ESIB

The National Unions of Students of Europe

European Student Handbook on

Quality Assurance in Higher
Education
 Contents:
i Introduction to ESIB
ii Foreword
iii Authors biographies
iv Definitions in Quality Assurance

Chapter 1 “Origins of Quality Assurance in Higher Education” - History

of QA, its origins and application in higher education.

Chapter 2 “Quality Assurance at a European and International level” -

What is the status of QA at a European and International level and what
trends and policies have developed?

Chapter 3 “Comparative analyses of National QA systems” – Several

case studies of national QA systems.

Chapter 4 “Local Dimensions – students involvement in QA” - How do

students take part in the quality assurance process? What are the best
methods of positive involvement?

Chapter 5 “Future of Quality Assurance”- What challenges and

developments lay ahead for QA?

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Introduction to ESIB
ESIB – the National Unions of Students in Europe
ESIB is the umbrella organisation of 50 national unions of students from 37 countries and
through these members represents more than 11 million students. The aim of ESIB is to
represent and promote the educational, social, economic and cultural interests of students at a
European level towards all relevant bodies and in particular the European Union, Council of
Europe and UNESCO.

Aims and objectives:

ESIB – the National Unions of Students in Europe has the following goals:
? ? to promote the views of students on the educational system as a whole.
? ? to promote the social, economical, political and cultural interests of students and the
human rights of students which have a direct effect or an indirect effect on education and
on the status and welfare of students in society.
? ? to promote equal opportunities for all students regardless of their political belief, religion,
ethnic or cultural origin, gender, sexual orientation, social standing or any disability they
may have.
? ? to promote equal chances of access to higher education for all people.
? ? to promote European and global co-operation and to facilitate information exchange with
students and students’organizations.
? ? to promote co-operation with other organised groups in matters pertaining to education
and student life.
?? to provide assistance and support to National Unions of Students across Europe –
hereafter referred to as NUS’s – in their work to protect student interests.

For more information about the structure, members, policies and work of ESIB visit:
www.esib.org

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Foreword-About the QA project
The ESIB Quality Assurance project was initiated in June 2001 and was funded by the
European Commission, the Council of Europe and the Dutch Government. The project lasted
for slightly more than a year and had the following key objectives:
Improving quality assurance processes and students’involvement in them by:

? ? Collecting, analysing and disseminating theory, good practices and experiences of

(student involvement in) quality assurance in Europe, focusing on exchanges between
well-developed quality assurance systems and less developed.

? ? Raising awareness of the importance of (student involvement in) quality assurance

processes.

? ? Identifying and promoting European-wide strategies to involve students and student

organisations in quality assurance.

? ? Promoting co-operation of European student organisations on one of the key themes of

the Bologna process.

The project had several target groups which it sought to involve in its work and also affect
with its outcomes. These can be outlined as:
? ? Primary: students, especially those who are actively involved in organisations and
bodies dealing with quality of education.

? ? Secondary: other parties dealing with quality assurance and student involvement
in European higher education, such as educational staff and policy makers.

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Throughout the time of the project a number of activities where undertaken which resulted in
both direct and indirect outcomes towards the objectives of the project. The main activities
are outlines below:
? ? October 2001-European Student Seminar on Quality Assurance. This seminar
brought together student representative and QA experts from throughout
Europe to examine developments in QA.

? ? November/December 2001- A set of checklists and guidelines of best practices

arising from the seminar was prepared and distributed to member
organizations.

? ? January/June 2002- The production of the “European Student Handbook on

Quality Assurance” for local and national student representatives was started
with the completion of the first edition in June 2002.

? ? May 2002 – Training for national student representatives on involving students

in Quality Assurance mechanisms.

Quality Assurance and student involvement in it has been topic of work within ESIB for
several years and we hope that through the production of this handbook student
representatives will be encouraged to get further involved in the QA process. Students are one
of the key partners within higher education and should be involved in the quality mechanisms
and this handbook will arm students with the tools to be effective and active participants in
the future development of a high quality tertiary education system.

Finally, I would like to the two members of the Executive Committee (EC) that took
responsibility for the project, Marlous Veldt from EC2001 and John C Friend-Pereira, EC
2002, for their hard work in initiating the project and seeing it through to its conclusion. I
would also like to thank the Dutch National Union of Students, LSVb, for their support during
the realization of the project.

On behalf of the steering group of the project,

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Martina Vukasovic

ESIB Chair 2002

Authors Biographies

John C. Friend-Pereira:
John is a 24 year old student of Media/Communications and History in Mary Immaculate
College, Limerick. He has been active in the student movement and in the last two years he
has been the President of his local union and Equality Officer for USI, the Irish National
Student Union. Since January 2002 he has been on the Executive Committee of ESIB and has
co-ordinated the QA project.

Kristina Lutz :
Kristina is a 30 year old masters graduate of political science from Umea University, Sweden.
She has dealt extensively with QA and educational policy for the past three years having
worked as a member of the board of SFS, the Swedish National Student Union She has
recently finished as SFS International Secretary and is currently a member of the
Commodifcation of Education Committee in ESIB.

Nikki Heerens :
Nikki is a 27 year old masters student of development economics at Wageningen University
in the Netherlands. He has been active in local student bodies and in the Dutch National
Union of Students, LSVb. In 2001 and 2002 he was on the Executive Committee of LSVb and
has been responsible for their international work and key areas for education policy. Nikki has
also been elected to the Executive Committee of 2003.

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Definitions in Quality Assurance
In any discussion about quality assurance in higher education it is clearly important to start by
defining the terms and phrases that will be used. The following definitions are the commonly
accepted ones and should be a useful point of reference for remainder of the handbook.

QUALITY
‘Fitness for purpose’– Juran
‘Conformance to requirements’– Crosby
An educational definition is that of an ongoing process ensuring the delivery of agreed
standards. These agreed standards should ensure that every educational institution where
quality is assured has the potential to achieve a high quality of content and results.

QUALITY ASSURANCE
The means by which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that the
standards and quality of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced.

QUALITY CONTROL
Quality control refers to the verification procedures (both formal and informal) used by
institutions in order to monitor quality and standards to a satisfactory standard and as
intended.

QUALITY ENHANCEMENT
Quality Enhancement is the process of positively changing activities in order to provide for a
continuous improvement in the quality of institutional provision.

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QUALITY ASSESSMENT
Quality Assessment is the process of external evaluation undertaken by an external body of
the quality of educational provisions in institutions, in particular the quality of the student
experience.

QUALITY AUDIT
Quality Audit is the process of examining institutional procedures for assuring quality and
standards and whether the arrangements are implemented effectively and achieve stated
objectives. The underlying purpose of Continuation Audit is "to establish the extent to which
institutions are discharging effectively their responsibilities for the standards of awards
granted in their name and for the quality of education provided to enable students to attain
standards."

STANDARDS
Standards describe levels of attainment against which performance may be measured.
Attainment of a standard usually implies a measure of fitness for a defined purpose.

QUALITY CULTURE
Quality Culture is the creation of a high level of internal institutional quality assessment
mechanisms and the ongoing implementation of the results. Quality Culture can be seen as
the ability of the institution, program etc to develop quality assurance implicitly in the day to
day work of the institution and marks a move away form periodic assessment to ingrained
quality assurance.

ACCREDITATION
Accreditation is the result of a review of an education program or institution following
certain quality standards agreed on beforehand. It’s a kind of recognition that a program or
institution fulfils certain standards.

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 1. The Origins of Quality Assurance in
Higher Education

The Business of Quality Assurance

The topic of Quality Assurance (QA) has always been of utmost importance, originally, in
business but now also in education and other public services sectors. Quality remains the most
important attribute that creates value about the product/service for the receiver. It is also the
means by which business/service providers differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Since businesses are leaders in quality assurance, non-business organisations such as
educational institutions can benefit from the important lessons learnt by business.

This opening chapter therefore focuses on the origins and methods applied by businesses in
maintaining high quality products/services and how these can be transferred to educational
institutions. It should be envisaged that adaptation of the most successful and relevant
strategies would help educational institutions in creating higher standards of quality in
education. Sharing the results and methods of QA practices will also help alleviate some of
the problems such as falling student numbers, funding and recognition of courses and
qualifications.

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The Origins of Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance (QA) clearly emerged as a principal business methodology in the Western
world throughout the 1950’s and in the early 1960’s. The concept of “quality” is rather
elusive, because it expresses a relative, though, noticeable difference between one thing and
another. Relative terms such as “better”, “superior”, “acceptable” are applied to judge quality.
However, quality is a universally acknowledged factor in successful business. Winning
companies are those that meet quality standards and for whom customer services is an
obsession in every single market in which they operate.

There is a need to understand the different philosophy which predominates QA in the business
sphere and that in the public services. Within the industrial/business setting the philosophy
over the past 50 years has focused on the training of employees to prevent problems,
strengthening organisational systems, and continually improving performance. While within
public service areas such as health and education the philosophy has been based on taking a
watchdog approach, relying on government controls, professional credentials, internal audits,
and, more recently, external inspections to maintain standards, weed out poor performers, and
solve problems.

The concept of quality assurance is not a new one, but the range of the terminology and
methodologies which are now used to define, develop and apply it, are relatively recent. There
are a great number of different perceptions of what is meant by quality in higher education.
Varying definitions have been suggested, but it has not been possible to reach consensus. The
most widely accepted criterion of quality in higher education is probably “fitness for
purpose”. Consensus about this does not solve the problem of what is meant by quality in
higher education: it just carries the discussion one step further to the question “what is the
purpose of higher education?”. However, this is helpful, since to a large extent it is the
different opinions about the purpose of higher education, that lie behind the varying concepts
of what should be meant by quality in higher education. The different approaches to quality
reflect different conceptions of higher education itself. Several overviews of current theories
and practices in national systems of quality are presented in chapter three. Conceptions of
quality have been categorised in different ways, showing different perspectives and
illuminating various aspects.

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Most individuals include parts of more than one perspective in their personal conception of
quality. Therefore, when looked at on an individual level, there might not seem to be any
significant differences between the way different stakeholders perceive quality in higher
education. Also, combining each perspective with a particular group of stakeholders should
not be taken to mean that every individual in that group sees quality in exactly the same way,
in every group there are pronounced individual differences. However, the suggested
perspectives represent fundamentally different views of what higher education is for. It is,
therefore, important to describe each perspective separately in order to get a clear picture of
what each stands for, what the ideological basis is, and what the implications of the proposed
view of quality are. It will also make it possible to discover points of agreement and
disagreement, thus providing a useful starting point for negotiations about a common platform
for quality work in a given situation.

Indeed QA has implicitly predominated all walks of life from industry, service centres and
hospitals to education. The need for quality has therefore proved to be the decisive factor in
determining the success or failure of many products and services throughout the development
of society, although it has often been implied rather than explicitly analysed and measured.
There are of course advantages in applying more explicit measurements of quality. Among
these is an increased ability to readily compare similar services and products, the development
of common standards and of course wider information for the consumer. Thus the emphasis
on the need to employ explicit measures to check and monitor quality is the challenge that we
in the education arena must now deal with.

Higher Education and Quality Assurance; the first link

The increasing demands for good quality higher education by students and society imply that
Higher Educational Institution (HEI’s) now face similar pressures that the business sector has
been facing for decades. These implications often become even more serious for HEI’s who
lack the finance and infrastructure resources and have recognition issues, as well as facing
stronger competition from local, distance and international education institutions. Some of the
lessons to be learnt from industry are as follows:

? ? Make the desire for quality an overarching principle in every operation (creating a quality
culture)

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? ? Be knowledgeable about the needs of students and academics (the actors involved in the
service)
? ? Creating desirability for the HEI through meeting social and economical trends while
maintaining high level of academic integrating and superior quality.

Organisations that provide quality and value in the provision of their educational services are
likely to grow and prosper. Such organisations gain benefits like stronger student and staff
loyalty, lower vulnerability to economic changes, ability to command higher funding and
more autonomy from the state in policy development. Some HEI’s currently experience
problems in retaining both academic staff and dealing with growing student needs. Some of
the reasons for this may be that staff and students perceive that other institutions are offering
more valuable education in terms of quality (recognition, career development, student support
etc). It thus, becomes imperative for HEI’s to ensure that their services are in demand.
Various strategies to make higher education affordable and valuable for students need to be
applied on the national level in order to support the social role of the HEI’s and the growth in
QA methodologies and the implementation of the results of QA both institutional and
socially.

Quality Assurance in Higher Education

“An examination of a knife would reveal that its distinctive quality is to cut, and from this we
can conclude that a good knife would be a knife that cuts well”. Aristotle

A new form of Quality Assurance

The application of QA in the sphere of Higher Education, while having the same base
objectives of defining and recognising quality, is somewhat complicated by the important
socio-economic role that education plays in developing local, national and global societies.
Quality is the distinguishing characteristic guiding students and higher education institutions
when receiving and providing higher education. The integration of Quality Assurance
principles into higher education have become a European wide issue since the need for a clear
QA and Accreditation system was laid out as one of the aims of the Bologna Process. This
move towards integrating QA into higher education has benefited institutions and students by

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setting out to achieve a model in the international co-operation in higher education, which
improves the quality, transparency and comparability of degrees, and studies that have been
involved in the process. The benefits that can be gained therefore by having a recognised
quality assurance process at a course, faculty, institutional and national level is clear for the
institutions and students, academics and society.

