Internationalising Higher Education

In 2001, the government of the Kingdom of Bahrain took a precedent decision to open its higher education sector to private investors. As a result, the number of universities operating in the kingdom has increased to 16 institutions, 12 of which are private. As part of a major national education reform which was started in 2005, the Quality Assurance Authority for Education and Training (QAAET) was established in 2008. The Higher Education Review Unit of the QAAET conducts both institutional and programme reviews. The first institutional review cycle started in September 2008, followed by the first programme review cycle which commenced in January 2009. The Authority published its first reports in June 2009. These were conducted across six different universities, one programme each, in the field of Business Administration at Bachelor level. The reviews did not show a correlation between the type of institution (branch, affiliation or local) and the performance of the university. Almost all reviews raised some concerns in relation to governance, teaching and learning, and quality assurance arrangements, whether within the institution or between the institution and the parent university. They also raised a major concern with the amount of monitoring parent universities conduct towards its branches. This poster will discuss the reviews and the rest of their findings.