PANAMA: Quality initiative to strengthen universities

Panama's commitment to higher education has been thrust forward with the launch of the first nationwide initiative to evaluate and accredit tertiary institutions, aimed at strengthening programmes offered by a flourishing number of foreign and local post-secondary institutions.

Next month the National Council for the Evaluation and Accreditation of University Education (CONEAUPA) will launch an evaluation and standards model, the Ministry of Education has announced.

When the draft model has been finalised in October, CONEAUPA will be ready to begin the process of evaluating 37 ministry-recognised private and public post-secondary institutions. Of these, 32 are private schools that opened after the 1989 United States invasion, under laws to promote education.

Another 60 or more institutions operate without ministry recognition, including unaccredited international education corporations and 'degree mills'.

As a result of this institutional growth, higher education enrolment has steadily climbed from 53,072 in 1990 to 133,369 in 2007, in a country of three million people with a literacy rate of 91%.

Dr Mariana A De McPherson, CONEAUPA's executive secretary, said: "We are not ahead in [evaluation and accreditation of] higher education in the region. In fact, we are a little bit late. But we are running."

While three-quarters of students attend public universities, the fastest growing sector has been private institutions, including foreign universities. CONEAUPA's mission will likely also affect the at least 60 unrecognised institutions.

A task has been establishing standards that will give Panama a more competitive higher education edge on a global scale. Accreditation will be granted to institutions that meet ministry-set standards, with the process weeding out those that do not.

"The council will have an impact on the schools that know they don't or won't meet the standards because these schools will probably close their doors," McPherson said. "The long-term objective is to make sure all universities have these standards."

The quality assurance strategy was launched in 2006 as a necessary extension of a national vision to improve higher education. Universities and the government will share the costs of evaluations. Panama's national budget now funds the council's work, with annual grants of approximately US$125,000.

Until now, scattershot quality assurance efforts have produced pockets of excellence, among them the engineering programme at the public Universidad Technológica de Panamá. The private Florida State University (FSU), whose Panama City campus maintains US standards, has steadily grown its student body, with 1,220 students enrolled for the 2010-11 year, up 10% from last year.

But the lack of across-the-board quality assurance has, among other things, diminished the worthiness of many local degrees, said Dr Nanette Svenson, an FSU adjunct professor and a higher education consultant in Panama. She pointed to a 2009 study showing that 80% of middle and upper management employees studied at institutions outside Panama.

"Evaluation and accreditation would seem to try to stem the tide of fraudulent operations," Svenson said. "It's certainly a positive first step forward."

Another step for higher education was taken this month with the launch of a research centre for logistics and trade.

President Ricardo Martinelli heartily lauded the new US-based Georgia Institute of Technology Logistics Innovation and Research Center, co-run with Panama's National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation, saying: "This is one of the most important events in my 14 months as president."

The research centre aims to tap into Panama's potential as an academic and research destination, and to turn the country into a trade hub. The World Economic Forum has named Panama as second to Chile in having the most competitive economy in Latin America.