11 private universities, 5,000 more than the previous year.” He added, “For the first time in the Ministry of Higher Education’s history, we have allowed high school graduates of the last two years that have not been admitted to any higher education institute to reapply.”
To accommodate this high demand, the ministry has opened new departments and colleges, including evening classes. Students are exempt from tuition fees in such classes and benefit from an encouraging monthly allowance.
The ministry has also "loosened minimum age restrictions to 30 years old for morning classes and 35 for evening classes," he added. Previously, the minimum age restrictions were 25 and 30 years old, respectively.
Regarding the increase in numbers of private sector higher education institutions in the past several years, Dr Saeed stressed that the ministry supports private sector investment in higher education, but not to the detriment of the quality of education.
"Our ministry's strategy is to prevent higher education from becoming a commercial product. All the private universities must abide by the principles of the Quality Assurance Plan, and the rules and regulations of our ministry ... At the moment 11 private universities operate in the Kurdistan Region. Since the plan was launched, the ministry has received 18 proposals for opening new private universities, all of which were examined by the Committee of the Quality Assurance Plan. Only two were approved."
He added that the ministry envisages the inclusion of many other areas in the plan with a view to "improving the quality of higher education provided in both public and private universities for generations to come."
