Transcript Quality Assurance

Quality assurance
Higher education development and
reforms
Jiří Nantl
(Masaryk University/Council of Higher Education/
National Board for Qualifications, Czech Republic)
Lithuania National Bologna Seminar, Kaunas, 15/4/2008
Introductory remarks
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Quality has always been the core of the educational
business, but …
(1) There is a growing contemporary trend towards
greater institutionalization and formalization in
quality assurance (peer-review and shared opinion
on quality within the academia is not enough
anymore)
(2) quality assurance has become one of the key
components of a higher education institution`s
profile
Accountability in higher education
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Higher education system is generally expected to be
accountable to the society/government for its
outcomes
The concept of quality can define whether the
production of higher education meets the actual
needs of the society
However, this can only work if the government and
other external stakeholders are themselves aware of
the societal needs and are able to articulate them
There's no point in measuring the outcomes without
knowing the goal in advance
Setting the goal in higher education
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Higher education goals are commonly either vague or
disputable among various stakeholders
Institutions, staff, students as a group and as individuals,
industrial sector and individual enterprises, unions, and
government do not have the same expectations of the higher
education outcomes (though some or many of them may
overlap)
Various stakeholders must agree on the goals at system,
institutional and programme level. (Must all types of
stakeholders be involved at each level?)
Can qualification frameworks serve this purpose?
Quality assurance in the Czech higher
education system (1998 – 2008)
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1998 Higher Education Act: autonomous public institutions accountable to, and
funded by, the government became basis of the system (plus private institutions
authorized)
Higher education institutions must
assess their academic and other activities regularly and publish the assessment
results
advice students and applicants on career opportunities enhanced by the degree
programmes
reveal statistical information on admission tests and entrance procedure results
undergo institutional evaluation by the Accreditation Commission
seek for accreditation of all the degree programmes (granted up to 10 years) from
the Accreditation Commission
Higher education funding remains largely based on inputs (student numbers,
slightly modified in 2004 by inclusion of graduate numbers into the formula)
Quality assurance practices I
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At the national system level, accreditation remains the basic
tool for assuring quality (measured as statewide threshold
standard)
Programme accreditation procedures demands have led to
overloading of the Accreditation Commission (preventing it
from performing institutional evaluations to a larger extent)
There are inextensive nationally coordinated benchmarking
activities too (Centre for Higher Education Studies)
Rankings of higher education institutions have emerged as
published by media since 2006 (but suffering from
methodological problems heavily)
Quality assurance practices II
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At the institutional level, there has been practically no
genuine and comprehensive self-assessment by a higher
educational institution (with a few exceptions: EUA
Institutional Evaluation, Salzburg Seminar Universities
Project)
Most institutions organize course evaluation (but this mostly
helps to identify extremes in teaching quality and there is
common problem with the return-rate of questionnaires)
Some institutions organize other surveys targeting various
groups (students, but also staff, alumni etc.)
Programme evaluation/assessment remains generally
underdeveloped (due to the lack of an appropriate learning
outcomes concept)
Quality monitoring and assurance
at the Masaryk University
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University policy defines the quality monitoring as identifying the
position, role, strengths and weaknesses of the institution within the
higher education in the nation and abroad by benchmarking against
agreed performance indicators
Quality monitoring practices rely upon the support by the university
information system (all data including questionnaires collected
electronically, which results in the highest return-rate in the nation in all
the kinds of surveys)
There are annual (and overall) evaluations of the 9 faculties by the
rector's team (while at most faculties, the dean's team evaluates the several
departments)
There is a self-assessment of the university included in the annual report
(approved by the university Senate and submitted to the Board of
Trustees)
Comprehensive quality assurance strategy is being developed so as to
enable external stakeholders (government and industry) to participate in
programme quality assurance
Quality monitoring surveys
at the Masaryk University
Source: MU Office for Strategy and
Development (Ms Basovnikova), 2007
Czech higher education reform and the
quality assurance issue
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OECD Thematic Review on Tertiary Education 2006
/ www.oecd.org/edu/tertiary/review
White Paper on Tertiary Education (currently under
debate) calls for institutional accreditation (rather
than accreditation of several programmes)
National Qualifications Framework for Tertiary
Education (under development by 2009) will define
the nationally agreed learning outcomes expected at
each cycle and level of higher education
Future of institutional quality assurance
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White Paper would require higher education institutions to
develop internal systems of quality assurance including:
Rules for academic planning, development of degree
programmes/curricula
Student admission policy
Student assessment policy (grading criteria etc.)
Academic staff recruitment policy and career system (incl.
academic work evaluation)
Public availability of information on an institution's
performance
White Paper calls for increasing role of external stakeholders
in quality assurance
Future of programme quality assurance
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National Qualifications Framework (NQF) contains a
proposal for two types of descriptors applicable at each cycle
and level:
General (generic descriptors applicable to all qualifications)
Sectoral (specific for a cluster of programmes/disciplines)
Sectoral descriptors might help to solve the problem with
external stakeholders such as the industry:
As individual enterprises, they can imperil the academic
standards by their demands towards a particular programme
As a group, they commonly have difficulties to express clear
and coherent demands towards the higher education system
as a whole
Concluding remarks
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Various stakeholders involvement in quality assurance (and higher
education planning) must in each case be done at the appropriate level of
the system
Qualifications frameworks and the concept of learning outcomes are
essential (if not sine qua non) for further development of quality
assurance
The prime and ultimate responsibility for the quality must rest with the
higher education institution (quality is a key tool for competition among
institutions)
Stakeholders involvement cannot undermine the authority of an institution
over its own activities
Higher education reforms can succeed, if they create a balanced
relationship between the government and higher education institution
(where both sides are accountable)
Thank you for attention
and questions.
Jiří Nantl
Registrar, Masaryk University
Žerotínovo náměstí 9, Brno
Czech Republic
[email protected]