Press Association/AP/Lofti. All rights reserved.The search for new knowledge, its dissemination and application in society have always been at the forefront of intellectual and social development. Today, higher education institutions (HEIs) have – to a large extent – taken on the vital role of nurturing the methodical, critical and innovative thinking that is key to the success of such development. But in a country like Algeria, where HEIs have practically no autonomy, this responsibility falls back on state policies for higher education management. What then is the status of higher education policies in Algeria?
The LMD reform
Broadly speaking, Algeria’s higher education sector has been marked by two major policy reforms since its independence. The most recent of these – the adoption of the three-cycle degree higher-education framework known as the 'LMD system' (License/Bachelor-Master-Doctorate) – has been in place since 2004/2005. Massification was a core part of both reforms, in part motivated by the demographic reality of a large youth population, but also by explicit policy choices undertaken by the government. In 2008, for instance, the General Directorate for Scientific Research and Technological Development (DGRS-DT) declared that there were around 600 researchers per million inhabitants in Algeria, falling fairly short of the global average. In expressing its commitment to increasing this ratio, the DGRS-DT pointed out the LMD system as a key driver for achieving this objective. Previous heads of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MESRS) also, and often, praised the LMD system for its capacity to produce human capital.
The race to produce greater numbers of university graduates through a system of massification was not unique to Algeria, however. Around the same time (i.e. 2005), members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (ECOWAS) started to adopt the LMD system too, and similar policies were also introduced in Brazil, India, Indonesia and China. A 2013 review of official strategies for higher education management in 20 economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) also highlighted a common trend of introducing reforms based on massification policies. This particular review identified another common trend: massification policies introduced in those economies were not always corroborated by adequate mechanisms for quality assurance. In other words, the application of massification policies in the MENA region led to a trend of favouring quantity over quality.
