The International Association for Quality Assurance in Pre-Tertiary and Higher Education (QAHE) has been featured in Independent Nigeria in an article by Victor Bieni titled “Quality Assurance In Higher Education: Int’l Association For QAHE Signs MoU With WAC,” published on 23 April 2026. The piece is available at https://independent.ng/quality-assurance-in-higher-education-intl-association-for-qahe-signs-mou-with-wac/.
Independent Nigeria reports that QAHE and the World Accreditation Commission (WAC) signed a partnership action plan intended to strengthen cooperation on quality assurance in higher education. According to the article, the arrangement includes a joint look at trends across world regions and the identification of a working group to support that study. The report names Ashley Jackon, Manager of the Accreditation Committee at QAHE, and Prof. Sir Bashiru Aremu of WAC among those associated with the joint work.
The newspaper records QAHE as saying the partnership is aimed at enhancing accreditation services, strengthening quality-assurance standards and supporting the visibility of reviewed institutions within the two organisations’ networks. It describes WAC as a body established under United States law (Delaware filing details as stated in the article) whose published purpose is to promote excellence in tertiary education through a community of external quality-assurance providers. Independent Nigeria also recounts WAC’s own account of cooperation with other organisations, including references in the article to UNESCO, the Association of Universities for Asia and the Pacific, the Board of Quality Standards and INQAAHE. Those references are WAC’s stated affiliations as reported by the newspaper. They are not, by themselves, a statement that QAHE is a UNESCO agency or that a QAHE listing is converted into a national licence.
QAHE welcomes the Independent Nigeria report as an external record of the memorandum. The meaning of the MOU should be read in the same terms QAHE uses for other partnerships. A memorandum supports cooperation, information exchange and, where agreed, reciprocal recognition of review as a quality signal. It does not make QAHE a ministry of education. It does not give an institution the authority to grant qualifications. It does not replace licensing or diploma-recognition procedures in Nigeria or in any other country. Partners, branches and separately branded entities of a listed institution are not covered unless they are reviewed and listed in their own names.
Students and institutions should continue to verify QAHE status only on the official directory, by exact name, at https://www.qahe.org/list-of-accredited-institutions/. Further information is available at www.qahe.org.
