Abstract:

The private universities in Egypt were initiated based on a presidential decree in 1996. Since then, a number of private universities were open, with two different opposing perspectives for two different parties of stakeholders. The first was the hope of the educators and of many parents to achieve quality education away from the typical bureaucratic governmental university education that has been long deteriorated according to several factors out of scope of this paper. On the other hand, was the dream of a number of investors and other parents of less able and less qualified students to acquire a paid-for university graduation certificate with the least effort.

The paper at hand tackles this issue. Aiming at evaluating the experiment of quality assurance of private education in Egypt. The paper dissects the concept of the private education in Egypt through reviewing an experiment of a quality assurance project of the architectural programs in one of the renowned private universities in Egypt. The methodology is based on a review of the private education system, and the national quality assurance project set criteria. Then, an analysis of the response of the department and the university to the project and its requirement between the practices and the paper work is criticized. Some lights are then shed on the challenges confronting the success of the process, including society and its misconception, together with the conflict of interests between the educators, investors and students. The discussion and conclusion shed light on the strategic planning as the only hope towards the quality assurance of private university education in Egypt.

Keywords:

Quality Assurance, Architectural Education Programs, Private Universities in Egypt.