Monitoring and Evaluation in Higher Education: Quality Perspectives in Africa

This chapter presents an essential topical issue in the area of Quality Assurance (QA) in Higher Education (HE). It describes quality systems and theoretical models of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for QA in African Higher Education and presents a comprehensive background, approaches, theory, practice, and models of QA for M&E in HE. This chapter documents essential steps in central/strategic M&E for QA in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Africa; depicts the role of M&E from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC) framework perspective; and shares insights on evaluation criteria, the important M&E data sources, utilisation of such data for QA, data types, data quality, and how to develop M&E indicators for QA in higher education. Given that M&E for QA in higher education has limitedly been documented, the chapter proposes benchmark frameworks and guiding documents to policymakers, HE regulatory bodies, scholars and individual institutions in Africa, and the Western higher education space.