Transcript 1. dia - unideb.hu

Impact (f)actors of quality
in Hungarian Higher Education
Prof. György BAZSA, President
Hungarian Accreditation Committee (HAC)
Institutional Strategic Quality Management
ARACIS International Conference
Bucharest, 15-17 October 2009
Why accreditation?
 First half of XX. century in US: self-defense of good
fame, diplomas and interest of excellent HE
institutions against low level education and
degrees.
 Second half of XX. century: increasing importance
of quality (overproduction), therefore developing
systematic quality assurance systems/culture.
 In higher education: to ensure and improve quality
of education and training in interest of all stakeholders (students, labor market, government).
 For (the knowledge based) society: declaring safeguarded and evaluated quality of programs and/or
HE institutions, transparency, informing the public.
Hungary and Hungarian Higher Education
(HHE)
Population: 10 million
HE enrollment: before 1990
< 10% of age
group
at present
~ 40 % of age group
HE Students total:
~ 400.000 (half state funded)
Legal background:
HE Law in 1993 and 2005
Church/
HE Institutions:
~7 HEI / 1 million inhabits
HEI
State
Total
Private
University
18
7
25
College
11
33
44
Total
29
40
69
System of training programs
Before 2005: parallel system of programs in
- college (practice oriented), 3-4 y.
- university (research oriented), 5-6
y.
Since 2005 (sequence 3 cycle Bologna system):
- Bachelor – 180/210 credits, 3-3,5 y.
- Master – 90/120 credits, 2 y
law)
- long masters: 300 credits (med,
- PhD – 180 credits, 3+ years
Compulsory general changeover started in 2006.
This loaded HHE and HAC enormously in last
years.
(F)actors in Hungarian HE Quality
a) Government: HE Q policy, legal and financial
conds.
b) HAC:
external Q Evaluation and Accreditation
c) HEIs:
key performers in quality of the „product”,
responsible for internal Q Assurance
d) Faculty: determines Q of teaching and research
e) Students: accepts and reflects Q of teaching
f) Stakeholders: confirms/questions Q of HE
graduates
g) Media: reports Q and prepares HE ranking
h) Europe +: Bologna, EHEA, ESG, ENQA: public Q
+ international Q labels + US NFCMEA
a) Government (Minister):
• QA and accreditation is part of state HE policy. (No
exceptions unlike at neighbors.)
• Hungary signed Bologna declaration
• QUALITY AWARD for HEI QA activity
• After strong expansion (fourfold increase if student
number in a decade) the main issue is now:
quality!
Impact
 Hungarian HE community accepts the need and
benefit of QA and accreditation.
 HEIs run QA systems and processes ordered by
law.
 State financing is not connected to QA and Accred.
b) HAC1
• Independent, mainly academic board, funded by
Parliament (stakeholders spots).
• 29 members (formally appointed by PM), majority
delegated by Rector’s Conference and HAS;
secretly elected president, committees, experts .
• Its resolutions are „expert opinions”, legal decisions
come effective through ministe(rial organs).
• There is an independent HAC appeal board.
• HAC is a European QA player, charter member of
ENQA (European Association for QA in HE), its
membership affirmed twice with external reviews.
• HAC accepted and applies ESG in all respects.
HAC2
• HAC is the only accreditation body in Hungarian
HE, all HEIs have to apply for external QA and
accreditation in different affairs.
• HAC introduced HE EXCELLENCE AWARDS
• HHEI-s take part in international Q label providing
actions, like e.g. EUR-ACE, QUESTE-VET, EuroInf,
EPAS, etc. by there own initiatives (and costs).
• HAC has functions in external and in internal QA.
• HAC raises public conditions and quality norms in
evaluation and accreditation.
• HAC activity and decisions are public:
http://www.mab.hu
HAC3
• HAC is strengthening its international relations and
actions in QA activity permanently with different
actions and co-operations. HAC has an active
International Advisory Board.
• HAC has to move from input to output evaluation.
(Note! Filtering out a program at input is less
painful than exclusion during the process.)
• HAC wishes institutions at accreditation to show their
values and results instead of fearing a critical
evaluation. More self-awareness if it’s real!
• HAC has its own QA mechanism.
System of HAC activities (external QA)
at input (ex ante)
– HEI is charged
establishing
HEIs/faculties
establishing
B and M programs
launching
B and M programs
setting up
doctoral (PhD) schools
professors’
appointment
During process & at output
(ex post) – free of charge
Accred. of operating HEI,
including QA system (/8y)
--parallel programs’
evaluation
doctoral schools’ evaluation
---
A unique impact: parallel accreditation of all
doctoral schools (PhD programs) in Hungary.
 a new, full and living electronic database, with free
access, covering all of the 25 Hungarian
universities: www.doktori.hu. (Information for
students!)
 ex post evaluation of ~170 existing (old) and
 ex ante evaluation of ~20 new doctoral schools, as
frame of the 3rd cycle of Bologna system,
including
- documents of function, structure, teaching and
research plan, coherency, program of QA,
- homepages,
- ~ 2200 core members individually by
HAC activities in figures
Average
Bologna
Task for HAC
cases/year yes/total
establishment of HEI/faculty
2–4
--accred. of operating HEI
8 – 15
--establishment of Bachelor
4–6
141/163
pr.
launching Bachelor
80 – 100 ~800/1100
programs
establishment of Master pr.
50 – 60
~350/450
launching Master programs 300 – 400 ~550/750
parallel accred. of B/M
30 – 80
--progr.