Defining Quality Assurance in Education

Quality is often described as the totality of features and characteristics of a service that bear
on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. Quality in higher education, according to
Article 11 of the World Declaration on Higher Education published by the United Nations, is
a multi-dimensional concept, which should embrace all its functions and activities: teaching
and academic programmes, research and scholarship, staffing, students, buildings, faculties,
equipment, services the community and the academic environment. It should take the form of
internal self-evaluation and external review, conducted openly by independent specialists, if
possible with international expertise, which are vital for enhancing quality. Independent
national bodies should be established and comparative standards of quality, recognised at
international level, should be defined. Due attention should be paid to the specific
institutional, national and regional contexts in order to take into account diversity and to avoid
uniformity. Stakeholders should be an integral part of the institutional evaluation process.
Quality also requires that higher education should be characterised by its international
dimension: exchange of knowledge, interactive networking, mobility of teachers and students,
and international research projects, while taking into account the national cultural values and
circumstances.

Principles of QA in Education
Aristotle stated in his Book VIII of Politics that ‘this education and these studies exist for
their own sake’. In this context quality assurance should exist along side and support the ideal
of ‘fitness for propose of education’ where the purpose is the development of society and
education of the individual. Again, there are the two approaches that can be taken to quality
assurance, which can define the methods and type of QA processes that higher education
institutions can combine:

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 ? ? The intrinsic qualities of higher education refer to the basic values and ideals, which
form the very heart of higher education: the unfettered search for truth and the
disinterested pursuit of knowledge. It focuses on the knowledge creating processes and
student learning. Even though most academics today will agree that quality in higher
education is more than this, intrinsic quality represents the core of academic quality.
The academic community can be seen as guardians of intrinsic quality.

? ? The extrinsic qualities refer to the capacities of higher education institutions to

respond to the changing needs of the society with whom they interact. Extrinsic
quality concerns the demands that society directs towards higher education. These
demands change in tandem with social changes, which occur over time. It could be
argued to what extent extrinsic quality should be determined by economic demands or
the state (government) demands – both of which form pillars of society.

This therefore leads to a wider range of issues such as:

? ? The purpose of education?
? ? The ways in which educational institutions serve society and who decides this?
? ? The complex processes of teaching and learning and their evaluation?
? ? The development of appropriate knowledge, skills, competencies among staff to enable
them to enhance their performance as teachers.

Merging QA in Education

QA is still a much-debated concept in many countries. Often educational institutions are

responding to governmental pressure to “pay more attention to and be more accountable for
quality”. The issue of autonomy and freedom within academic life is one of the most
contentious areas among academics in the discussion regarding the introduction and
development of a functioning QA system. In order to have input into this crucial discussion
and the future of QA in education, we must first seek to address the following questions.
? ? What is the significance of QA?
? ? What is relationship of QA to Accreditation?

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What is the significance of QA?
Quality Assurance is a condition that leads to the achievement of transparency. It will ensure
the quality of the academic (teaching, curriculum etc) and structural (buildings, computers
etc) provision of courses and it will allow an objective review of their quality. The
transparency should be dialectical, meaning that the quality assurance should make
institutions transparent, but also that the quality assurance in itself should be transparent,
allowing the outcomes to be shared by the participants (actors). As students we particularly
want to overcome the obstacles to the effective exercise of free movement of students,
recognition of courses and qualifications and guarantee the ‘fitness for purpose of our
education’and ensure that the outcomes of higher education meet our expectations.

What is QA’s relationship to Accreditation?

Quality assurance is a prerequisite for accreditation. Higher education intuitions are
constantly evolving and changing, accreditation is based on an evaluation done at a specific
point in time, normally with reference to a specific area of the institutions (a course or
facility). This normally leads to the awarding of certificate or recognition that the institution
or part therefore meets certain standards. When accrediting, quality assurance should be the
guarantee that the standard measured in the accreditation process can be upheld in the long
term. Thus accreditation cannot be said to be complete unless the three steps outlined in the
Quality Assurance and Accreditation policy are enacted and the process is seen as ongoing.
The importance of accreditation for students can be stated in three points:

1. Accreditation provides students with programs, which are clearly defined and
appropriate. Accreditation provides added assurance that the program in which
students are enrolled or are considering enrolling is capable of achieving what it sets
out to do.

2. Accreditation facilitates the mobility of students because it provides the higher

education institutions with independent approval of the various programs at other
institutions where a student can come from. This can lead to development of pre-
recognition of degrees.

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 3. Accreditation must facilitate the recognition of degrees in other countries and thus
facilitate mobility of graduates.

Conclusion- The Next Step

There are several key questions that now become clear when dealing with the challenges and
opportunities presented through the quality assurance processes in higher education. These
will be addressed in the later chapters and will provide both the background information and
the thematic tools needed to deal with quality assurance at a local (course, faculty and
institutional), national and European level.

It is clear however that the state will continue to have an interest in using higher education to
promote important policy developments. There is nothing wrong with that, society pays for
higher education (in most countries the income comes from the state) and has a legitimate
claim to influence what is done and to check that they get what they pay for. However, this
does not necessarily have anything to do with quality in higher education. Quality is
important, and it is to be expected that quality will continue to be used to further the political
agenda. If the hope is that quality assurance should not be ongoing this will not be the case.

Higher education will continue to play an ever more important role in modern society. If
anything, the demand for educated citizens and critical analyses of society will increase. We
must also be prepared to make every possible change in organisation and methods in order to
improve student learning, to handle an increased number of students and to give adequate
support to new categories of students. Quality does not require doing the same things that we
have always done, but finding new ways to achieve the goals that have always been there.

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2. Quality Assurance at a European and
International level

New need for QA:

Europe is characterised by mostly public higher education systems in which institutions and
programmes derive their formal degree awarding capacity directly or indirectly from the
state. This has happened partly because of the diversity of both degrees and institutions.
However public knowledge about their quality is often opaque across national borders, and
even sometimes within one country.

Degree and institutional diversity is matched by a great variety of national quality assurance
systems. Few of these quality assurance procedures take account of the internationalisation of
the higher education. While national quality assurance agencies have been exchanging
information about their procedures and co-operation for some years now, there are no
European mechanisms in place to recognise the results of an evaluation across national
borders. As a result, credit transfer and student mobility can be hampered.
Internationalisation of higher education implies, however the need to internationalise quality
assurance procedures to a certain extent.

In the context of globalisation and internationalisation, quality assessment implies, more than
ever, comparing approaches and results as well as learning from the good practice. It is
necessary and beneficial to extend international co-operation among institutions in view of
implementing quality assessment and assurance mechanism, improving the assessment of
academic programmes, sharing assessment methods and exchanging systems.

Recent developments

Five key developments have taken place in Europe over the past few years;
The Magna Charta Universitatum (1988) which upholds university autonomy, must be the
precondition for fostering the adaptability of universities to the ever-changing requirements
of today’s society.

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The meeting of ministers at the Sorbonne University (1998) referred to the central role of
higher education in the development of Europe through the creation of a European Higher
Education Area.

The Bologna declaration (1999) by which the signatory states agreed to act in concert to
increase the competitiveness of Europe through a range of measures aimed at creating a
European Higher Education Area. These include the adoption of a system of easily readable
and comparable degrees, a system of credits and co-operation in Quality Assurance at a
European level. The objective of such tools is to promote mobility, inter institutional co-
operation and integrated programmes of study, training and research.

The Salamanca Convention (2001) of European higher education institutions considered

quality as a fundamental building block of the European Higher Education Area and made it
the underlying condition for trust, relevance of degrees, mobility, compatibility and
attractiveness.

Similarly, the Prague Communiqué of the European education ministers (2001) regards
quality as a major factor in determining the competitiveness and attractiveness of European
higher education.

In September 1998 the Council of Ministers issued a recommendation on European co-

operation in QA in higher education. The recommendation states that ´a high quality of
education and training is an objective for all member states. It also calls for co-operation in
the introduction of efficient and acceptable methods of QA to complement national
initiatives. There are many reasons why it is imperative that there is consistency across
European states in terms of the quality and standard of higher education. One of the primary
reasons for promoting QA in higher education is to ensure public confidence in the quality of
educational provision and help guarantee that standards of awards in higher education are
being safeguarded and enhanced. There is also mounting concern about the growth in the
number of non-accredited universities currently offering different courses. Such institutions
offer diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities based on your knowledge and
life experience rather than tests, classes, books and interviews. These institutions offer a
variety of courses and qualifications for a price. Despite concerns over their legitimacy and

18
credibility, the courses can sometimes be completely legitimate and the diplomas they confer
genuine. Such fraudulent courses have resulted in the emergence of intense interest and
activity in the international world over the past decade around the nature of QA and its place
in higher education.

In the European dimension, quality assurance, as foreseen in the Bologna Declaration, is a

vital aspect of any system of easily readable and comparable degrees as well as Europe's
attractiveness and competitiveness in the world. Its importance is widely recognised and
indeed emphasised by the vast majority of European countries in order for the creation of
recognition procedures, facilitated mobility, increased confidence and to avoid the lowering
of standards. Its development is seen as a necessary complement for the increased curricular
autonomy of universities.

The Prague communiqué states that the ministers responsible for higher education who were
present at the meeting also encouraged closer co-operation between recognition and QA
networks. In making this declaration the ministers were recognising the importance of both
QA and the international recognition of qualifications as key elements in the move towards
the creation of a European higher education area.

ENIC-European Networks of Information Centres

The Council of Europe and UNESCO established the ENIC network to develop policy and
practice for the recognition of qualifications. An ENIC is a body set up by the national
authorities to provide information on the recognition of foreign diploma’s, degrees and other
qualifications and to provide information about education systems in both foreign and
ENIC’s own country.

NARIC-National Academic Recognition Information Centres

The NARIC is an initiative of the European Commission with the aim to improve academic
recognition of diplomas and periods of study in the member states of the EU, the EEA
countries in Central and European and Cyprus. The network is part of community’s
programme Socrates/Erasmus.

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QA can provide stakeholders (students, potential students, rest of society), in particular, with
information that will be useful to them in making decisions about programmes and
qualifications in different member states. If co-ordination and communication could be
achieved between QA and recognition activities, they could together provide a powerful
source of useful information about institutions and qualifications, which would be a great
benefit to a wide range of stakeholders.

Quality assurance agencies and recognition bodies in Europe are at the present characterised
mainly by their great variety. This is especially marked in the QA agencies, most of which
have been set up to meet local needs and reflect local higher education and political agendas.
This has led to a number of differences of types, methods, focuses and organisational
structures. So far as the recognition bodies are concerned, the structures are similarly diffuse,
with some closely linked to ministries of education and others operating more independently.
Progress in the area of mutual understanding and effective recognition in new areas of
academic activity would benefit greatly from the interaction of quality assurance agencies
across Europe. At present this is difficult because no structure ore framework exists

The Prague communiqué with its section concentrating on quality assurance has paved the
way for a concrete and comprehensive discussion within the European context. The steering
group of the European network for Quality assurance in Higher education (ENQA) drafted a
position paper in 2001, which anticipated the networks expectations to have a visible role in
the developments after Prague. Both ENQA and ENIC/NARIC networks have clear
recommendation stated in the Prague communiqué to work for the promotion of quality
assurance and fair recognition of degrees.

The rapid internationalisation of both studies and education institutions, the development of
transnational higher education and the need for student mobility together with the related
mutual recognition of qualifications between institutions, place QA even more in focus.

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 ENQA The European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education
Has been established to promote European co-operation in the field of quality assessment
and quality assurance between all actors involved in the quality assurance process. The
idea for the Network originates from the European Pilot Project for Evaluating Quality in
Higher Education, which demonstrated the value of sharing and developing experience in
the area of quality assurance. The idea was given momentum by the Recommendation of
the Council (98/561/EC of 24 September 1998) on European co-operation in quality
assurance in higher education and the Bologna declaration.

Accreditation

Accreditation is a concept, which is widely understood, in theory. But it becomes incredibly

difficult when it comes to putting it into practice. The subject is quite easy as long as all the
actors involved share the same vision of the goal they want to reach together through
accreditation, without confusing the different parts, levels, and possibilities. Most important
of all is that the actors involved need to know why they are taking the steps they make.
Accreditation should not become a goal as such; it is only a tool to encourage high standards.

There has been much talk both within and outside Europe during the past two years about the
spread of accreditation, and the possible need to meet what is perceived to be a big threat, by
the creation of some form of European accreditation system. This has on various occasions
been proposed at the level of the academic programme, institution and quality assurance
agency. Major difficulties have been identified in the approach, however principally related
to the significance, reliability, burden, value and cost of any such schemes.

The interest in accreditation has arisen because, despite the work of various institutions such
as ENIC and NARICs in respect of individual student’s credential, there is a real confusion
about the relative value of the programmes and qualifications of different institutions and
countries. The unimpeded movement of students within Europe is an important freedom and
every effort should be made to ensure its early achievement. Similarly employers in the
European labour market need to have ways of understanding what they can expect from
graduates of higher education systems which are different from the ones that they are

21
acquainted with. The information available to them must take into account the academic
quality and standards of the relevant higher education institution.

Accreditation seems to be a possible method to work towards quality assurance in Europe

because international criteria can be made. So what system will work best? Will it be a
system of national, regional or European level? Should it be an institutional or specialised
body? When we accept that comparable criteria need to be developed for recognition of
qualifications, it follows that it would be useful to develop these on European level or at least
decide what European criteria should be taken into account.

