DILI, 23 july 2021 (TATOLI)-The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Culture (MESSK) together with the National Agency for Academic Assessment and Accreditation (ANAAA) Timor-Leste, today, had officially launched the 2021 evaluation of the programs’ accreditation of the Universities and Institutional evaluation, at Oriental University of Timor-Lorosa’e (UNITAL).
Speaking at the launching ceremony of the 2021 evaluation of the programs’ accreditation of the Universities and Institutional evaluation, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Culture, Longuinhos dos Santos said that evaluation was important to measures the quality of the courses of each university to improve the quality of higher education institutions in Timor-Leste.
The evaluation of the Universities’ programs accreditation and institutional evaluation would take place from august to november.
During his remark, ANAAA’s Executive Director in Timor-Leste, Edmundo Viegas said 20 programs of bachelor’s degrees and four programs of master’s degree programs are subjected to the evaluation of the 2021 programs accreditation.
“These 24 programs include nutrition, international relations, social communication, Tetun, and sports at National University of Timor-Lorosa’e (UNTL), public health, public administration, law, and civil construction at UNPAZ University, law, public health, nurse, public administration, social communication, agroforestry, and fisheries at UNITAL, public health, dental, nurse and petroleum engineering at University of Dili (UNDIL), computerize accounting at Institute of Business (IOB), business administration at Dili Institute of Technology (DIT), and nurse and midwifery at Cristal Institute,” Viegas made the comments during the launching ceremony of the evaluation of the 2021 University programs’ accreditation at UNITAL campus, in Dili, today.
Viegas said the 24 courses will be evaluated by 20 national evaluators and 12 international evaluators: “each course will be evaluated by a team of three evaluators, consisting of two national evaluators and one international evaluator”.
He said there are two phases of the assessment such as desk assessment and site visit assessment.
“During the site visit assessment, our international evaluators would participate virtually due to the COVID-19,” Viegas affirmed.
Viegas said once the evaluation of the university programs was concluded, from september to november ANAAA would directly conduct the evaluation of the institutional accreditation, saying eight national tertiary institutions had had their institutional accreditation certificate expired – Universidade da Paz (UNPAZ), National University of Timor-Lorosa’e (UNTL), Dili Institute of Technology (DIT), Institute of Business (IOB), Canossa Institute, Catholic Teacher Training Institute (ICFP), Religious Catholic Institute (ICR) and Cristal Institute.
He said ANAAA had evaluated up to 105 university programs of 11 tertiary institutions and of the number; only 18 percent achieved the ‘B’ mark, while the rest got ‘C’ mark: “Unfortunately, none of our university programs have gotten the excellent or mark ‘A’.”
“We still have a long way to go and more work needs to be done to achieve the excellence or ‘A’ mark. So, one of the ANAAA’s works is giving recommendations as well as courage to each institution to invest and improve the quality of the courses and institutions in accordance with the standards set by ANAAA,” Viegas added.
At the same place, the Rector of UNITAL, Florindo Pereira, encourages all universities to prepare well for the 2021 evaluation of Universities’ programs accreditation and institutional evaluation to improve the quality of the higher education institutions in Timor-Leste to compete with other universities in the Southeast Asia Region and other countries.
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Rafy Belo
