Doha: Doha Institute successfully has received international accreditation, the International Quality Review (IQR), by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in the United Kingdom.
DI is the first academic institution in Qatar to have a successful institutional accreditation review by the QAA without any conditions.
The accreditation body highlighted eight areas as good practices of high quality. These include, but are not limited to, the broad socio-cultural impact of DI’s offered programmes; the strategic and substantial investment in human capital ensuring student-centred teaching and learning; responsive and accessible support offered to students including specialist support; extensive range of learning resources with high-quality physical environment; the agile approach to student feedback, and supporting students to publish worldwide.
Dr. Abdelwahab El Affendi, President of the Doha Institute, has expressed his great pride in this achievement and his appreciation for the valuable contribution of the DI members, professors and students alike. He described it as “ the successful culmination of a process that began in the Autumn of 2017”.
El Affendi added: “We are pleased with this result, which was not surprising as the institute’s mission has emphasised, since its inception, DI’s commitment to the highest international standards. Not only that but its serious contribution to reformulating these standards. The DI has already obtained international accreditation for many of its programmes, and it has signed partnerships with a number of the most prominent universities in the world, and its graduates have been accepted for PhD studies in many of them.”
The DI has chosen the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education QAA in the UK after careful consideration of all the available options since QAA is one of the world’s experts in quality assurance. It evaluates the efficacy and adequacy of an educational institution’s quality assurance system in accordance with the 10 “European Standards and Guidelines (ESG)” in the European Higher Education Area.
The ESGs focus on programme design and review, teaching, learning and assessment, learning resources and student support, information management, and quality assurance systems among others. DI has met all 10 ESG standards, adhering fully to international benchmarking and quality assurance as per the QAA report.
The Institute submitted the accreditation request along with the necessary documentation to the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in the Spring of 2021.
This was followed by a virtual exploratory visit of a team of experts from the agency, after which it was decided that the institute meets the main conditions for applying for accreditation.
