Assuring Quality Higher Education in Sierra Leone (AQHEd-SL)
Description:
The Assuring Quality Higher Education in Sierra Leone (AQHEd-SL) project is bringing together higher education institutions across Sierra Leone to work together to enhance the quality of higher education, by developing the related and integrated structures of quality regulation at a national and institutional level and implementing outcome based education that is relevant to key economic sectors.
The project is delivered through a set of three work packages that collectively enhance the quality delivery of teaching and learning services across all higher education institutions in Sierra Leone. These work packages are:
(1) Stakeholder engagement and policy reforms
(2) Strengthening the national regulatory and internal institutional capacities for effective quality enhancement
(3) Curriculum re-design and pedagogical improvements
In Work package 3, the revised curricula are aligned with skills that are demanded by the employers, and student-centred pedagogy is introduced. INASP supports the training of lecturers in critical thinking skills and the implementation of technology-enhanced teaching and learning approaches. The formation of a critical thinking task force ensures that the lecturers – and consequently the students - of all higher education institutions benefit and effective teacher training is carried out beyond the project duration.
INASP also contributes to cross-cutting themes in AQHEd-SL. These include diversity and gender aspects, monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) and project communication.
See the AQHEd-SL blog for publications from across the partnership.
AQHEd-SL is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office as part of the SPHEIR (Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform) programme to support higher education transformation in focus countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
SPHEIR is a competitive grant scheme designed to catalyse innovative ‘partnerships’ in low-income countries to improve the performance, governance and influence of higher education systems and institutions. SPHEIR partnerships seek to transform the quality, relevance, access and affordability of higher education to achieve sustainable change in higher education systems.