There are many issues, problems and possibilities with and in the development of
accreditation, the setting of different criteria, the financial side of accreditation and the fast
growing number of stakeholders. But accreditation is one tool that can be used to reach a
better level of co-operation in quality assurance, in terms of compatible or comparable
degrees. From theoretical point of view, accreditation will be useful in order to reach the
goals and objectives of the Bologna process, but as with everything in life, it depends on how
it will be done in practice.

Transparency in European higher education

The trends presented in the previous sections show a move towards more attention in Europe
to quality evaluation and assurance, with or without special accreditation agencies next to
quality assurance agencies. The creation of ENQA carries hopes that these developments will
indeed help to create more readability and transparency. There is, however, a danger that
Europe may be moving out of a jungle of degrees but into a jungle of quality assurance and
accreditation standards, procedures and agencies. A precondition for progress for
stakeholders would be to clarify the confusion in terminology. The word "accreditation" is
generally used to designate the administrative process leading to the authorisation to establish
an institution or a programme as well as a recurrent quality assurance process. It may also
apply to credit transfer, e.g. in the process of "accreditation" of prior learning. The
development of ENQA may prove of importance to progress in the whole area of quality
assurance and "accreditation". There seems to be unanimous agreement that Europe should
not plan for a single quality assurance agency trying to enforce a single set of criteria.
Ranking and uniformity in procedures are neither wanted nor needed. Future architecture of

22
quality assurance in Europe ensuring quality in quality assurance should be about respecting
differences and not overloading universities. The notion of a European "platform" based on
criteria that must be met by quality assurance/accreditation agencies and on the mutual
acceptance of their conclusions, which could be a possible way to the future for the European
Higher Education Area. It could enhance quality and transparency and hence also mobility
within Europe as well as readability and acceptance, and hence attractiveness in the world.

For quality assurance the goal of this European dimension should be to achieve transparency
of quality assurance systems, not to replace them. Therefore a co-operation should be
established, with commonly agreed standards, procedures and guidelines for quality
assurance. This co-operation will recognise that a quality assurance system uses the agreed
standards, procedures and guidelines. It will however not get involved in the process of
quality assurance to enhance the quality of education and the mobility of students and
graduates in Europe. Accreditation agencies could be able to work in the whole European
area. However in order to give legitimacy to accreditation agencies working in Europe, a
European agreement on methods for accreditation could be made between the different
systems of quality assurance.

Implications for quality assurance in Europe

What kind of action can be expected from the ongoing dialogue between ministers, ministerial
officials and higher education institutions? One could expect a series of national reforms,
possibly taking inspiration from those countries that recently reformed their systems in line
with the Bologna Declaration. The Bologna Declaration includes a phrase on the promotion of
European co-operation in quality assurance with a view to developing comparable criteria and
methodologies. In this context, it is only proposed so far that a common framework of
reference for qualifications will be worked out. As stated before this should not introduce a
new category of European degrees or qualifications, but a common framework for existing
ones. Some recent reactions on the Bologna initiative from the side of the higher education
institutions demonstrate an agreement on the need to guarantee the quality of programmes,
credits and degrees. Accreditation is seen as a means to guarantee such minimum standards of
quality in favour of students, employers and society. It was emphasised, however, that this
should refer to content and not lead to the labelling of quantitative factors.

23
The question on how a European-wide accreditation system and quality assurance system
should operate was answered in the following ways. It would be the responsibility of the
higher education system itself to develop a continental-wide system, based upon self-
regulation schemes, which would use the national systems of quality assurance as a reference
point or benchmark. Therefore there should be close liaison between the higher education
system on the one hand, and governments on the other. This does not mean that a European
accreditation agency would be desirable, since the recognition of credits and degrees is within
the autonomy of the universities.

It is clear that there is no body or platform with the necessary competence in this field that
could operate at a European level and also that this idea would not be acceptable for the
higher education institutions, as much as for most governments.

A different type of initiative is the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) through
which provision in Business Schools is accredited. The process has the aim not only of
improving quality but also of creating transparency to assist and inform students,
stakeholders, and enhance recognition. An increasing number of Business Schools from
Europe, and some from beyond, have been accredited. Other accreditation processes include
the AMBA accreditation of MBAs and accreditation by the AACSB. Indeed several of the
best-known Business Schools have sought and been awarded accreditation by more than one
accreditation body which poses questions about transparency. Although no top-down process
is intended, this type of approach would at some point put pressure on countries where quality
assurance systems do not yet exist, or where they are not sufficiently transparent. If they
respond positively, by establishing or improving such systems, this would contribute to the
desired convergence. However, if this would not be the case, an undesired division would be
created in Europe, with possible negative consequences for the competitiveness of these non-
convergent systems and for the flows of students from these particular systems to others,
which better guarantee the quality and thus the recognition of qualifications. Finally, it should
be emphasised that in general the role of governments and thus that of national recognition
agencies, in recognition of qualifications is being marginalized by bottom-up developments at
other levels.

24
Further internationalisation of QA

Internationalisation and quality of higher education have always been closely linked together,
at least at the conceptual level. This is based on the strong belief that internationalisation
enhances the quality of higher education. Many policy documents, especially those published
in the 1980s and early 1990s, consider internationalisation as a means to improving quality,
rather than an end in itself. Examples include OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development) and EU documents statements on national policies for
internationalisation, and also many institutional-level policy plans for internationalisation.

From these various initiatives, it became clear that, although internationalisation and quality
may be closely linked at a conceptual level, they were not so much linked at the level of
practice and policy. Increased international competitiveness and international academic and
professional mobility only had a marginal impact on the quality debates, which were situated
at the level of national policy-making. Increasingly, quality assurance actors and agencies
became involved in international networks and associations, e.g. the International Network of
Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), through which they
exchanged information and experiences. It was acknowledged that also in education, taking
an international approach could strengthen quality assurance processes and outcomes, as had
been the case for a time already in research reviews. Both external and internal pressures
motivated the demand for international quality assurance. Internal pressures include the
enhanced international mobility of students and the overseas marketing of higher education
systems, i.e. the export of higher education, and external pressures come from the
globalisation of the professions, regional trade agreements, and international organisations.

The internationalisation of quality assurance did not in all cases automatically lead to an
increased focus on quality assurance of the increasingly important international dimension in
higher education itself. The main reasons for this included:
(a) internationalisation was in some cases still seen as a marginal activity
(b) national processes for assuring quality were not intended to serve an international purpose
(c) the diverse nature and spread of internationalisation activities within individual
institutions and across institutions within a higher education system
(d) the above-mentioned lack of co-ordination between quality assurance and
internationalisation actors and agencies.

25
Transnational education: international quality assurance initiatives

Under the auspices of UNESCO (Europe region) and the Council of Europe and following the
approval of the Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher
Education in the European region (the Lisbon Convention). A Working Group on
Transnational Education was set up (in 1998), to develop a Code of Good Practice in the
Provision of Transnational Education. The composition of the Working Group reflected a
mix of the education exporters, the USA, UK and Australia, countries where transnational
education was delivered such as Israel, Slovakia and Spain, and countries that both receive
and provide Transnational education such as Russia and Latvia. The Code (which is still in
draft) includes a set of principles that should be respected by institutions involved in the
provision of educational services through transnational arrangements. The Code will be
complemented by a recommendation on procedures and criteria for the assessment of foreign
qualifications to be implemented by the network of recognition centres in the Europe region.
See ESIB’s TNE handbook for more information on this specific area of education.

New key issues for QA agencies

Transnational education is not going to disappear while an enormous demand for learning and
qualifications goes unmet in the developing world. To legislate it out of existence would be to
deny access to education for many people. The fast pace of development of ICT and the use
of the Internet will provide one means of meeting increasingly diverse demands for flexible
access to education and qualifications from those already in employment. It is not sufficient to
define these developments such as the increasing number of TNE providers simply in the
terms of ‘new forms of delivery’ of higher education since there are also developments in the
type of provider offering higher education in the forms of provision. In addition, categories of
provider, provision and delivery mechanism overlap. At present we are witnessing a blurring
of boundaries between existing forms of higher education and the emergence of new forms of
provision generated both from within and from outside the traditional public and private
higher education sectors. All this is having a big impact on the conventional forms of higher
education and creates a wide range of new challenges for quality assurance.

26
Last words conclusion

This chapter has shown there is a general trend today towards increasing national and
international transparency and comparability between different systems of higher education.
But homogeneity is more popular and easier than local variation. This reflects a fundamental
question and central problem- how to balance between standardisation and situation based
systems of quality assurance. The issue that is most important to ask and discuss is the
relation between the different models and systems for evaluation of quality and the views on
higher education. To critically look at different models for centralized and precise measure
mechanism and how different routines can become institutionalized (and later can be hard to
change). If you look at knowledge and education from a strict economic perspective then this
is the right way to go, but if you have a wider view on education, quality and the role of
education in society then you most likely make a different analysis.

27
 The International Network for Quality Assurance
Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) was
established in 1991.

The Role of the Network

The main purpose of the Network is to collect and
disseminate information on current and developing theory
and practice in the assessment, improvement and
maintenance of quality in higher education.

Through this information sharing, and otherwise, it is

intended that the Network should:

? ? Promote good practices in the maintenance and

improvement of quality in higher education;

? ? Facilitate research into the practice of quality

management in higher education and its
effectiveness;

? ? Be able to provide advice and expertise to assist the

development of new quality assurance agencies;

? ? Facilitate links between accrediting bodies

especially insofar as they operate across national
borders;

? ? Assist members to determine the standards of

institutions operating across national borders;

? ? Permit better-informed international recognition of

qualifications;

? ? Be able to assist in the development and use of

credit transfer schemes to enhance the mobility of
students between institutions within and across
national borders;

28
 3. Comparative analysis of National QA
Systems

Different systems across Europe

All countries have some kind of quality assurance mechanism in place, although they differ
significantly in terms of purpose, focus and organisation. Quality evaluation is only an
internal responsibility of higher education institutions in some countries where no national
agency exists, e.g. in Austria, Switzerland, the French community of Belgium, Germany
and Slovenia.
In many countries there is an obligation for universities to have their own quality evaluation
system and a body at national level responsible for the organisation and stimulation of this
process, e.g. in Portugal, Spain, Germany and Iceland. However the majority of countries
have a quality assurance agency also carrying out external evaluation functions. Most were
created or restructured in the 1990s. Some operate as single national agencies in unitary or
integrated systems (e.g. in the UK, Norway, Sweden and Romania) or in binary systems (e.g.
Denmark and Estonia). Other countries have an agency for each sub-sector of a binary
system, e.g. Poland and Ireland. In countries with decentralised or federal structures in higher
education some specific features exist; in Spain, some communities like Andalucia and
Catalunya have their own quality assurance system and agency that follows the same
principles as the national level. In Germany the Federal Ministry is funding a special project
operated by the Rectors' Conference for the sharing of information and experience
concerning quality evaluation between the federal states. In the UK there are two agencies,
one for Scotland and one for the rest of the country. A few new quality assurance agencies
were set up or are in preparation. In Italy the 1999 reform laws required all universities to re-
organise their self-evaluation and replaced the former "observatory" for university evaluation
by a new, independent National Committee for Quality Assurance which can set standards
and produce reports. The first phase of Spain's national plan for quality evaluation expired at
the end of 2000 and it is at this moment not yet clear which changes will be introduced. In
Ireland the new qualifications Act of 1999 created a new National Qualifications Agency
with two awarding bodies (for higher education

29
and for further education) next to the standing Higher Education Authority which reviews the
quality assurance procedures of universities. Austria, Switzerland, the French community of
Belgium and Slovakia have plans to set up a national quality assurance agency which would
seek links with ENQA. A project also exists in Greece, where quality assurance has gained
acceptance, but the role of the agency under consideration has not yet been defined.
Slovenia has reported no plans for the creation of an agency. While in the UK and in Ireland
quality assurance is mostly outcome-based, many other systems remain primarily based on
inputs such as curricula and resources. In most cases external quality assurance agencies deal
with programmes rather than whole institutions and in several countries the evaluation
process is organised along subject lines on a cross-institutional basis, e.g. in the Netherlands,
Flanders, Estonia and the UK. This type of "benchmarking" of particular disciplinary or
professional areas is becoming more important and more common.

You can say that from a European perspective there is a development of different systems and
methods that look more alike. If this is the result of the aims of the European Union or of the
international interaction it is hard to say. But you can draw the conclusion that the Humbolt
ideals with knowledge primarily as a personal-humanistic function are to a growing extent
competing from the view on education as solely an economic good. The discussion about the
increasing need for further education for a bigger part of the population in the knowledge-
based society is now the goal description for higher education in all countries. If the
economic-productive view on knowledge and the human capital ideal is also something that
dominates the students view on their education or if it is only in the program descriptions and
in the contemporary rhetoric for the governments is not clear. In the current political rhetoric,
education is given a fundamental importance for economic and democratic development.
There is also a trend towards a more professional form of university teacher that is supposed
to be the ‘teacher, researcher and administrator’. There is also a trend aiming university
teachers towards a more discipline and research oriented view on quality. A conclusion from
this is a move towards a more political and "user” oriented view on quality.

Different QA system- different values on knowledge?

