About SHARE
The EU Support to Higher Education in the ASEAN Region (EU SHARE) programme is a 57-month programme with an overall objective of contributing to the regional cooperation, enhancing the quality, regional competitiveness and internationalisation of ASEAN Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) contributing to an ASEAN Community in 2015 and beyond.

The programme has two specific objectives:

• To enhance the harmonisation of ASEAN higher education (HE) area through the formulation of ASEAN higher education frameworks taking into account the EU experience;
• To support mutual recognition and student mobility among HEIs in ASEAN to strengthen people-to-people connectivity.

For more details regarding the programme, click: SHARE
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is the technical lead for Result Area 2b – Quality Assurance of SHARE’s programme implementation. In this capacity, we are seeking a Technical Expert for the execution of tasks in the field of Quality Assurance.

Objective and focus of the technical assistance
The objective and focus of the assignment is to assist the above-mentioned Committee in reviewing and further refining the AQAN Strategic Plan 2018-2022 in view of the following:

• Ensure that the network can flexibly and sustainably meet current and future strategic and technical requirements;
• Improve the effectiveness and assist in the smooth running of the network and its organs;
• Strengthen the capacity and resources of the AQAN Secretariat;
• Identify provisions necessary for the AQAN Secretariat to become a strong QA player in its own right with a well-functioning staff structure;
• Identify necessary changes to ensure effectiveness, accountability and consistency with national authorities, external legislative environment, strategic partners and stakeholders;
• Increase roles and responsibilities of AQAN particularly in the implementation of the ASEAN Quality Assurance Framework in Higher Education (AQAF); and
• Address discrepancies between the current Strategic Plan and the Constitution & By-Laws.

Sources
It is proposed that the review of the draft Strategic Plan is guided by making reference to the strategic documents of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), namely:

• Work Plans 2018, 2019 & 2020
• Strategic Plan 2016-2020 – ENQA’s Strategic Framework

The above documents offer analytic information and useful guidance to the Expert in ensuring that the review is in line with the good practices of other similar networks. The Expert shall also refer to other useful and relevant documents related to the objective and focus of the review.

Objectives of the assignment

1. Technical Expert for the AQAN Strategic Plan 2018-2022

• Assist the benchmarking of the AQAN Strategic Plan 2018-2022 with the strategy documents of other international quality assurance networks or organisations.
• Support the work of the AQAN Strategic Plan Committee to provide recommendations on possible provisions to the AQAN Executive Committee (EC), the roundtable & the AQAN Secretariat to revise the Strategic Plan according to AQAN’s needs.
• Streamline the Strategic Plan to make it a feasible document ready for implementation.
• Address discrepancies between the current Strategic Plan and AQAN’s resources and capacities.
• Attend the AQAN roundtable meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia on 3-5 March (tbc) to present the review methodology to the AQAN-EC and the members.

The expected output of this assignment is to benchmark and comment on the draft strategic plan as well as to provide recommendations from a European perspective (ENQA specifically). Additionally, it is expected that the Expert will submit a report EU SHARE that is at least 3-5 pages at length and provides in continuous text a summary of findings and recommendations concerning the Strategic Plan 2018-2022 as well as the methodology used in the analysis. Details can be agreed upon between the DAAD’s SHARE Project Management and the expert after the contract has been awarded.

Eligibility

1. Quantity: One Expert/Consultant.
   Qualifications – Expert or Consultant in Quality Assurance with at least 15 years of professional work experience:

• Quality Assurance systems and/or frameworks in ASEAN member states;
• Design and development of regional quality frameworks and/or guidelines, including review guidelines and stipulations;
• Experience in the development of a QA framework in Europe;
• Experience as a member of an External Quality Assurance Agency;
• Experience as a board member of a regional association, organisation or network active in quality assurance.

Scope of work

1. The scope of this up to twelve workdays assignment includes the following activities,
   1. Desk review of the AQAN Strategic Plan 2018-2022
   2. Benchmarking of the AQAN Strategic Plan 2018-2022 against the relevant documents of other regional QA networks, predominantly ENQA.
   3. Conduct consultation sessions via video conference (e.g. Skype, Zoom, Google) with the AQAN Strategic Plan Committee & staff of the AQAN Secretariat | minimum of three meetings over the course of the assignment;
   4. Intensive interaction with the EU SHARE and AQAN team through email; and
   5. Submission a comprehensive review report on the summary of findings & conclusions as well as recommendations concerning the Constitution & By-laws to be taken into consideration by AQAN (five pages at least);
2. Attend the extraordinary AQAN roundtable meeting in March 2020, with the specific task of presenting the findings of the review process (results of the benchmarking and recommendations) to the AQAN roundtable delegates (tbc).

Submit your proposals to qa-qf@share-asean.eu until 8th of January 2020 (23:59 hours GMT+7) at the latest.

More information, please download the Official Announcement