Code of Practice for Institutional Audit (COPIA)

The Code of Practice for Institutional Audit (COPIA) is intended to be a useful guide for
providers of higher education, quality assurance auditors, officers of the Malaysian
Qualification Agency (MQA), policy makers, professional bodies and other stakeholders
engaged in higher education. This Code contains an overview of the Malaysian quality
assurance system for higher education. It guides the reader on the nine evaluation areas for
quality assurance as well as the two levels of standards – benchmarked and enhanced
standards – that underline them. In addition, the document provides guidance for internal
quality audit to be conducted by the institution and external audit to be conducted by the
MQA’s panel of auditors. It also includes audit visit schedules as well as guidelines on report
writing.

COPIA has been developed by bringing together the good practices adopted by the Quality
Assurance Division (QAD) of the Ministry of Higher Education and the National
Accreditation Board (Lembaga Akreditasi Negara, LAN), with inputs from experts and
stakeholders via a series of focus group discussions. It was also benchmarked against
international best practices. The Second Edition of COPIA has been published on February
2009.