Preparation of an Institutional Twinning / Long-Term Technical Assistance Project for the Egyptian National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education (NAQAAE)

Detailed description of project Back

The EU-Egyptian Association Agreement (AA) entered into force in June 2004, with the aim of intensifying cooperation on wide spectrum of fields. The AA reflects a comprehensive approach of the Barcelona Process and thus contains provisions covering the three pillars of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership; namely economic, political and socio-cultural cooperation.

While the AA serves as the legal basis of relations between the two parties, the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) Action Plan (AP) has been adopted between the EU and Egypt in March 2007.

To this end, the European Commission launched the “Support to the EU-Egypt Association Agreement Programme (SAAP I), followed by the “Support to the Implementation of the Action Plan and EU-Egypt Association Agreement” (SAAP II) (a total of Euro 42 million) with the aim of contributing to the efforts towards the reform of the Egyptian administrative and regulatory framework, as well as facilitating the implementation of the AP and the AA.

The project for NAQAAE is fully in line with the provisions of the Association Agreement, especially with reference to its (Education and Training); article 47 (Standardization and Conformity assessment). The project is in line with the ENP priorities of actions which focus on strengthening cooperation on poverty reduction and social development, in particular in the areas of combating illiteracy, education reforms, upgrading the vocational training, training systems, quality assurance and on reforming the education and higher education systems leading to the overall enhancement of the quality and relevance to the labor market.

The general objective of this assignment is to strengthen the capacity of NAQAAE as fair, transparent and effective accrediting body, thus contributing to the improvement of the quality of Egyptian education institutions.

The specific objectives of the mission are:

• To prepare a twinning project fiche or terms of reference for a long-term technical assistance;
• To strengthen the capacity of NAQAAE in key aspects of quality assurance and accreditation relevant to the subsequent implementation of the twinning / long-term TA.

Type of services provided

PROMAN provides the services of an Education Expert who along with the TL provided by DRN:

• Will closely assist the team leader in developing the institutional capacity assessment, drafting the twinning fiche / ToR for the long-term TA, deliver ad-hoc short-term TA;
• Will review and analyze the needs related to Educational Quality Assurance and Accreditation;
• Will propose the changes related to Education Quality Assurance and Accreditation in light of the EU and international best practices;
• Will formulate the technical component in the project fiche.

And a Legal expert who:

• Will assist the team in developing the institutional capacity assessment, drafting the twinning fiche / ToR for the long-term TA, deliver ad-hoc short-term TA;
• Will conduct an assessment of the legal and regulatory framework, in line with the European acquis communautaire and best practices in selected Member States;
• Will identify any relevant legal and regulatory reforms and approximations needed;
• Will formulate the legal component in the project fiche.

PROMAN manages and coordinates the mission, provides backstopping and quality control.