The Quality Assurance and Accreditation Unit focus area forms the foundation for continual improvement, sustainability and accountability. Under this focus area, QAAU plays a pivotal role in upholding the highest standards of quality underpinned by Directorate of Quality, DAU’s quality policies and guidelines and NCAAA’s accreditation standards.  It also involves mobilizing teams in the review and assessment in accordance with DAU’s Continuous improvement and sustainability cycle (PDSA Model). Another integral part of the role of this unit to assist in implementing a sound governance and accountability system and establishing a process-centric culture through the implementation of quality management systems and building internal competencies for continuous quality improvement and sustainability.   The unit assumes the following responsibilities:

• Ensuring and maintaining DAU’s institutional and programmatic compliance with all policies, procedures and practices as well as recognized management systems and certifications as appropriate;
• Ensuring review and assessment of quality practices through regular value-added internal audits of the academic and administrative processes;
• Initiating and overseeing quality improvement projects and assessing their impact on the performance of DAU’s colleges and support departments;
• Preparing quality review and improvement reports addressing areas of strengths and improvement and following up on actions taken to improve performance.
• Promoting a culture of quality and continuous improvement through best practice studies, guidelines, focus group discussions, conferences and workshops;
• Supporting and promoting excellence through the establishment of excellence awards to recognize faculty, staff, students, teams and departments for their commitment and contribution to quality improvement within DAU;
• Designing and delivering quality assurance competency building programs and measuring their impact on faculty staff performance and work processes;
• Overseeing the development and implementation of DAU’s governing policies and procedures and ensuring their continual review and improvement;
• Facilitating the implementation DAU’s governance system and assessing its impact on the university’s decision-making, accountability and effective functioning of its various councils and committees.

Accreditation is a process of self-regulation and peer review adopted by the academic community. The goal of accreditation is to ensure that education provided by institutions of higher learning meets acceptable levels of quality requirements as outlined in the NCAAA Standards and other accrediting authorities internationally. Under this focus area, SPQAU plays a major role by:

• Planning and facilitation of the university’s institutional and programmatic accreditation processes;
• Facilitating understanding of the requirements provided by the NCAAA and other international accreditation organizations;
• Developing various tools and guidelines to facilitate gathering of information and evidence of practice;
• Facilitating institutional and program level self-evaluations in accordance with NCAAA standards and key performance indicators;
• Coordinating external reviews and assessments for the accreditation visit;
• Supporting colleges in preparing program-related documentation including program performance reports and reviewing evidence of practice in line with the Standards and accreditation requirements, and
• Planning, organizing and finalizing the self-study report and related data and evidence for submission to the NCAAA or other accrediting international authorities as appropriate.