Prof.  Bashir Khalifeh Al Zu’bi

President of Higher Education Accreditation Commission, Jordan

 Professor Bashir Al Zu’bi, the President of the Higher Education Accreditation Commission. He obtained his Ph.D.in Economics from the University of Mississippi in 1989, USA. He has a wealth of academic experience and policy research and formulation having served as Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister of Jordan, Head of the Economics Department at the Council of Ministers, Economic Expert at the Higher Planning Council at Doha, Qatar, Chairman of Business Economics Department and Vice Dean for graduate studies of the Faculty of Business, Dean of the Faculty of Business in the University of Jordan. He has extensive academic and applied research in poverty, economic reforms, public sector reform, FDI, monetary and fiscal policies, competitiveness, and trade.  

In the year 2008, he occupied the position of Vice President for administrative and financial affairs at the University of Jordan. In 2010 he became the Vice President for Humanities and President of the University of Jordan /Aqaba branch. Now he was appointed as the President of the Higher Education Accreditation Commission (HEAC) in April 2012.

Quality assurance in Arab higher education institutions: futuristic look (Palestine as a case study)

Prof. Sanaa I. Abou-Dagga

Assistant of IUG Vice-President of Academic Affairs & the Director of the Quality, Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine

Abstract: The concept of quality assurance in the Arab World of higher education has emerged as a result of its rapid development, the challenges the Arab world faces, and criticism of Arab higher education outcomes. The emergence of this concept was associated with the establishment of several bodies/organizations/boards of quality assurance in the Arab World, as well as the organization of dozens of national, regional, and international conferences, workshops, and forums discussing themes of quality in higher education, all of which recommended adopting the concept of quality in higher education and benefiting from the international successful experiences and trends suited to the Arab region cultural particularity.

The presentation will focus on outlining the main features of the quality assurance efforts in the Arab World highlighting the main international trends in quality assurance that started to take into account regional particularity. Finally, the presentation will project a futuristic look at quality in the Arab world, particularly in Palestine which was started in 2002 with the establishment of the Palestinian Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission (AQAC). AQAC worked for more than a decade in very complicated political, economic, and social conditions. However, it was able to assist higher education institutions to improve their performance through gradual steps using limited resources. These helped institutions to self-develop professionally and compete with other institutions in the region. This made the Palestinian experience in quality assurance noteworthy in the Arab world.

Professor Abou-Dagga is a professor of education in the area of research and evaluation, working at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) since 1999. She got her M.A. & Ph. D. from Iowa State University. She is currently the assistant of the IUG Vice-President of Academic Affairs & the Director of the Quality Unit since 2009. She is a board member of the Commission for Developing the Teaching Profession (CDTP) and was a board member of the Palestinian Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission (AQAC). She participated in several national & Arab external evaluation teams for academic programs. She has several types of research in the field of evaluation and quality in education.