Quality Assurance in Higher Education

- Process of quality assurance

- Guidelines and standards for quality assurance

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 What is higher education
• Higher education refers to education
beyond the secondary level;
especially: education provided by a
college or university.
• Higher education is a rich cultural and
scientific asset which enables personal
development and promotes economic,
technological and social change. (UNESCO)
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“Education is about more than literacy and
numeracy – it is also about citizenry. Education
must fully assume its central role in helping
people to forge more just, peaceful and tolerant
societies.” — BAN KI-MOON, FORMER UN
SECRETARY-GENERAL

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The Need for Quality Assurance in
higher education

 Massification of Higher Education

 Poor capacity of institutions
 International recognition of
degrees and credits
 Poor quality in educational
services
 Lack of a systematic evaluation
mechanism
 Quality movement in industry

In 1950, the American W.

Edwards Deming, inspired
Japanese companies
about the advantages of
focusing on quality.
He believed that 85
percent of all quality
problems were the fault
of management.
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Joseph M. Juran
defined quality as
“Fitness to be used”

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 Since the first 1980s and on into the twenty-first
century, quality issues have surfaced in every industry
and almost every organization in the US.
The standard movement started in manufacturing
and then moved to service industries.
Initially service organizations failed to feel quality
systems would transfer very easily from manufacturing,
but today service companies are reaping substantial
rewards from implementing quality programs.

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Mediaeval Institutions and Their Influence on
the Foundation of American Higher Education
(World higher education as well)

Even though mediaeval universities had no libraries,

laboratories, museums, no college journalism, and no
athletics (as today’s), higher education of the twentieth
century is the lineal descendant of mediaeval
universities of Paris and Bologna, and have the same
collegial atmosphere as Oxford and Cambridge
Princes and popes controlled the institutional standards
of mediaeval universities by granting charters.
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 After France revolution, and separation
of church and state, and the separation
of church in England and Roman Catholic,
the quality of education depended more
and more on nation governments and
founding churches until the
establishment of national and
international educational quality bodies.

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 Process of quality assurance
Guidelines and standards for quality assurance

National Level
• Establishment of Quality Assurance and Accreditation Directorate
• Development of a system to oversee quality
• Capacity building of QAA members, staff and peer-reviewers

Institutional Level
• Establishment of internal quality assurance units (IQAU) and organizational structures
• Development of strategic plans at each institution
• Development of operation plans (work plan)
• Regular self-assessment each year

Faculty/Program Level
• Establishment of sub-QA units at each faculty/program
• Regular assessment of courses through Annual program monitoring
• Development of individual plans
 Levels of Quality assurance

Internal quality assurance within the

higher education institutions

External quality assurance of higher education

(non-national and national agencies)

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1. Policy and procedures for quality assurance

Institutions should have a policy and

associated procedures for the
assurance of the quality and standards
of their programmes.
To achieve this, institutions should
develop and implement a strategy for
the continuous enhancement of
quality.
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 2. Approval, monitoring and periodic review
of programmes and awards

The quality assurance of programmes and awards are expected

to include:
 Development and publication of explicit intended learning
outcomes;
 Careful attention to curriculum and programme design
and content
 Availability of appropriate learning resources;
 Monitoring of the progress and achievements of
students;
 Regular feedback
 Participation of students in quality assurance activities.
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 3. Assessment of students

Students should be assessed

using published criteria,
regulations and procedures
which are applied consistently.

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 4. Quality assurance of teaching staff

 Institutions should provide that staff involved

with the teaching of students are qualified and
competent to do so.

Teacher should received feedback on their

own performance.

 Teaching staff should have opportunities to

develop and extend their teaching capacity.
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 5. Learning resources
and student support
Institutions should ensure that the
resources available
for the support of student learning are
adequate and appropriate for each
programme offered.

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 6. Information systems

The quality-related information systems should at least

cover:
 Student progression and success rates;
 Employability of graduates;
 Students’ satisfaction with their programmes;
 Effectiveness of teachers;
 Profile of the student population;
 Learning resources available and their costs;
 The institution’s own key performance indicators.
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 7. Public information
Institutions should regularly publish up to
date,
impartial and objective information,
both quantitative and qualitative,
about the programmes and awards they are
offering.

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 Key Barriers to quality in education
 Lack of funding, increased dependence on
short-term external funding sources.
 Increasing numbers of unethical practices,
fraud, corruption by different stakeholders.
 Language barriers for education and
research
 Lack of full engagement of faculty and staff
 Lack of integration of institutional, national
and supranational policies

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 Confusing terms

Quality assurance, quality control and Quality

enhancement are all part of quality
management

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• Quality assurance in education is the guidelines,
policies, and procedures to make a high-quality
teaching learning experience and avoid defects.

• In contrast, quality control is the program actual

review during teaching learning process to
ensure it is aiming to the highest standards.
• Quality control happens during the inspection
phase.
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 Conclusion
To conclude, the education of quality is
needed to make citizens survive and
cope with poverty and actual issues

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