Towards a Composite index for measuring the higher education institutions in Egypt

Egypt has the largest and most significant higher education system in the Middle East and North Africa but it had been continuously facing serious and accumulated challenges. The gap between what is existing and what is supposed to be for the self-regulation and improvement processes is not entirely clear to face these challenges. The effective use of information technology in higher education requires good and new techniques as well as rational strategies. The reform of higher education through strategies based on data analysis of current situation will affect the overall performance of transitional state and will shape new paradigms in higher education system development in Egypt. This research has objective to develop a model of Composite index (CI) based on a set of key performance indicators (KPI) commensurate with the nature of higher education institutions in Egypt. The outcomes of the composite index aim to measure overall performance of institutions and provide unified ranking method in this context. KPIs are determined as description of key success factors related to institutions sustainability. These KPIs are classified into main areas and sub-indicators. Within this scope, the indicators were weighted via Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method according to their significance levels. Pairwise comparison survey template and database web application were developed to collect narrative responses, apply algorithm and extract results. The research study was conducted with 40 professors from 19 renowned universities in Egypt as education experts. The status of composite index model implementation is discussed from theoretical and technical perspectives.