QUALITY MANAGEMENT
ACCREDITATION AND
ASSESSMENT METHODS
Institutions of higher education everywhere are
under increasing pressure from funding
agencies, students and employers both
to demonstrate achievement of good standards of
quality, and to provide increasing educational
quality at no greater cost. Quality management
systems - particularly, quality control
and assurance systems - provide institutional managers
with the means of reaching and maintaining
higher academic standards, and being able
to obtain recognition of achievements
by presenting these systems for independent external
evaluation.
Our approach to quality assurance of educational
provision - taking "continuous improvement"
as our definition of quality - begins
with the involvement of teaching staff in critical
self-evaluation of the courses and degree
programmes which they teach: reviewing
course and programme objectives, learning
outcomes, learning methods, resources, assessment
methods and other components. This self-evaluation
is based on data which include, vitally,
the views of students and of external
stakeholders such as employers, and outputs such
as degree results and employment. Faculty
and institutional systems then build on
this self-evaluation process, to identify weaknesses
and to work towards improvements. These
systems will involve peer review, in many
cases also involving external experts.
Quality management can also be the means of radically
transforming the organisation, by using
quality processes to explore basic questions
about the organisation's structure and purposes.
The evaluation of university research requires,
in our view, an approach which is based
on output data rather than a self-evaluation,
and then is always subjected to external
peer review.
Universitas has worked in a number of countries
on the development of institutional quality
management systems, and has also advised
on the operation of national-level assessment systems
for teaching, research and for whole institutions.
These national assessment systems are,
in our experience, only satisfactory when
they build upon existing institutional
quality assurance systems; this is certainly the
way in which we think they can help to
strengthen quality within the institutions.
Dr David Billing, a Universitas Senior
Consultant, writes:
"I was Project Team Leader for Universitas
projects in
Turkey (1997) and Bulgaria (1998/99),
working with
UK consultants and in Bulgaria
also local consultants.
This vantage point
has produced some interesting
insights into
the importing of foreign models of
quality assurance.
Firstly, on national-level projects,
it is important
to ensure that the institutions
are 'sold' the
project and are involved fully
in its implementation
as participants in thinking
and design, rather
than 'victims' of the national
arrangements to
be set up. This can be difficult,
as the staff
will want to be convinced that
the work involved
in quality assurance is
worthwhile. There are many
political issues
here, which can often be more
difficult than
the technical details of the system
being designed.
Secondly, can a foreign model be successfully
imported? Yes,
I think so, but only if you
are prepared (indeed
eager) for it to be appropriately
customised to
the local context. Do not get
attached to the details
of any particular
model you bring with you. Internationally,
the various
approaches to national quality
assurance frameworks
are converging.
What matters is the heart of evaluation,
which consists of
- purposes, principles and concepts of self-evaluation;
- analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), not just description;
- supporting relevant and valid data;
- peer review by credible, accepted and trained experts;
- and conclusions which are supportive and developmental, rather than bureaucratic, punitive or merely critical.
Whether the reports of a national quality
assurance body
should be published, and whether
the results should
be linked to funding, are
important but secondary
issues. In my view,
the results should be published,
but there should
probably not be grading as this is
always crude
and weakens the subtleties of
prose conclusions.
There should preferably
be no direct funding link.
Customising an imported quality assurance
framework can
raise major issues, however.
How far might this
go, before it prejudices
the purposes, principles
and concepts of quality
assurance and evaluation,
or before it answers
only short-term problems?
There is a difficult
balance to be found between
encouraging necessary
harmonisation to the local
context, and removing
the stimulus to further thinking
and development
from the 'cognitive dissonance'
presented by
the differences of perspective in the
foreign model.
The development of institutions of
higher education
to become responsive and
responsible bodies with
some degree of self-regulation,
is the important
objective, in my view, and
it requires emphasis
on and commitment to
effective internal quality
assurance systems
and their support."
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