The different systems of evaluation exemplify differences between the various opinions on
who should guide the evaluation of quality of knowledge. But the systems do not only vary on
the issue of steering power. There are also different views on knowledge in the various

30
systems. When evaluation has a political/democratic function knowledge is seen as a value in
the political system, more specifically for the democracy. When there is an economic-
producer function, knowledge has a more widely economic value for competitiveness, profit
and employability. An individual- humanistic function reflects a view in knowledge as
personal good something to make the life richer for the individual. Conflict between the
different views on knowledge is obvious in most theoretical work about quality and quality
assurance and reforms on higher education. An effect of this is also the difference there is
about knowledge and the value of it for the contemporary society and is still very much based
on these three different modern goals of knowledge.

You might wonder why this is important in the analysis of and work with different systems of
quality assurance. One can stress that the view on knowledge within the society also
dominates different quality assurance systems. It is not a rule and it has different implications
in different systems, but some conclusions can be drawn. Can the same quality measures and
system be used when there are different views on the values of knowledge? Can the same
criteria be used for all programs, subjects and institutions? The different systems also produce
different forms of knowledge about quality and this results in different higher education
institutions.

The National Structure

In most cases the national structures of quality assurance should be established by law and
funded by the state. However the agency should retain its independence from government.
The organisation should be governed by an elected board, consisting of nominees from
universities (including both academic and administrative staff); student representatives
nominated by the national unions, representatives of the employers sector, other stakeholders
and lay members (representing the role of higher education in the wider society).

This national structure should allow for a certain degree of autonomy of individual
institutions, providing the sector with examples of both good and bad practice, nationally and
internationally. The organisation should be focused on supporting and advising institutions
on quality assurance rather than policing. In addition as an expert in the field of higher
education the agency should be able to advise the government on higher education policy.

31
A common approach used recognises a reasonably consistent set of principles:
? ? Meeting public information needs, so that stakeholders have information about the
quality and standards of learning and teaching at different HEIs and in different
subjects
? ? Recognising the primary responsibility of each HEI to operate suitable internal
mechanisms for monitoring and assuring quality.
? ? Ensuring that HEIs are not burdened with administration that the system is
accountable and greatest value is secured from the resources invested.

Many decisions will have to be taken relating to how intrusive inspections/audits/assurance

will be, and in many cases this will be in part determined by the state of development of
institution level quality assurance structures.

The institutional self-evaluation document most usually forms the core documents for all
discussions concerning quality assurance

Major concerns will include the frequency of assurance processes, the level of external
involvement and the type and amount of information collected. There has frequently been an
argument made that those institutions seen to perform consistently well should be subject to a
less rigorous assessment than others judged to be at risk of not meeting the desired standards.

Most systems will involve some form of inspection/audit. Throughout the duration of this
audit the stakeholders should be involved at all times.

A recent development in England is the creation of a national student satisfaction survey.

This tool would allow students to input into an independent and national assessment of
student satisfaction. Questions may relate not only to the provision of teaching and learning
but also to the provision of support services such as IT, library facilities, careers advice and
pastoral support. This provides supplementary evidence to support any system of
inspection/audit and can be a valuable source of both qualitative and quantitative data.

32
The Institutional Structure

It is critical that all higher education institutions maintain their own internal, rigorous quality
assurance systems. These structures should permeate every area and every level of teaching
and learning.

Ideally reports should be presented back to committees at all levels of university

administration i.e. course, department/school, faculty and institution-wide. The committees to
which reports should be made should include representatives of the internal stakeholders
including students, academic and administrative staff. At the higher levels there should also
be lay-members involved, representing the interests of the local community. In this way the
committees should very much reflect the structure of the board of the national agency.

At the lower levels of this assurance structure a functioning and effective course/class
representative structure will be necessary. These elected representatives are able to act as the
voice of their peers, feeding into the process of quality assurance and taking an active role in
course/department and faculty meetings and driving forward the process of quality assurance
and enhancement.

In addition to this a variety of methods will need to be used to assess quality including
collecting student feedback and assessing levels of student satisfaction.

Case studies

When looking at and comparing different QA systems there are certain questions that should
be asked to be able to understand the culture in which they work, there aim and purposes and
what role they play not only for the HE institutions but also for politics and society at large.
What is steering the evaluation of quality and QA mechanism in higher education? What is
being evaluated and why are some factors more important to look at than others? Who
decides what is important? Who steers the decision making process and manages the
evaluation of quality. What is the relationship between the different actors on the local,
regional national level, between politics, administration, institutions and students. What
criteria are used when judging the quality and what are they based on? What are the guiding
principles within the system? What are the strength and weaknesses with the different

33
systems and principles? What similarities and differences between the systems and what
factors decide this?

Sweden

Introduction
The evaluation of Higher Education went threw a major change in 1992. The focus and the
responsibility of the evaluations were shifted to the different HEI institutions; the students
were seen as the most important actor. It views mainly their interest and end that was to
guide the priorities for the institutions. The basic idea for the evaluation of quality is the
result of quality, what have students actually learned when they leave the institutions. There
was also a need for evaluations on the national level to have an international perspective. The
follow up these results and quality assurance was seen as two parts of the same quality
system. The actors, that are locally responsible for the education, base every evolution of
quality on a self-evaluation. To this self-evaluation, an external evaluation is added (peer
review) that is given to the actors involved and that can be sued as the base for further
development and change.

Finally the evaluation has to lead to concrete measures if to be considers valid and valuable.
There should also be a long-term strategic plan for the evaluation so that the institutions
know what to expect. Every university and högskola has the responsibility to make a plan
and program for the evaluation of quality. The national agency of higher education should
look at specific things. When evaluating the institutions means judging the strategies, goals,
plans, systems, methods and the organisations that the institutions use to secure and develop
the quality devices are “evaluate to develop” and “quality is a journey not a destination”. The
most important, method in the evaluation work of the institutions is the self-evaluation, a
study visit by externals, and a meeting to discuss the evaluation report from the group. The
roll of the external group is to initiate discussions, create reflections and give a base for the
problem solutions. The open approach means that the evaluation group has a consultative
role, and that importance should be on the self-evaluation. The board of the institution, the
Agency and the external group should decide the final report; every institutional evaluation is
reported in a separate document. A good institution should be characterized by, self
guidance, learning environment, long term thinking and planning, transparent leadership, co-
operation with the surrounding society, equality and to always have the focus on the student

34
as the center. Since 1999 there is also evaluation of certain perspective in the institution they
cross over the between different programs and topics.

Equality, student influence, ethnic and social diversity. One of the main reasons for the
increasing ambition in quality is that Swedish education has been able to be compared and
analysed in an international perspective and that prospective students have access to the
information of a high quality. From the side of the ministry and the agency there are certain
purposes and aims with the evaluations; control- the quality should be evaluated to be a base
for educational political discussions, the citizens have the right to see how their tax money is
spend, development- the institutions should be able to use the self evaluation for in their own
quality and development work, information- students and other stakeholders need easy
accessible information when choosing education and institution, and comparisons-.people
should be able to compare the different institutions, both on national and international level.
A last tend is that an increasing number of Swedish institutions are accredited by
international accreditation agencies such as EQUIS.

Estonia
Introduction

External quality assessment in Estonia is a continuous process of accreditation. The main

difference from the American accreditation system is that the government finances the
process of accreditation and the body responsible for accreditation decisions is a government
agency. As in most Western European countries the quality assessment includes the following
methods - self-evaluation of higher education institutions, peer-review and public report. In
general the process of accreditation comprises of four parts - self-evaluation;
recommendations of foreign experts on the basis of the self-evaluation report and assessment
visit; accreditation decision made by the governmental expert body Higher Education Quality
Assessment Council on the basis of the recommendations of foreign experts and the final part
is the self-improvement of the institution.

Accreditation in Estonia

According to the Law on Universities (1995), all study programmes in universities must be
evaluated and accredited once every seven years. The accreditation of universities and applied
higher education institutions and their study program is granted by the Higher Education

35
Quality Assessment Council, which established in 1995. The latter is formed by the
Government and operates by the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. The
Higher Education Quality Assessment Council forms evaluation committees. The
recommendations of which the Higher Education Quality Assessment Council makes
proposals regarding universities/applied higher education institutions and their operation. The
evaluation committees are made up of representatives of research and development
institutions as well as of experts from two foreign countries.

In 1997, the administrative office of Estonian Higher Education Accreditation Center within
the Foundation Archimedes was established. The center prepares all relevant documentation
for the Higher Education Quality Assessment Council, including self-analysis reports and
reports by expert commission, as the main documents for accreditation of study programmes

Two types of accreditation are available:

- Institutional i.e., for a higher education as a whole or for its structural units.
- Program.

There are three accreditation categories:

1. Accredited: Indicates that the higher education institution or the study programmes meets
the set of requirements. The decision may also include recommendations for eliminating
minor shortcomings.

2. Conditionally Accredited: Indicates than institution or study program under

Review has major shortcomings, which need to be eliminated or addressed.

3. Not Accredited: Indicates that the institution or study program has serious shortcomings
that jeopardize the quality of graduates knowledge and skills. In the case of a negative
accreditation decision ("Not Accredited") for the first time for an institution or study program,
the university/applied higher education institution may apply for a second accreditation, one
year after the first accreditation decision.

Experience shows that accreditation of the curriculum means the accreditation for the
institution, particularly if the curriculum, which was accredited, is the profile course for this

36
institution. If the Council for evaluation of higher education in Estonia grants the
accreditation to a certain curriculum, it means that the curriculum satisfies the Estonian
educational standards and that the government recognizes the diploma of this institution.

Quality management at state level has lead to the identification of typical problems in
academic higher education. The previous Soviet higher education system and the rapid
transfer caused the main problems in academic higher education from the old system to the
new system.

The awareness of students about accreditation has grown but it is troubling that the students
don't believe that their opinions are considered in the process. Their knowledge is also lacking
on the part that accreditation is a continuous process aimed at improvement.
Accreditation processes have stimulated inner quality assessment at the university, faculty and
department level to the extent that there is a goal to establish a regular quality assurance
system within the university. This would be a beneficial addition to the overall quality
management model. In this respect quality management would lead to quality improvement.

Typical problems in higher education

Recommendations made by the foreign experts have not only helped to make individual
decisions and conclusions, but studying different expert reports made by different experts in
different areas of study has been beneficial to discovering the typical problems in higher
education irrelevant of the specific study field. On the basis of a study that examined 41
expert reports made in 1998 - 1999 typical problems concerning the structure and content of
the study programmes, organisation of studies, study process, academic staff, students
resources and inner quality assurance systems can be described. In short the most common
problems are the following –

Problems concerning curricula:

? ? Over 30% of expert reports stated that the curricula are too intense, because they include
too many small subjects;
? ? Principles for the compilation of curricula require review; they are currently based on
traditions, ad hoc decisions or availability of lecturers;
? ? It has been recommended that they be preceded by clear formulation of aims and goals
and defining of vocational skills and knowledge sought;
? ? The total duration (10 years) of academic studies is too long; according to the opinion of
different experts 8 - 9 years would be reasonable.

37
The Netherlands

Introduction

The quality assurance-system in the Netherlands today is threefold: internal QA (activities

pointed at preservation and improvement of quality within the institution itself), external QA
(retaining experts and external people the quality assurance-process) and a meta-evaluation by
the government (to control the quality-preservation by the institutions and the way of how
these institutions assimilate the results of the quality-review). Before the description of the
quality assurance-system, it should be made clear that there‘re two different kinds of higher
education institutions in the Netherlands. There’s a division between universitary and non-
universitary higher education (hogescholen).
The universities are responsible not only for providing good quality study programmes; they
are also responsible for a satisfactory system of external quality assurance. The other side of
this autonomy is accountability to the taxpayer, to the government, to present and future
students and society as a whole.

Universitary higher education

The responsibility for the organisation of the quality assurance is up to the higher education
institutions themselves. The Dutch universities are due to watch over permanently the quality
of their education and research (internal), to organise a review of this (external) and to give
effect at the recommendations. There is a close relationship between the internal and external
QA: the external QA can stimulate the internal QA, while the internal QA is essential for the
external QA. In this perspective both QA are to be regarded as complementary and integrated.

Internal Quality Assurance

The self-evaluation report is the corner stone of the whole QA-system. It should stimulate the
internal QA by a strengths/weakness-analysis, be a preparation for the external visitation and
give information to the review committee about the internal QA. The better this report, the
better the review committee will be able to perform its tasks. The form and the content are set
out in a protocol, to make sure only relevant information is brought together. A standard self-
evaluation report contains several quality-aspects like objectives, structure and content of the
study programme, learning and teaching environment and curriculum organisation.

