Quality assurance and accreditation in Afghanistan: exploring sensemaking and sensegiving in policy implementation

ABSTRACT This research investigated the implementation of accreditation at public teaching and research universities in Afghanistan. A qualitative multi-case study design was used to interview 46 individuals from five universities. The findings revealed that participants conceptualise quality assurance and accreditation as organisational sensemaking that emphasises contextual circumstances in exploring meaning construction. Accreditation is a community effort at research universities while engagement with accreditation seemed partial at teaching universities given that only the leadership and quality assurance units were involved in the process. The implications are that (a) a serious involvement of senior leadership in the process maximises employees’ engagement with accreditation and (b) factors such as limited budget and autonomy, scarce resources, lack of awareness and resistance of academic staff challenge accreditation in Afghanistan universities. The study recommends an increased budget and autonomy for universities, management training for university leaders and revision of the accreditation framework to be flexible to teaching and research universities.