Quality assurance is one of the main challenges faced by higher education, particularly in eLearning and technology-enabled learning. Institutions in sub-Saharan Africa are working with various delivery modes, processes and instruments in their quest to improve the quality of their offerings and graduates, especially with the rising wave of online learning.

COL’s Higher Education initiative launched a new regional community of practice in April 2018 for Quality Assurance in Blended and Online Courses in Southern Africa. The inaugural meeting/workshop in South Africa brought together 20 stakeholders from both Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and National Quality Assurance agencies from seven Southern African countries, including Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zambia. Members are collaborating to develop quality guidelines for blended and online courses in order to pilot them in the HEIs. The completed guidelines and results from the pilots will be presented at the Southern African Quality Assurance Network Meeting in October 2018.