External Quality Assurance

The external QA is organised by the independent council of Dutch Universities (VSNU) or
the council of universities of professional education (HBO-raad). A review committee visits
every eight years each study programme at all the different universities in order to form a
judgement about various aspects of the quality of the study programme (the visitation-
system). The main objectives of the QA are first of all quality guarding, quality-improvement
and establishing accountability. These objectives are translated in four tasks for the review
committees: to assess, to advise, to compare and to inform. The system of external QA consist
of the following elements: the visitations are related to a study programme or a group of,
inter-universitary, based on a self-evaluation, executed by a committee of independent
external experts, including a student, published in a final and public report, and an
implementation of the recommendations as described in the report by the members of the
review committee.
There‘re three different phases in the visitation-system: first of all a critical self-evaluation of
the study-programme itself by the higher education institution by interviewing the staff, the

38
students, and the administration. The results are brought together in an internal self-evaluation
report. It forms the corner stone of the whole visitation-system. The other element of this first
phase is the composition of the review committee.
The second phase consists of the real evaluation of the education and research quality by the
external review committee. The committee visits the universities for three days. Their first
task is to draw up a frame of reference, with a detailed description of their approach. They
keep separate conversations with the different parties involved (students, staff,...). At the end
of the visit a short oral report is given, with the first impressions of the review committee.
Finally, the review committee publishes a final and public report: the findings and
recommendations are embodied in a detailed description. The study programme must carry
out the recommendations of the review committee. The outcome of the review committee can
be used to change and improve a study programme. Thereby, the external investigation by the
review committee is a safeguard as well as a test of this self-appraisal.
At the same time, it augments the goal of improvement. The external review committee also
places the assessment in a national and international context. It’s their task to identify the
areas that have to be improved.

Non-universitary higher education

The decree on the higher education institutions outside the universities states that these
institutions are responsible themselves for the organisation of their internal and external
quality assurance. The law makes mandatory upon these institutions to organise continuous
quality control on a permanent base, investigating their education.

The QA-system here is also based on three kinds of investigation: internal (self-analysis and a
self-evaluation report), external (visiting committees) and a control function by the Education
Inspection. During the quality-investigation, different actors are involved: students, alumni,
staff, employers, experts, government, etc. Important is the obligation to make the advises and
remarks public. This is also an obligation: it is impossible for a higher education institution
not to improve their education and research. If so, the government can take severe measures.

Internal Quality Assurance

The process of internal quality assurance takes place within the study programme itself. In
general, this process consists of continually collecting information about the quality that is
being achieved. For the purposes of external quality assurance, this internal process results in
a description in a so-called self-evaluation report. Next, the analysis of these results leads to a
strengths/weaknesses analysis. The form and the content are set out in a protocol, to make
sure only relevant information is used.

External Quality Assurance

The organisation of the external Quality Assurance is in the hands of the HBO-raad (Dutch
Association of polytechnics). Their role is to make a list of members of the review committee,
to construct a protocol for the visitations, to receive the general report with the remarks an
recommendations of the review committee and to evaluate the quality assurance. The
members of the review committee are drawn from a broad spectrum. It is their responsibility
to draft a general report on the quality of the investigated study programme. It is important to
note that this report must be made public by the HBO-raad. The objectives and the role of the
review committee consist in the preparation of their visit, the make-up of a time-schedule, the
analysis of the self-evaluation-report, the visit itself, an oral judgement and a final public
report.

39
Meta-evaluation by the education inspection: a watchdog role

The independent education inspection (Onderwijs inspectie) watches over the Quality
Assurance system and checks the workings of the internal and external Quality Assurance as
follows frequently. It can also do comparative research to the quality of education in a certain
program or group of programs through a committee of independent experts, which reports its
findings publicly. Thirdly the Education inspection sees to it that university and non-
university institutions follow up on the results of the quality assessment in their policies. They
report in their year report on the quality control and the measures they have taken to follow up
on the findings and recommendations of the internal and external evaluation.

If the Education inspection assesses that the quality of education or research is questionable,
the board has to present a plan within six months that shows which measures it intends to take
to eliminate the assessed shortcomings. In case the quality of education of a program, after
thorough quality assessment, is reckoned to be insufficient the Dutch government can decide
to stop financing the program and its students, or that the program cannot reward degrees
anymore. The role of the education inspection will be taken over in 2008 by the new national
accreditation organisation that will be created following a new law implemented in 2001.

Conclusion
QA in the Netherlands (based on and in close co-operation with Flanders) is quite well
organised and is mainly intended to improve the quality of the study programmes. The
different parties involved are all contacted and consulted in the different aspects of the quality
assurance, internal and external. A close reading of this short description, makes clear that the
QA system is almost the same for the universities and the other higher education institutions.
Still, there are some weak aspects in the QA system: the clarity and explicitly of review
reports, the acquaintance of the foreign experts in the review committees with the internal QA
of the visited institutions, their understanding of the legal framework, the internalisation of
external QA and how academic research is integrated in the academic education.

40
Summary Table of Sweden, Estonia and Netherlands
Main Questions Sweden Estonia Netherlands
Who orders the State/Government State/Government
evaluation? State/government
Ownership of National Agency for Higher Education Netherlands Association of
evaluation? Higher education Quality Assessment Universities of Professional
Council education (HBO-raad) for
professional Higher
Education and the Dutch
Association of Universities
(VSNU) for academic HE.
Owned by the institutions
Financing State State HE Institutions
Who Staff from the Agency Evaluation Committees For professional Higher
– organizes/ for Higher education. from the Council. education (Hogescholen)
coordinates Staff primarily from Estonian Higher HBO raad. For university
– executes HE institutions Education education, VSNU. Staff from
executes. Accreditation Center universities, polytechnics
Students included. and external executes.
Students are included.
Inspectorate executes Meta
evaluations for Higher
education.
When/timeframe? 6-year cycles. 6 year cycles
Continuously after 7 year cycles
application.
What is evaluated Sector for Higher Institutions as whole or Sector for Higher Education.
–size Education. structural units and Inspection of programs.
–object Institutional, general study programmes. Inspectorate performs meta
degree, professional Aim of evaluation to inspections in relation to goal
degree, subject meet educational descriptions. Guiding
evaluation. Evaluation standards for the documents.
of preconditions for recognition of
performance and result diplomas.
in relation to the state
of law, practice and
degree structure.
Guiding documents.
Why? What is the Control, information, Control, development, Control, accountability and
purpose of comparison and improvement, development
Evaluation? development information.

Method Self evaluation, Self-analysis reports For program evaluation; self-

external evaluation and reports by expert evaluation, external
group, study visit and commissions, in which evaluation group. Study visit,
publication often foreign experts and publication
take part.

41
Comparative perspective on Accreditation

Accreditation, defined as the public confirmation by an external body that certain

standards of quality are met, is not a tradition in Europe. Many countries in Central and
Eastern Europe established accreditation agencies after the political chang es and
transformations in higher education in the region. These agencies differ from each other
in several respects. Their status and composition reflect various degrees of independence
from the ministry, government or parliament that they advise. In most cases their prime
mission has been to "accredit" new programmes or institutions (universities or faculties),
in particular private ones. In this case accreditation is rather an authorisation to set up an
institution or a programmes based on an ex evaluation of the components presented.
Such authorisations have also existed in other countries to protect the homogeneity of
nationally defined curricula and degrees, e.g. in France, Spain and Italy. In its broader,
more widespread definition accreditation refers to a cyclical process (e.g. every 5 to 6
years) of certification of the quality of a program (sometimes a whole institution) based
mainly on outcomes rather than on inputs.

This mission of accreditation agencies is well established in some countries (e. g. in

Hungary) and is gaining importance in others. The relationship between quality
assurance and accreditation varies from one country to another. In the UK and Ireland,
accreditation is carried out de facto and not by separate specialised agencies but by the
quality assurance agencies. In these cases a publicly expressed opinion on the quality of
a program, based on established standards, is seen as a final step of the quality assurance
process. This is also the case in countries with an "accreditation agency" responsible
both for external quality assurance and for accreditation, e.g. in Hungary, Latvia, Estonia
and Sweden. In other countries such as Denmark, Finland and Lithuania quality
assurance agencies have no specific accreditation mission, or accre ditation agencies have
no specific role in quality assurance. (Even though their activities may have an important
function in terms of quality evaluation and assurance at institutional level, as e.g. in the
Czech and Slovak Republics). There are also examp les of accreditation bodies
responsible for only certain disciplines (e.g. teacher education in Portugal or engineering
studies in France) or certain types of institutions: Austria has two separate accreditation
agencies for Fachhochschulen and for private universities (but none yet for public
universities). In Poland the draft new law on higher education plans to unify the hitherto
split accreditation bodies for universities and polytechnics. Since the adoption of the
Bologna Declaration several countries have taken measures to introduce accreditation in
their higher education system.

In Germany, the Netherlands and Flanders program accreditation is directly linked to the
Bachelor/Master reform and aims at guaranteeing the quality, visibility and credibility of
the new degrees. In Germany the National Accreditation Council created in 1999 does
not directly accredit programmes (except under special circumstances); rather, it
authorises regional or subject -based accreditation agencies organised by the higher
education community to accredit new programmes and allow them to carry the quality
label of the National Council.

This decentralised, indirect structure of accreditation, is sometimes referred to as "meta -

accreditation. In the Netherlands an accreditation system should be in place by 2002 as a
constituent part of the reform introducing Bachelor/Master degrees. It will be based on a
single agency with two awarding bodies, for professional and scientific courses. It is
interesting to point out that the dividing line does not formally depend on the type of
institution undertaking the course (i.e. whether it is a university or a hogeschool) but on
the content and orientation of the course. An accreditation agency is also in preparation
in Flanders and close co-operation between the Dutch and Flemish agencies is foreseen.
Switzerland is preparing a single agency for quality assurance and accreditation. Plans
for an accreditation scheme and agency are also under consideration in Norway, Austria
and Finland. Most of these projects have been inspired by the Bologna Declaration.

43
 4. Local Dimensions – students
involvement in QA
The aim of this chapter is to examine the concept of quality and quality assurance in
education from the perspective of students and wit h a focus on student involvement. The
focus of this chapter therefore will be based around the development of internal QA
procedures. Some ideas and tools will be presented that can help students to get involved
in the quality assurance of their own study programs and courses as well as institutions.
There will be exploration of several methods of self -organisation within the QA process
that will be followed by the outlining of various possible methods that can be utilised by
students in becoming key actors in QA in their institutions. The corner stone of this
chapter seeks to develop the following:

Why do students have to be involved in the QA process?

Students are the ones for which education has been primarily designed. They are the ones
dealing with it day in day out over several years. This makes them real experts on QA;
students know best how their (ideal) education and study environment should look like.

Organisation of students

In some countries, the committees that deal with QA are already part of the structure of
HEI’s. In many other countries, there is still no official place for these committees within
the HEI’s structure. Therefore, the possibilities that these committees have to achieve
their objectives and the way in which students can take part in them also differ a lot.
Despite this there are a lot of over-arching similarities between all kinds of ‘organised
groups of students that want to assure and improve the quality of their education.’ Some
of the key problems in setting up a QA committee need to be discussed and resolved to
allow students to input successfully.

44
When they don’t listen

In the ideal university or polytechnic, when you have a problem with the quality of your
education, you can directly go to the responsible lecturer(s) and solve it together. Also, in
an ideal situation, students will always be asked their opinion about the quality of their
education and involved in existing or emergent QA schemes. But unfortunately, this ideal
situation seldom exists.

Problem:

If nobody wants to listen to what you have to say and the more diplomatic avenues have
been exhausted, it may become necessary to use opportunism ‘he who screams the
loudest often gets the most attention’. This approach can be quite simple to use. You
identify one of the main annoying and frustrating problems in your program or faculty
related to the quality of teaching, facilities etc. Everybody involved in the area will be
aware that this problem exists and that nobody wants to take the action to resolve it.
You’ve tried using the various committees or methods available to you to resolve the
matter but nobody is willing to listen let alone take action.

Possible solution:

You do a short survey amongst your fellow students, preferably from different years and
specialities and present the outcome to the director of the education. They can take a
number of possible actions.
They can thank you for the effort and take the line that they will ‘see what they can do
with the outcomes at some other point in time.’ If this is the situation, or even worse,
you’re not being taken seriously and are being accused of only complaining, then you’re
forced to put the problems into an open forum and involve a wider community.
There are many possibilities that you take use, e.g. your local university paper, a regional
paper or even the national media. All those education correspondents and news

45
researchers can be reachable and will be interested, as long as you present them with
issue in the right way. Getting attention for a problem is often the first step towards
enforcing quality and student’s involvement in QA.

Getting things done

It is also possible that the director agrees with you, admits that the problem exists and
involves you in the search for a solution. In these scenar ios you are in a positive position.
You have the opportunity to take part in the problem solving process and demonstrate
that you didn’t only come up with the problem but also have thoughts on possible
solutions. The opportunity to make evident to the inst itutions the advantages that can be
gained by involving students in QA is vital in this scenario. After that, the only thing you
still have to do is to organise the structural form of the student representation. You cannot
always keep doing everything your selves. Let other students know what you have
accomplished and undertake more small surveys and look at setting up a group of
students to help you. Initially look for contact persons in other years/classes and give
them something practical to do. If after a while you find that you are working for a longer
time and with a bigger group of people, it may be time to see if and how things should be
structured (working groups, committee, meeting etc). You should be careful of course not
to get overly structured o r bureaucratic, since it is imperative that you stay flexible and
practical, otherwise you may encounter similar problems as the structures in your
institution: slow, bureaucratic and not capable of solving problems in the shot/medium
term.

When you have managed to get around the table with the right person(s), you’re ultimate
goal should be to establish student involvement in the QA process on a structural basis.
You should carry out a survey amongst students regarding the structure of the QA
process and analyse the current obstacles and ways of solving them. While dealing with
the present situation also remain aware of the QA evaluations and the implementation of
recommendations.

46
Composition of the QA committee

For the formation of a committee which is to deal with QA, whether institutionalised in
the HEI or not, it is very important to give enough attention to the composition of the
committee. At least two aspects of the composition have to be taken into account: the
way of deciding on the actual members of the committee and the continuity of the
committee.