Processes (standards are published in advance):
Ex ante accreditations (input conditions):
 written proposal submitted
 2 experts’ review (anonymous) →
 disciplinary committees (15 members) →
 resolution of HAC plenum
Ex post accreditation (during operation):
 self-evaluation report (including C-SWOT) →
 site visit by a visiting team (5-9 members, incl.
student, QA specialist and stakeholder) →
 draft of the accr. report of the visiting team →
 comments of HEI →
 resolution of HAC plenum
Impact of HAC on HEIs
 HEIs consider in all affairs the quality norms and
consequences of external evaluation: applications
are prepared mainly carefully, except ~25%.
 HAC conditions and norms are the same for all –
state and non-state (but state recognized) – HEIs.
 HAC has high quality norms in order to
compensate the expansive ambitions of HEIs (state
financing follows quantity of student number, not
quality).
 HAC evaluations results in requests and advice for
QA systems and management of HEIs.
 HAC as a strong quality safeguard reduces the
responsibility of HEIs: HAC whishes to change it!
c) HEI quality management1 – 2 documents
 HE Act: „The HEI operates an internal QA system.
The HEI prepares a quality development program.
• It specifies the process of operation, like the
execution of management, planning, control,
measurement,
assessment, and consumer protection related tasks,
• regulates the rules pertaining to the evaluation of
lecturer performance by the students.
• The HEI annually revises the implementation of the
program and
• publishes its findings on the website.”
HEI quality management2
 ESG (Part 1)
1.1 Policy and procedures for quality assurance
1.2 Approval, monitoring and periodic review of
programs and awards
*
1.3 Assessment of students
*
1.4 Quality assurance of teaching staff
*
1.5 Learning resources and student support
**
1.6 Information systems
***
HE quality management3
An institutional answer (Quality Awarded HEI)
1. University and QA management
2. Mission of HEI
3. Human resources
4. Inside and outside sources, partners
5. Processes of QA
6. Satisfaction of students and employers
7. Satisfaction of faculty and staff
8. Social impact
9. Important results
Impact in HEIs
 University was traditionally an institution of excellence, with quality based selection of professors
and students (Nobel-laureates with Hungarian HE
roots: Lénárd, Zsigmondy, Bárány, Szent-Györgyi,
Hevesy, Békésy, Wigner, Gábor, Oláh, Harsányi).
 Mass education age requires systematic QA.
 QA system should exist in all HEIs: committees,
bylaws, standards, development programs etc.
 Regular self evaluation, incl. C-SWOT analysis
 The impact of all these is very diversified: quantity
beats quality if interest is stronger than values.
 A broadly and deeply effective quality culture is
not yet common although is improving.
d) Faculty:
 In most cases selected on meritocracy principle, vs.
HHE salary conditions.
 Quality based mentality dominates, organized QA
is slowly accepted. Formal and alibi Q actions hurt.
 Realizes: Q is a winning factor in all competitions.
• Student evaluation of teaching is in progress, its
consequences are still moderate.
• Methods of earlier elite education must be
replaced by mass education procedures.
• Student centered learning gradually replaces
knowledge based teaching.
e) Students:
 Quality, in principle, is their strong interest.
• Quality of teaching can be achieved only with their
active participation.
• At mass education students’ motivation,
participation and quality varies on a broad scale:
from excellent performance to leisure school-days.
• Empowering required: students should influence
their own transformation
• Credits (ECTS) are used and misused
• Student associations in most cases are partners in
QA actions.
f) Stakeholders (employers, labor market):
 4 HAC members represent stakeholders.
 HAC has a Stakeholders Advisory Board.
 They demand general skills, like being motivated,
team working, critical thinking, management and IT
skills, foreign languages, ready learn to adopt etc.
• Labor Market moderately acknowledges Q of
individual degrees, Q of HEI has bigger influence.
• Reputation of HEI and salaries (incomes) strongly
influence pupils interest in choosing study
programs.
 Rising recognition of HE excellence from private.
sector (awards, scholarships) stimulates Q in
society
g) Media:
• Shows reasonable balances between good news
(Q, excellence) and bad news (scandals).
• HAC has to manage its media-appearance much
better.
• Domestic ranking is now flourishing in Hungarian
media too.
• Every HEI likes to find and finds good ranking
position to glaze and advertise itself.
• Ranking, despite distortions, have more popular
appeal than the accurate hard work of quality
agencies.
h) Europe +
 Hungarian HE is traditionally a European HE,
pioneer in several cases (Selmecbánya, Georgikon).
 Hungary signed Bologna in 1999. Next Bologna
meeting (2010) takes place in Budapest/Vienna.
 Hungary takes part in creation of the European
Higher Education Area (+ European Research Area).
 ESG effects Hungarian QA policy and practice.
 ENQA membership has significant importance.
 US National Committee on Foreign Medical
Education and Accreditation accredits through
HAC.
All these influence positively Q in HHEIs.
The Hungarian perspective of accreditation:
(„I have a dream!”)
internal program accreditation
(instead of external ones) based on
by HAC accredited QA of HEI.
It requires a new and severe quality culture
inside institutions, where
- common values meet particular interests,
- social and individual goals converge,
- high quality is favored against mass quantity.
QA vs. QP:
QA isn’t an art for art sake:
the main aim of QA is good Quality Product:
- high class graduates,
- excellent science and innovation,
- efficient local/social services.