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Quality assurance: A quintessential asset to nation building?
Dr Elizabeth Halford Head of Research and Intelligence, QAA
Going Global - May 2016
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Significant issues emerging from the three country case studies presented today. How are the purposes of QA being enacted?
• QA in higher education has a role in promoting a more open and transparent society (Ukraine)
• QA can support economic goals, such as encouraging private sector investment in the provision of higher education (Bahrain)
• QA can engage with the higher education curriculum and pedagogy, to ensure that graduates gain employability skills in relation to the needs of the labour market (Morocco)
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The role of quality assurance in different national systems of higher education Lessons from nine country case studies and consideration of some common themes
Background:
Previous research commissioned by QAA in 2015, published in hard copy for Going Global 2016. Phase 2 currently being undertaken
Encouraging Cultures of Quality in Higher Education: An International Perspective
Focus on UK, USA, Australia, India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia and Chile
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Emerging trends in higher education in all countries • Major expansion in the size of systems -
both student numbers and numbers of institutions
• A move from elite to mass systems
• Increasing differentiation of institutional types
• Growth of private providers, leading to mixed economies of public/private provision
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Is quality assurance a quintessential asset to nation building? QA has a number of purposes. It can:
• promote economic competitiveness
• encourage social justice and equality of opportunity
• address historic inequalities of income distribution within a population
• facilitate political and cultural change.
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Common themes in these purposes • The importance of an international focus - are skills
appropriate for a global economy; can graduates get jobs in an international market?
• Experience and support from other countries is valuable - lessons from developed systems through international collaboration
• The need to regulate across diversity to safeguard standards and the student experience
• The transportability of qualifications and the need for international benchmarking
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How do these themes resonate with the findings of QAA research in other countries?
• History is important - it is easier to change structures and processes than cultures!
• The relationship between quality and regulation is crucial
• Where does power reside within a quality system? Inspection vs. peer review; consumerism vs. managerialism
• There is a need to recognise considerable diversity within systems - for institutions and programmes
• Managing cultural change within systems - dealing with rejection and resistance
• Focusing resources for QA - the importance of robust data; defining risk appropriately, retrospectively and predictively!
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Challenges suggested by QAA research
• Managing cultural change within systems - dealing with rejection and resistance
• Focusing resources for QA
- defining risk appropriately, retrospectively and predictively!
- the importance of robust data
• Inherent conflicts - does regulation confer prestige, but ignore low standards, if meeting a need?
- possible public/private tension
• International collaboration and competition - managing the power relationships
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QAA's involvement in nation building - Albania • QAA is currently supporting the Public Agency for
Accreditation of Higher Education (PAAHE) to review all 35 Albanian universities
• The British Council has played a key role in facilitating the agreement
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Lindita Nikolla, Minister of Education and Sports, Albania:
'When we came into power in 2013, reform of our chaotic and unregulated higher education sector was a priority…the education ministry decided to look at the UK model for best practice in quality assurance and QAA was our partner of choice.'
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