When you’re planning to set up a new committee or are already a member of one and
trying to find more people to join it, there are several ways to do this. Of course, the
easiest way would be just looking around in your immediate environment of classmates
and staff and making them enthusiastic about been involved. The positive thing about this
is that it’s likely that the committee will consist of people who know each other well and
are able to work together. But the negative implications are that the committee probably
will not be seen as very representative, neither by the academics, nor by the students of
the educational program. This may become an obstacle when the committee is not taken
seriously and can allow people the excuse of not to listen to what you have to say.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to make sure that all the different groups involved in the
study program are represented the committee should reflect the educational community
that it serves. To be even more representatives, or at least get recognition as being the
official representatives of the students in the study program, the members of the QA
committee should be chosen directly by those they represent. Besides recognition, t his
form of selection can also increase the relationship between students and staff, since
those interested would have to present themselves in order to get votes.

Despite the positive aspects of diversity of the members of the committee and a
democratic way of composing it, it can have a negative influence on the unity within the
committee. The members can be often be open to difference and have opposing ideals
and interests, which hinders the development of a strong committee.

47
Besides the way of find ing and choosing members of a QA committee, also its continuity
is something that must be given some attention. It’s important to find answers for
essential questions: how often should the members of the committee change? Should the
total committee change at once or gradually? How long should a member stay in the
committee? How should knowledge and information be kept in the committee and
transferred to new members? Is it possible to build an archive? Is it possible to get some
kind of (external) training and other support?

Tasks of QA committee

Although it might seem straightforward, the tasks of a QA committee have to be thought

about carefully by its members. It depends on the members of the committee, on the time
and energy they have, on the atmosphere in which they (want to) operate, co-operation of
teachers, professors, directors and administration staff what the actual tasks will be. Of
course, the main idea of QA is evaluation of the quality of education. The committee can
assess the strengths and weaknesses of courses and/or entire study programs and even
institution. This can be based on surveys which provide an analysis of the problems
students face in their studies and/or opinions about it.

Besides this key task, a QA committee can decide to go a step further; it may suggest and
initiate changes of courses and study programs that lead to improvements. Of course one
should take care that this does not distract from the QA assessments. One should avoid
the impression that the QA assessment is done in a subjective way, with the aim of
implementing changes.

Another task the QA committee might take upon it is to critically look at possible effects
of changes in education that directors or professors intend to implement. This can be seen
as a pre-emptive kind of QA. Although most people cannot see into the future and
therefore it’s often hard to predict what the effect of changes will be, it’s always
beneficial to take time to think about possible effects it can have.

48
Evaluation of education

Having a selection of evaluation methodologies is an essential element of a functioning

internal QA system. It gives necessary information about actual and perceived strengths
and weaknesses of education programs and/or courses. But before just collecting a bun ch
of information, it’s good to consider a few choices that have to be made, based on the
following questions:

? ? When is it useful for students to start evaluating themselves?

? ? What should always be taken into account with evaluations?
? ? What different ways of collecting information exist, depending on the purpose of
it?

Considering the possibilities and goals of students, three different functions of evaluating
seem logical:

1) Signalling problems in the quality of education.

If it is not possible for a group of students to get attention for their questions,
problems and complaints, a signalling action might be useful to get this attention.
The main goal of the evaluation is signalling problems or to get a broad overview
of positive and negative aspects of a n educational program. This can also be seen
as an attempt to change the culture of the faculty/education. This would move
towards a situation where students can get attention for their experiences with
their own education. An evaluation and actions follow ing it can open the eyes of
teachers and create an atmosphere where students need to get attention for their
problems.

These kinds of evaluations are mainly useful at HEI’s without a culture of QA.
Where quality of education is not being discussed and where there is no
willingness to change this systematically. In these cases, evaluations should
obtain basic information about obstacles and positive aspects of an educational

49
 program. In these cases neither students, nor the institution have a direct need for
very detailed studies about education. First of all the evaluation should be aimed
at getting an overview of some general problems, which should trigger
discussions with lecturers. In other words, the evaluation should have the function
of starting up discussions about the quality of education programs. About what’s
desired and what isn’t.

2) Finding out the origins of the problems in order to improve education.

This function of evaluating aims at investigating the backgrounds and causes of
already ascertained problems. The results of the investigation can be used to
directly improve aspects of education, like for example the way of teaching,
available resources, the study schedule, the study load or the construction of the
curriculum.

Evaluations aimed at finding out the origins of problems is especially useful for
students in situations where some kind of QA already exists, but not in a way
where the student interests are enough taken into account. One can envisage a
situation in which evaluations take place within the institution, but students aren’t
being involved in it. Or if information is being gathered but not published and it
remains unclear what happens with it. In these situations, the main concern of
students will be to get involved in the pr ocess of QA.

3) Checking if the HEI gives enough attention to assuring quality.

This function is about evaluating the evaluations of the institution or faculty. It’s
about finding out how QA actually works, how evaluations are being undertaken,
how the complaints of students are being dealt with, how the outcomes of
evaluations are being used and what’s the role of students in the process.

The question when it’s useful for students to actually do an evaluation themselves
depends of what already has been done in the past by the HEI. It doesn’t make sense to
put much time and effort into an evaluation which already has been done in some way in

50
the past, or when the obstacles you want to detect are already widely known. Therefore,
before starting up an evaluation it’s wise to find out what information is already available
and usable.
When there are still clear obstacles that have to be evaluated, the question should be
asked if automatically students should take up the task. QA actually should be the
responsibility of the HEI and it’s therefore logical to try to convince them to take that
responsibility. Of course, only if you can be sure they will do it the way it should be
done. If the information you need is not available yet and it’s impossible to convince t he
HEI do a proper evaluation, there’s no other option than to do it yourselves. Some things
that should be taken into account in every evaluation are described in the following part.

The process of evaluating normally consists of some steps that always come back. It can
be seen as a circular process, which can be put in a diagram.

Problem definition Instruments Population

QA system Control Data analysis

Problem definition: What do you want to evaluate and with which purpose? Here the
three functions of evaluation come back. To get to the purpose of the evaluation and
define a clear ‘research question’ one should consider what the reason was for the
evaluation, if there’s a concrete definable problem or a general feeling of dissatisfaction.
Furthermore, one should decide on which elements of the education the evalua tion should
focus, like the curriculum, certain courses, educational resources, way of teaching, access
to courses, etc.

Instruments: how can you evaluate it? Different kinds of instruments exist, linked with
the different functions of evaluations. That is, signalling instruments, diagnostic
instruments and procedures aiming at the attention for QA. The instruments can hereby
also differ in accuracy, the way in which information will be collected and the sources of

51
information. Generally speaking, with signalling instruments rough information about the
education program is being collected with the goal to bring the quality of education into
discussion. Diagnostic instruments aim to give detailed information at course level.
Procedures focussing attention o n QA analyse to what extent the system of QA in an HEI
has been developed properly.

Population: essential questions that has to be answered when a decision about the
population has to be taken, are:
-From whom will the information be collected? This has an important influence on the
representativity of the collected data.
-What quality should it have? The accountability and validity of data depends
considerably on the quality of the population.

Data analysis: how will the data be processed and analysed? When composing an
evaluation one should think of the way in which the information produced by will be
processed and analysed, like in any other research. Basically the question(s) in the
evaluation should be formulated in a clear way, the outcomes of the evaluation should
give an answer to the defined problem and it must be possible to process and analyse the
data with the available resources, which can vary from manpower to fancy statistical
programs.

Control: Are the outcomes/advises of the evaluation implemented in policies or ignored?

QA system: Does (the motive for) the evaluation give ground for changing the existing
QA system or even creating one?

There is a wide range of possible methods and procedures that can be used for collecting
information. Some of themes are easier to use then others. Some demand a lot of
organisation, others much less. Hereafter a few practical examples will be presented,
varying in different functions, difficulty and usefulness.

52
Some examples

Education award

The education award consists of a small questionnaire in which students are simply asked
their opinion about the best teacher, course, department, etc. Concrete questions might
be:
-Name the three best teachers of your study program.
-Name the three most interesting courses you have followed the last year.
-Name the three departments that have put most effort into education last year.

As many students as possible, from different years, gender, etc should anonymously fill
in this questionnaire. Students can put the filled in questionnaire in a box at a central
location in the institution. The results can be presented in the paper of the institution or
study club, in order to get as much attention as possible.

This instrument is especially suitable for situations where students want to stimulate
discussions about the quality of education and where the relations between students and
teachers are reasonable. The goal of the education award is to rank teachers, courses or
teaching methods.

Complaint box

A complaint box gives students the opportunity to express their complaints, problems and
frustrations about their education in an anonymous and easy way. The initiators of the
complaint box can use this information to make an inventory of the obstacles within
education, give attention to it by publishing regular reports and confront responsible
professors or education directors with it. The successful functioning of a complaint box
basically depends on two factors:
-The extent in which teachers can be reached. Partly this depends on the attitude of
teachers towards critique but also on how periodical and in which way this critique is
being presented.

53
-The extent to which students are being stimulated to post their complaints. Students will
only use the complaint box if their complaints are treated seriously and anonymously and
if it becomes clear that something happens with these complaints.

Questionnaire

The most common instrument to evaluate education in order to improve the quality of it
is an (extended) questionnaire that has to be filled in by students. Questionnaires can be
used for a quick inventory of obstacles as well as for further in depth exploration of
problems that are detected in earlier evaluations.

The use of questionnaires as an evaluation to ol seems logical in the following

circumstances:
-If the number of people from whom information is needed is relatively big. (More than
20 people).
-If the number of questions that have to be asked is big.
-If the investigation aims at getting information about quality of education, motives for
study choices, plans for specialisation, opinions about teachers, etc.
-If anonymity is essential and cannot be guaranteed via other methods.
-If the answers have to be quantified because of comparisons that have to be made
between e.g. courses or teachers.
In a questionnaire questions can be asked in different ways; open questions, yes/no
questions, six-point scales, multiple choice questions, etc. In order to reach the desired
amount of students, the questionnaires can be sent by post, given to students after courses
or filled in during direct interviews. To avoid evaluation results not being taken serious
by teachers and directors, much attention should be given to the quality of the
questionnaires and the separate questions. Important aspects of any questionnaire are
representatively and validity.

54
Evaluation, and then?

Just implementing an evaluation normally isn’t enough to actually realise the goals that
lay behind the evaluation. To actually realise these goa ls, further activities have to be
undertaken. Many evaluations end with presentation of the results. And those results find
a nice place somewhere on a big pile of reports in a cosy archive. The result of this for
students that undertook the evaluation is mainly frustration and a diminishing willingness
to put effort in QA of education, as the results are not used. Therefore, in the process of
making evaluations you have to think at an early stage about what you want to do with
the results of the evaluation. What should be taken into account when undertaking these
activities?

Besides knowing what’s wrong and some possible solutions, you also have to find the
right way to convince teachers and administration to act. Basic skills that might be
necessary in this process are the ability to lobby and negotiate. You have to find your
way in the informal circuit, the place where many decisions are taken or prepared
regarding education. This paragraph deals with the art of governing in this informal
circuit and tries to give some ideas about how students can influence this.

Governing as a theatre

The Dutch anthropologist Verweel uses the metaphor of a theatre to explain the way
decisions in organisations like HEI’s are being made. He compares the different levels o f
governing with the stage, the backstage and the dressing rooms of a theatre.

The stage

The first and most visible level were governing takes place, is the official circuit. These
are for example the institution and faculty board or directors and in some countries
existing official advisory committees. Institutionalised QA committees can be part of the
official circuit. In these official bodies policy -making regarding education are prepared

55
and decisions are takes. The official rules that play a role in these bodies and the roles of
the people in it are clear to everybody. Therefore Verweel compares this with the stage in
a theatre, since also there the roles are being divided beforehand and everybody can see
what happens. People on the stage play their role; their own personality doesn’t matter
too much. The main topics of discussion therefore are completely ‘professional’. It would
be considered strange if someone for example starts talking about the well being of his
sick parrot.

The Backstage

Besides the official circuit (the stage), Verweel distinguishes the semi -official circuit. He
calls this the backstage, where in changing compositions several pre-discussions take
place with for example teachers, students and administrators. Here the decisions on the
stage are being prepared in a more or less structured and somehow open way.
Nevertheless, not everybody will be invited to take part in it. This depends on your
official role in the decision taking process and your individual status. Because of you r
role in an official QA committee or student union or because of your personal knowledge
or influence on other students, your opinion might have enough importance for such
discussions to get ‘invited’ for them.

Of course it is also possible to take the i nitiative for such meetings yourself. Especially
for topics that are very important for students, like QA issues, this can be very useful to
get things done. In these kinds of meetings you can for example find out how other
people think about your ideas and complaints or present a first draft of a proposal. It is
good to realise that in these kinds of meetings and discussions part of the final decisions
are being taken. With your presence you can influence (new) plans in an early stage. The
way of working in the backstage is less ‘professional’ than at the stage. Partly, here also
more personal aspects of the decision taking process plays a role and also the way of
discussion is less formal than in the official circuit.

