In July and August 2023, USAID Partnership for Higher Education Reform project led a number of workshops on Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) at the University of Science and Education (the University of Danang-UD) and at the Institute for Educational Quality Assurance (Vietnam National University, Hanoi – VNUHN).

This reform effort seeks to shift the orientation of IQA from a focus on compliance to one that drives improvement; such an evolution of IQA at the 3Us is essential if public higher education in Vietnam is to fully embrace a culture of quality – one that ensures highly effective institutions that emphasize the quality of outcomes. IQA builds out from academic programs and MIS data, so it is important to have appropriately engaged IQA governance with strong administrative directorates enjoying the full support at the highest levels of university leadership. Specifically, the project is assisting the 3Us and their member universities in ensuring that their Quality Councils and their Quality Assurance Directorates can better drive IQA strategy and assemble structured and unstructured data. The recent USAID support was the first step toward defining and operationalizing a comprehensive Annual Academic Monitoring Program (AAMP) – the core function of IQA. This will require an empowerment of IQA governance structures and administrative practices that will help to ensure that university leadership has perpetual access to data for monitoring quality factors of the academic enterprise. Moreover, the systematic administration of AAMP by the Quality Assurance Directorates at the 3Us will also help to ensure that universities maintain a continuous state of accreditation readiness.

Over the coming three years, the project seeks to support the quality assurance directorates at each of the 3Us as they establish step-by-step an Annual Academic Monitoring Program (AAMP), also helping them to build evidence libraries for relevant quality data, build data reporting capacity for decision making by university leadership, and deliver IQA professional development training to faculty and staff.

The workshops attracted the participation of 65 delegates who are professionals in Educational Quality Assurance units of member universities and corporate offices of UD and the VNUHN. The workshop sessions were delivered by Ms. Chita Pijano, Expert on Accreditation and QA in ASEAN and Dr. Richard Hopper, Chief of Party for the project who is also an expert on quality assurance and accreditation. During the sessions, participants IQA experience from the Asean region with a more in-depth look at quality assurance for online learning programs. At the end of the session, participating universities selected Competency-based Student Assessment as one area in which they seek the project’s technical support.

As a result, the universities will be able to implement a redesigned set of student learning outcomes assessment tools which specify key target areas, knowledge, skills and attitudes of students. Such revised competency-based assessments will better ensure that graduates have the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in their chosen profession and be well prepared in the workforce.

Workshops at the University of Science and Education (the University of Danang-UD) and at the Institute for Educational Quality Assurance – Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNUHN)