DEVELOPING INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: PAIN AND GAIN

Developing policies that guide institutional practices is one way of ensuring accountability and efficiency. This paper documents the journey of developing various policies at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman, their implementation, monitoring, and assessing their outcomes. It explores a number of issues that had an impact on the application of policies, including challenges hindering their implementation and the impact of policies on institutional practices. The paper starts with setting the scene for the need to develop policies and procedures at a Higher Education Institution (HEI). Following that, it describes the process of developing a framework for policy management at SQU (Policy of Making Policies). The paper presents the Developmental Framework for developing policies and the Operational Framework for monitoring and reviewing policies at SQU. The paper also explores some issues pertaining to the development of policies, the implementation and follow-up; highlighting a policy on Staff Induction as an example. The data presented includes survey data on the impact of the Staff Induction Policy on the actual practices in this area. The paper highlights some of the challenges that faced the Quality Assurance Office in the process of spreading the culture of policy and procedures documentation and concludes with some recommendations to enhance policy compliance at the university.