Small island nations of the Pacific Islands Forum will soon have a regional quality assurance network that will provide a mechanism to integrate and assure the quality and standards of education provided within the island countries.
Benchmarked against international standards in the regional and more broadly, Pacific Islanders can enjoy the benefits of having internationally recognized qualifications. The cross-border portability of the qualifications promises to increase employment prospects of islanders beyond national boundaries. Cross accreditation of programs or components of knowledge will also facilitate cross border transfer of studies.
This initiative slated for piloting in July 2011, though appearing to be new, has been a decade in development being on the agenda of successive Pacific Forum Education Ministers' meetings since 2001.
Such a regional quality assurance mechanism should help lift the image of education in countries such as Papua New Guinea (PNG), which has in recent times, taken a battering both internally and externally.
The new regional quality assurance framework has two components. First there is the regional qualifications framework (PQF) that contains different qualification levels and descriptors which are internationally comparable criteria based on competencies, skills, and outcomes. The PQF will be used to interpret equivalence or comparability of programs. A determination will then be made as to the qualification it should be register as in the Pacific Register of Qualifications and Standards (PRQS), which is the other component.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Board of Educational Assessment (SPBEA), based in Fiji
The SPBEA has held both regional and in-country workshops to harmonize the regional quality assurance framework with in-country frameworks. The PNG in-country workshop was held at the Lamana Hotel in Port Moresby
To harmonize their systems with the regional qualifications framework, individual nations need to develop their national qualifications frameworks as well as create a data base of qualifications or register. PNG has developed one which consists of 10 levels and descriptors beginning with National certificate 1 to PhD. Nations will also establish their own qualifications and standards register. These registers are data bases of each country’s certified or quality assured qualifications. Each country will further have its own central coordination and quality assurance agency perhaps something comparable to Australian Universities Quality Agency, AUQA ), the agency which will be auditing DWU this year.
For higher education in PNG, its Commission for Higher Education (CHE) is assumed to be the highest quality certifying body. However, each University is also a self-accrediting body. Other levels of education in PNG have their own standards-certifying bodies. Obviously, much internal harmonizing is needed in the first instance in the PNG's case.
What was mooted for the new quality assurance regime, at least at the meeting, is that the Office of Higher Education (OHE) be recognized as the in-country quality agency which is responsible for collaborating with all other education standards certifying bodies. The national quality agency will submit qualifications for determination and listing in the regional qualifications register. These qualifications will have in the first instance been accredited by national qualifications agencies.
PNG’s proposed new integrated national quality assurance mechanism has the following advantages.It spells out the different levels of qualifications and the education and training pathways through which the qualifications can be gained. It also brings together within a single regulatory framework the present ad hoc system of awards provided through basic education, skills, and competencies and higher education. It also allows for all qualifications to be scrutinized by competent state authorities for the purpose of ensuring compliance with national and international standards of qualifications.
There are though some possible negative implications as far as university autonomy is concerned. Universities’ internal quality assurance processes may no longer be sufficient mechanisms to certify quality of the programs they delivery. But, universities might be required in the best interest of the students to adhere to the new regime. If having qualifications registered regionally translates to increased employment prospects for Papua New Guineans, cross accreditation of programs and higher visibility of institutions, these are sufficient incentives to comply.
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