“Accreditation is Not the Finish Line” – HEA Reframes Quality Assurance Through QAMIS Training
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has reinforced a critical shift in how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) must approach quality assurance, with a strong message that accreditation is not the end goal, but the beginning of continuous improvement.
This message was delivered by HEA Programme Accreditation Officer, Mrs. Tracy Mwamulesha Chola, during the recently held five (5)-day orientation training workshop on the Quality Assurance Management Information System (QAMIS), held from Monday, 23rd to Friday, 27th March, 2026, at Sandy’s Creation Resort in Chilanga.
The training brought together two (2) participants each from 50 HEIs, specifically targeting Quality Assurance and Information Technology personnel, the primary users of the system. QAMIS was developed by the SMART Zambia Institute in collaboration with the HEA development team led by Mr. Francis Kawesha, Senior Information Technology Officer, with Mr. Boyd Banda, Principal Systems Developer, representing SMART Zambia at the workshop.
In her presentation on Learning Programme Audits, Mrs. Chola positioned audits not as enforcement tools, but as the very foundation of quality assurance.
“Audit is the cornerstone of quality assurance and continuous improvement,” she emphasised.
She explained that a learning programme audit is not merely a compliance exercise, but an evaluation of how a programme is actually being implemented within an institution, from teaching and learning, to staffing, infrastructure and student experience.
“Celebrate accreditation as the finish line? Think again as it is merely the starting gun for true excellence,” she stated.
Mrs. Chola further underscored that audits are built on trust in institutional systems, noting that HEIs carry the primary responsibility for maintaining standards through internal quality assurance mechanisms.
Crucially, she challenged a long-held misconception about audits.
“It is not a fault-finding activity but a shared responsibility for quality education,” she said, adding that the true purpose of audits is to identify strengths, expose gaps and drive continuous improvement.
At the heart of her message was a re-emphasis on the cultural shift that has been set by the Director-General, Professor Kazhila C. Chinsembu, of quality assurance not merely being a badge of compliance but it being a total a culture shift.
The QAMIS training itself forms part of HEA’s broader digital transformation agenda, aimed at strengthening transparency, consistency and efficiency in accreditation and audit processes across the higher education subsector.
Through QAMIS, HEIs are expected to engage more actively and systematically in monitoring their own programmes, ensuring that quality is not inspected occasionally, but embedded daily. This is because in higher education, quality is not declared but demonstrated consistently.
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Participants of the QAMIS Training Workshop on the last day of the workshop.
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