ACQF Policy Document (EN)

Access to quality education and lifelong learning, and acquisition of skills and qualifications are at the heart of the African Renaissance. This is reflected in the first aspiration of African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063 with the call for “Well educated citizens and skills revolution underpinned by science, technology and innovation for a knowledge society (…).” In addition, the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016-2025) emphasises that “harmonized education and training systems are essential for the realization of intra-Africa mobility and academic integration through regional cooperation”. Against this backdrop, an African Continental Qualifications Framework (ACQF) is a key policy initiative to achieve these objectives.

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English

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The African Union Commission, the African Union member states and the regional economic communities (REC) have developed and validated this ACQF Policy document, and pledge to jointly implement and nurture the ACQF with support of the relevant African stakeholders and the international partners in the period 2023-2026 and beyond.

  • ACQF is a policy and instrument of continental scope to deliver on the objectives of enhanced transparency and comparability of qualifications and mutual trust between qualifications frameworks and systems for lifelong learning in Africa. The ACQF is inclusive, open to innovation to address new demands from the digital and green transformation, enables stakeholder participation and learning from relevant national, regional and global experiences.
  • The ACQF is defined as an overarching reference qualifications framework of ten levels, serving as a connector and translation device between different qualifications frameworks or systems and their levels. The ACQF will deliver on the areas of activity defined in this policy document, namely: a) referencing between qualifications frameworks; b) recognition of prior learning campaign; c) digital qualifications database; d) common profiles of qualifications; e) capacity development and support to national qualifications frameworks; f) networking, communication, and advocacy; g) analysis, monitoring, and evaluation.
  • The ACQF is underpinned by strategic commitments and policies of the AU, as mentioned in this document. The ACQF is designed to work in coordination and complementarity with these and other relevant policies, with African standards and guidelines and UNESCO conventions and with national and regional policies related with qualifications and certification.

This ACQF Policy document is validated by the AU and its member states.

Conference in Addis Ababa, 11-13 July 2023