56
The dressing rooms

The least formal and least structured meetings take place in what Verweel call ‘the
dressing rooms’. These meetings take place in a friendly atmosphere and there is no clear
outcome in the form of a concrete plan or policy paper. In the dressing rooms mainly
ideas are formed and exchanged, strategies are discussed and sometimes compromises are
made. In order to make use of the dressing rooms, it is necessary that people know and
trust each other. The way in which the dressing rooms work, often seems to be like an
Old Boys Network, with a lot of middle aged, grey man who went to university together
when they were young. Therefore, a big part of the discussions are about that shared past,
about the shared interest in a certain situation or about a shared conviction. In order to
play a role in the dressing rooms, it is necessary to have something in common with the
other actors. Confidential information can be exchanged in the dressing rooms, but
besides professional topics also a lot of gossip and personal interests and hobbi es are
being discussed. These discussion topics enhance a strengthening of the confidential band
between the discussion partners. In order to conquer a starting position in the dressing
rooms, a position at the stage or in the backstage is very helpful. When you have already
proved yourself in the backstage, it is easier to get access to the more confidential and
personal networks.

Negotiating

According to Professor Mastenbroek in a negotiating process a couple of things have to

be taken into account. The most important issues for students dealing with QA, are:
1) The dilemma of negotiating, fighting or co-operating.
2) Influencing the balance of power.
3) Influencing your supporters/electorate.

The dilemma of negotiating, fighting or co-operation

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Interdependence is the core of the negotiation process. Without interdependence there is
no solid ground for a negotiation. In order to negotiate in a fruitful way, the negotiating
partners should have something in common. The different sides of t he table should both
have an interest in reaching a deal. This interest might a certain quality level of education
with which everybody can be satisfied. But besides a common interest of reaching some
kind of compromise, there are of course also different points of views, different opinions
and different interests. The, somewhat opposite, strategies one can choose are co -
operating, negotiating or fighting.

Co-operating is the best option when the two parties depend a lot on each other. The
parties have broadly the same opinions and the same objectives. By co -operating in the
whole process of decision taking the parties come to a shared optimal result. The interests
and desires of both parties are being respected.

Negotiating takes place when there are clear opposite interests between the two parties.
But despite that, negotiating can only take place when there are also shared interests.
Without certain shared interests, there won’t be an incentive to come to an agreement.

Fighting can be used to conquer a stronger position on the ‘balance of power’. It can be
used when there are no (recognised) shared interests. Fighting is a strategy that in many
cases seems to be the most logical and useful. Especially when parties are insecure about
there position on the ‘balance of power’.

The boundaries between the three ways of behaviour are not very clear. They are part of a
continuum.

Influencing the balance of power

One of the most important aspects in negotiations is the balance of power. The balance of
power can be described as the relationship between dependence and independence of the
different actors involved. In situations where the independency is bigger than the
dependency, you can often see strange behaviour occurs; manipulating and exploiting

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behaviour versus humble and pliable behaviour. But one should recognise each other’s
interests and each other’s position. One should have the feeling to gain by negotiating on
a somewhat equal level.

The balance of power can be influenced by:

1) Fighting
Certain aggressive/fighting behaviour might give the opponent the impression that the
negotiator believes strongly in her own standpoint and is therefore difficult to convince
otherwise. The other party has to put more effort in winning the discussion on the ba sis of
arguments. Fighting behaviour might however lead to a win-lose strategy, with the
danger that the opponent will refuse to negotiate at all.

2) Manipulation
By manipulation, it is sometimes possible to gain more influence in the negotiation. This
is a subtle strategy, very dependent on the individual characteristics of the negotiator.
Manipulation is a special kind of pressure tool, because with it you can aim at someone’s
norms and values, her relation with the people she represents, personal characteristics as
intelligence and integrity and the way she behaves as a negotiator.
The risk of this strategy is substantial. Manipulation means someone submitting without
them being aware of it. With a naïve opponent this might be possible, but even then there
is a real chance that they will get a negative feeling, that will trouble future negotiations.

3) Facts and expert knowledge

‘New facts’ or things that are presented in that way and have a direct relation with the
balance of power, should be in som e way true and believable and presented as factual as
possible. Examples of ‘new facts’ are the birth of a stronger coalition or the coming into
existence of alternatives for the current relation of interdependence. Especially the
existence of alternatives can have quite some weight.

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 4) Exploring
Exploring means taking a certain initiative; ask questions, present information, do a
proposal, create a possible package deal. With relatively a lot of these initiatives your
strategic room of manoeuvre expands. Furthermore, exploring means trying to act in the
interests of the both parties. It gives you the possibility to show your best intentions for
getting shared solutions, which provides your behaviour legitimisation.

5) Strengthen relationship
The relationship with the opponent can be strengthened by development of acceptation
and trust. Other ways can be the development of a stronger common interest and
enlargement of the amount of topics for which you invent and realise outcomes that are
interesting for both parties.

6) Convincing power
Elements of convincing power are:
-A clear, well-structured way of expressing the own opinion.
-A rather relaxed, but not careless, attitude.
-Variation in tone and tempo of speaking; examples and structure in the story, simple
facts and catching metaphors; use of visual tools.
-A somewhat ‘emotional’ connection with your vision, without being rhetoric and
dogmatic.

Influencing your supporters/electorate

Possibly the most important, but also most neglected, aspect of a negotiation is the
negotiation with the people you (try to) represent. The people who negotiate with each
other need to have some room for manoeuvre. Some room to compromise and also room
to come to a final result that is acceptable and feasible for their supporters/electorate.

There are a number of obstacles and problems one can face regarding the relation with
the people you represent:

60
 - The relationship with the supporters is not been considered as a
negotiation-relationship. The negotiators always do exactly what their
supporters want, which limits their room of manoeuvre in the negotiations
substantially.

- The supporters have chosen the negotiators because of the promises they
have made. Possibly many of these promises they cannot fulfil.

- The negotiating-delegation has a very precise and limited mandate, which

limits the variation in possible outcomes and the creativity of the
negotiation to a minimum.

- The supporters have pushed the negotiating -delegation to strive for a

result, which is unreachable.

In the relationship with the supporters/electorate should be enough room for manoeuvre.
Not only regarding the final outcome of the negotiation, but also regarding the way in
which the final outcome will be presented.

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5. The Future Development of Quality
Assurance
All the chapters thus far have alluded in some part to the future of quality assurance with
regards their different areas whether that is internationalisation, student involvement or
policy changes within QA. The developments of Quality Assurance like the process itself
are continuous and thus a periodic review of development needs to be carried out by all
those involved in the process. This does not however preclude us from examining the
possible development over the next five years esp ecially within the context of the
Bologna process that is set to achieve its goals in 2010. It is clear that there are certain
developments that are more likely to dominate this period of time and this chapter seeks
to explore these themes and pose some of the major questions, which will have to be
dealt with in the continuing Bologna process. Indeed, with the run up to the Berlin
conference in late 2003 the new targets for higher education will be laid out.

There are three major thematic areas, which seem to be worthy of particular examination
in the run up to the Berlin Conference and future of the quality assurance in higher
education. These three areas are Quality Culture, Global Quality Label and QA within the
growing TNE area. These future areas are dealt with in the following manner. First there
is a brief introduction to the them, explanation of what is involved in the implementation,
then follows an analysis of benefits and problems which may occur and some possible
areas of criticism and praise of the themes.

Quality Culture:
“The issue of internal quality was presented as a central priority to both the
development of individual institutions and the European Higher Education Area. ”

The term Quality Culture (QC) has recently gained considerable gro und within QA
circles and is currently the focus of a joint EUA -European Commission project that is

62
seeking to examine the establishment of quality culture within several Higher Education
Institutions (HEI’s) in a variety of countries. Indeed the emphasis that the EUA and
European Commission are placing on quality culture can be seen in the guidelines for the
project, which states, “The past decade has seen an explosion of national quality
assurance systems in Europe. These have been developed to assure st akeholders that
higher education institutions are fulfilling their role and functions in society. As
important as these external processes are, however, EUA considers essential that HEI’s
develop an internal quality culture to ensure and monitor enhanceme nt of their activities
and services in a way that is congruent to core academic values.”

A possible definition of Quality Culture is:

“An organic internal rather legislated external approach by institutions and departments
towards dealing with the delive r of quality courses. Quality Culture is based around a
internal system of continuous quality which seeks to establish quality higher education
through a holistic approach on a day to day basis”

Quality Culture envisages methods of evaluating and establis hing high levels of quality
which can be undertaken by the institution or department itself and which, if correctly
managed, can increase the quality of the education without requiring the over
involvement of external Quality Assurance procedures. The EUA project which is
currently underway clearly outlines some of the added advantages for institutions for
establishing a strong organic and holistic quality culture as well as the growing
importance that Quality Culture is viewed by HEI’s. The high number of applications
(137 at the end of 2002), clearly shows, there is growing awareness of the need to
strengthen an internal quality culture that has its origin in a range of factors that have
prompted universities to become more pro -active in this area. Specifically:

? ? increased autonomy from governments

? ? increased demands for accountability linked to the massification of higher education

and its concomitant rising costs on the public purse

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? ? increased need to diversify income sources as government funding stagna tes or
declines

? ? the rise of the “knowledge society” and the heightened expectations of higher
education’s contribution to the national and regional economy

? ? the on-going creation of the European higher education and research area

? ? increased internationalisation (e.g., student and staff mobility, cross-border

partnerships) which – through comparisons – raises expectations about quality

?? increased globalisation, which is leading to the emergence of competitors in hitherto

safe national “markets” as well as trend toward the “marketisation” of higher
education.

While the above are clearly advantageous for the institution there are certain aspects of
quality culture that students need to be critical of. These relate primarily to the level
relations between t he institution, staff and students. Indeed the student perspective on
Quality Culture could be outlined in the reply to above points.

? ? While institutional autonomy from the state, has undoubted benefits there is a need
for the state to exercise some level of control over higher education, both for the good
of the state and of the students. Regardless the level of institutional autonomy, strong
student involvement in all processes of quality assurance must always be guaranteed.

? ? The increased demand for HE and the pressure of numbers would represent a good
case for the development of a good quality culture, which would function on a more
“grass-roots” level.

? ? A major area of concern for students with regards to Quality Culture is that it is not
used to maintain the status quo in HEI’s, which have poor standards of quality.
Quality Culture must be assessed by an external body to ensure that HEI’s are not
merely using the premise of QC to avoid the rigors of an external Quality Assurance
system. Trust between t he student body, staff and management is a basic element of
quality culture.

? ? The successful implementation of a Quality Culture which is holistic should have

major side benefits for the HEI’s involved. The relationships between staff, students
and the institution should be strengthened as well as the reputation of the HEI to
provide not only good education but also a good environment and support system for
the students to live and learn in.

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Students may also benefit from a good quality culture in so far as areas, which are
identified as been below standard, should in theory be more easily brought up to standard
through the grass-roots approach of Quality Culture.

Global/World Quality Label:

Introduction

There is a wide variety of Quality Assurance Agencies (QAA) worldwide. There is

currently little uniformity or harmonisation of quality assurance agencies and their
procedures. Indeed many countries, regions and cultures are developing their own
approaches to academic quality assurance. Some agencies are state-driven; others are
private, with many intermediate forms. Some are embedded in the higher education
sector, but many are not and are imposed on the higher education sector by states,
professions or other bodies. Some agencies are working as real acc reditors of
programmes or institutions, others organise merely quality assurance procedures with no
clear standards, benchmarking or final statements. Although there is some convergence
towards a global quality model, there still is great divergence in methodologies,
protocols, assessment techniques and outcomes. The consequences of evaluations can be
manifold and therefore all the functions or quality assurance and accreditation differ to a
high degree.

A possible definition for the GQL is:

“A Quality Label that is given to internationally trustworthy quality assurance and
accreditation agencies (QAAAs), under the legitimacy of a consortium formed by
international groups (International Association of Universities Presidents (IAUP) ,the
International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE)
and UNESCO). The GQL awarded to an agency guarantees that this agency meets the
internationally defined standards for trustworthy quality assurance. These include clear
commitment to develop int ernational standards of academic quality among the
institutions and programmes evaluated by it, fair and appropriate quality assessment
procedures, well developed and publicly available protocols, published reports, etc. As a

65
consequence, the quality mark of the QAAA signifies that the institutions and
programmes evaluated by this agency meet trustworthy standards of academic quality.
Students, academic staff, programmes and institutions wishing to cooperate with these
programmes and institutions in the con text of various forms of internationalisation of
higher education, can have a reasonable confidence in their academic quality.”

Opportunities and benefits

The opportunities and benefits for HE institutions under a GQL would be the guarantee
that institutions or programmes evaluated or accredited by these QAAAs have a reliable
and trustworthy quality. This would have implications for matters such as student
mobility, credit transfer, recognition and equivalence of degrees. Benefits for students
and learners worldwide is that the GQL will have an stimulating effect on the quality of
HE provision worldwide, will help to assure that HE institutions worldwide strive for the
highest academic quality possible in a certain environment.

Requirements of QAA seeking the GQL:

? ? Activities of the agency concern external quality assurance or accreditation; this

means a sufficiently autonomous position towards institutions.

? ? The quality assurance or accreditation covers mainly the educational function of

HE institutions, namely teaching and learning activities.

? ? Activities of the agency can be defined as quality evaluation, review, audit,

assessment or accreditation. The interval between successive quality assessments
of programs or institutions is maximum ten years, but preferably shorter.

? ? The range of institutions evaluated or accredited by the agency can be public and
private, national or transnational, confined to one discipline or covering many
disciplines, etc., but the majority of the institutions or programs cover ed must be
granting officially recognised degrees.

? ? There is some kind of formal recognition of the agency at regional, national or

international level.

? ? The agency must have a certain experience in the field of external quality
assurance or accreditation. The minimum period of operation is 2 years.

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 ? ? The agency should have a quality assurance policy itself, with a continuous
reassessment of quality assurance and accreditation practices

Criteria related to methodology, protocols and quality assessment pro cedures:

? ? First of all full independence must be guaranteed in the quality assessment

practices and in the decisions-making processes, even if the agency itself is linked
to the institutional higher education sector ‘sufficiently autonomous position’.

? ? The agency must have publicly available protocols or manuals. These describe in
a transparent way the procedures and standards used in quality assessment
processes.

? ? The agency applying for a GQL should describe the minimum standards used in
its quality assessment or accreditation processes, and the way in which these
standards have been subject to international benchmarking.

? ? In case of accreditation agencies, it must be clear that accreditation is given on the

basis of external quality assessment.

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The EQUIS Initiative

A different type of bottom-up initiative is the European Quality Improvement System

(EQUIS), a process through which provision in Business Schools is accredited. The process has
the aim not only of improving quality but also of creating transparency to assist and inform
(future) students and enhance recognition. An increasing number of Business Schools from
Europe, and some from beyond, have been accredited.

However, the EQUIS accreditation process is not the only label for international recognition in
management education. Other accreditation processes include the AMBA accreditation of MBAs
and accreditation by the AACSB. Indeed several of the best known Business Schools have sought
and been awarded accreditation by more than one accreditation body which poses questions about
transparency. Although no top-down process is intended, this type of approach would at some
point put pressure on countries where quality assurance systems do not yet exist, or where they are
not sufficiently transparent. If they respond positively, by establishing or improving such systems,
this would contribute to the desired convergence.

However, if this would not be the case, an undesired division would be created in Europe, with
possible negative consequences for the competitiveness of these no n-convergent systems and for
the flows of students from these particular systems to others, which better guarantee the quality
and thus the recognition of qualifications. Finally, it should be emphasized that in general the role
of governments, and thus that of national recognition agencies, in recognition of qualifications is
being marginalised by bottom-up developments at other levels

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Critic on GQL:

? ? When the INQAAHE was first formed it was understood that it would guard against
becoming an “international bureaucracy”. The primary function of the INQAAHE
was to create a network for informal, mutual support by exchange of information and
possibly personnel. Many actors in HE are concerned that any formal international
system would be over bureaucratic.

? ? The need for the type of GQL that is outlined above i.e. a body, which accredits the
accreditors to an international standard is not in itself a reason to implement such a
system. The development of a GQL should be based on an analyses of various QAAA
from a ‘users’ perspective. It should be clear to both the QAAA and the ‘users’ of the
QAAA what problems would be solved by the formation of GQL.

? ? The issues of regulation of the QAAA are separate to the creation of a GQL. Indeed it
may be more feasible to protect the higher education sector against any untrustworthy
or disreputable QAAAs that exist through innovations on a national or regional level.
There is also the problem that emerges with the QAAA’s that do not apply for
recognition under the GQL that their ability to award accreditation would be
untrustworthy.

? ? The matter of mutual recognition and co-operation between QAAAs, is of obvious

benefits to institutions, staff and students. The question is whether this co -operation
can be achieved by bilateral, multilateral or regional in/formal agreements rather than
by trying to establish formal global arrangements.

? ? The wide diversity of QAAAs which exist for numerous reasons (political, social,
cultural etc.) would be restricted by the GQL model which may not take account of
the reasons for diversity. Further to this the instance that common standards of
quality be defined and decisions taken in accordance with them may 1 -lead to very

69
 weak standards (due to global agreement) and 2- would fail to recognize non-
standardized courses

? ? Finally the GQL may just become ano ther bureaucratic burden as ensuring that the
‘level’ or ‘type’ of quality that is recognized in the QAAA may not be the same in
HEIs it evaluates. There could also be a lack of consistency between QAAAs on how
the GQL label is assigned or its benefits allocated to an HEI.

Internationalisation, TNE and QA:

Introduction

Internationalisation and quality of higher education have always been closely linked
together, at least at the conceptual level. This is based on the strong belief that
internationalisation enhances the quality of higher education. Many policy documents,
especially those published in the 1980s and early 1990s, consider internationalisation as a
means to improving quality, rather than an end in itself. Examples include OECD and EU
documents, statements on national policies for internationalisation, and also many
institutional-level policy plans for internationalization.

From these various initiatives, it became clear that, although internationalisation and
quality may be closely linked a t a conceptual level, they were not so much linked at the
level of practice and policy. Furthermore, it was found that:
a) it is very difficult to evaluate the contribution of internationalisation to the quality of
education
b) that the quality of internationalisation itself was in general not monitored or assessed
systematically
c) that the link between quality assurance and the international recognition of higher
education qualifications is often unclear
d) that actors and agencies involved in internationalisation and those involved in quality
assurance represent quite different and unconnected groups and organizations.

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Internationalisation is not fully covered by quality assurance procedures dealing primarily
with the core functions in education and research. The lack of coordination between
quality assurance bodies on the one hand and those that promote internationalisation does
not only exist in Europe, but was also reported from elsewhere, notably the US. At the
same time, an internationalisation process was going on in the field of quality assurance,
whereas in earlier years factors related to internationalisation, (increased international
competitiveness, international academic and professional mobility) only had a marginal
impact on the quality debates, which w ere situated at the level of national policy -making.

Increasingly, quality assurance actors and agencies became involved in international

networks and associations, e.g. the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies
in Higher Education (INQAAHE), through which they ex-changed information and
experiences. It was acknowledged that also in education, taking an international approach
could strengthen quality assurance processes and outcomes, as had been the case for a
time already in research reviews. Both external and internal pressures motivated the
demand for international quality assurance. Internal pressures include the enhanced
international mobility of students and the overseas marketing of higher education
systems, i.e. the export of higher education, and external pressures come from the
globalisation of the professions, regional trade agreements, and international
organisations.

Internationalisation of QA

The internationalisation of quality assurance did not in all cases automatically lead to an
increased focus on quality assurance of the increasingly important international
dimension in higher education itself. The main reasons for this included:
a) internationalisation was in some cases still seen as a marginal activity
b) national processes for assuring quality were not intended to serve an international
purpose
c) the diverse nature and spread of internationalisation activities within individual
institutions and across institutions within a higher education system

71
d) the above-mentioned lack of co ordination between quality assurance and
internationalisation actors and agencies.

The latter also include the agencies responsible for the international recognition of
credentials and qualifications, the European Network of Information Centers (ENICs)
and National Academic Recognition and Information Centers (NARICs). This re-inforced
the often weak connection between quality assurance and international recognition.

Transnational education: international quality assurance initiatives

Under the auspices of UNESCO (Europe region) and the Council of Europe, following
the approval of the Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications, concerning Higher
Education in the European region (the Lisbon Convention). A Working Group on
Transnational Education was set up (in 1998), to develop a Code of Good Practice in the
Provision of Transnational Education. The composition of the Working Group reflected a
mix of the education exporters, the USA, UK and Australia, countries where
transnational education was delivered such as Israel, Slovakia and Spain, and countries
that both receive and provide transnational education such as Russia and Latvia. The
Code (which is still in draft) includes a set of principles that should be respected by
institutions involved in the provision of educational services through transnational
arrangements. The Code will be complemented by a Recommendation on procedures and
criteria for the assessment of foreign qualifications to be implemented by the network of
recognition center in the Europe region.

Key issues for Quality Assurance agencies

Transnational education is not going to disappear while an enormous demand for learning
and qualifications goes unmet in the developing world. To legislate it out of existence
would be to deny acces s to education for many people. The fast pace of development of
ICTs and the use of the Internet will provide one means of meeting increasingly diverse
demands for flexible access to education and qualifications from those already in

72
employment. These deve lopments pose serious challenges for quality assurance agencies,
higher education institutions and students alike, as there will be a change in the way
education is learnt and delivered. Indeed these points are now forming the focus of
discussion at a ministerial and policy level and may start to become the focus of the
Bologna Process in the run up to the next ministerial meeting in Berlin in 2003.

Implications for quality assurance in Europe

What kind of action can be expected from this dialogue between ministers, ministerial
officials and higher education institutions? One could expect a series of national reforms,
possibly taking inspiration from those countries that recently reformed their systems in
line with the Bologna Declaration. They are likely to go for a two-tier degree structure
(bachelor & master) through the introduction of shorter first degrees. The requirements of
compatibility and comparability refer strongly to the transparency function of quality
assurance systems, whereas quality assurance in the national context is typically geared
towards accountability and improvement. This raises questions regarding the relationship
between these various functions of quality assurance and between transparency and
improvement in particular.

The Bolo gna Declaration includes a phrase on the promotion of European cooperation in
quality assurance with a view to developing comparable criteria and methodologies. In
this context, it is only proposed so far that a common framework of reference for
qualifications will be worked out. It is said that this should not introduce a new category
of European degrees or qualifications, but a common framework for existing ones. Some
recent reactions on the Bologna initiative from the side of the higher education
institutions demonstrate an agreement on the need to guarantee the quality of
programmes, credits and degrees. Accreditation is seen as a means to guarantee such
minimum standards of quality in favor of students, employers and society. It was
emphasised, however, that this should refer to content and not lead to the labeling of
quantitative factors. The question on how a European-wide accreditation system and
quality assurance system should operate was answered in the following ways. It would be

73
the responsibility of the higher education system itself to develop a continental -wide
system, based upon self -regulation schemes, which would use the national systems of
quality assurance as a reference point or benchmark.

Therefore there should be close liaison between the higher education system on the one
hand, and governments on the other. As a step forward is often seen to guarantee
minimum quality by a national accreditation agency and to recognize the results of
national accreditation procedures in a multilateral agreement, establishing a common but,
to a certain extent, flexible frame of reference for joining to all universities concerned
and willing. It was made clear that this procedure should include representatives of the
higher education community and future employers of graduates, and that it should
observe expertise of the individual discipline or profession, guarantee internationally
competitive quality by the contribution of experts of peers from other countries.
It is clear that there is no body or platform with the necessary competence in this field
that could operate at a European level and also that this idea would not be acceptable for
the higher education institutions, as much as for most governments.

Conclusion:

This handbook has sought to gather together a large range of information on all aspect of
quality assurance within higher education. The first chapter dealt with the basic concept
and history of quality assurance and its application in the field of education. The second
chapter which dealt with European and International developments, moving onto the third
chapter, which is perhaps the pivotal section, sought to compare and contrast different
QA and accreditation systems in Europe. The fourth chapter which is aimed in particular
for student representatives dealing with QA in a “hands-on” manner and the final chapter
which aimed to highlight three of the main areas which are now under discussion in the
higher education. In the appendix there is a list of questions, which as student
representatives we need to begin answering in order to deal with the future of Quality
Assurance and its effect on students. There is also a list of reference books and papers

74
and websites which can provide more information with regard to the topics in each
chapter.

Finally, ESIB- the National Unions of Students in Europe has been very glad to have
been given the opportunity to work on this topic, which is of key importance to students
and would like to take this opportunity to thank the European Commission again fo r their
help and support throughout the project.

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Index:

1. Websites

ESIB – the National Unions of Students in Europe: www.esib.org

European Commission – Education and Culture DG:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/index_n.html
LSVb – Dutch National Union of Students: www.lsvb.nl
SFS – National Union of Students in Sweden: www.sfs.se
UNESCO – Education Department: www.unesco.org/education/
EUA - European University Association: www.unige.ch/eua
ENIC-NARIC Networks: http://www.enic-naric.net/
ENQA - European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education:
www.enqa.net
INQAAHE - International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher
Education: www.inqaahe.nl/
OECD – Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development: www.oecd.org
NCQA – National Committee for Quality Assurance (USA): www.nsqa.org
QAA – Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (UK): www.qaa.ac.uk
HSV – Högskoleverket, Swedish National Agency of Higher Education: www.hsv.se

2. Reference Books and Papers

Dr. Andrée Sursock , Reflection from the higher education institutions' point of
view:
Accreditation and quality culture

Sergio Machados dos Santos, Introduction to the Theme of Transnational

Education,- Transnational Education and Recognition of Qualifications

Chantal Kaufmann, The Recognition of Transnational Education qualifications

Lesley A. Wilson and Lazar Vlanescu, Transnational Education and Recognition of

Qualifications

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Dirk Van Damme, The quality challenge in the internationalisation of higher
education: Internationalisation and Quality Assurances – Towards worldwide
accreditation

Guy HAUG and Christian TAUCH, Trends in Learning Structures in Higher

Education (II) - Follow-up Report prepared for the Salamanca and Prague
Conferences, (2001)

Mastenbroek, W.F.G., ‘Onderhandelen’, (Spectrum, 1993)

Landelijke Studenten Vakbond (LSVb), handboek ‘De Student Spreekt Voor Zich’,
(Utrecht, 1997)

Willems, J. e.a., ‘Kwaliteitszorg door studenten, (Wolters-Noordhoff Groningen,

1992)

TNE handbook ESIB (forthcoming 2003)

Quality Assurance Implications of New forms of Higher Education, Part 1a

Typology; ENQA Occasional Papers 3

Quality Assurance in the Nordic Higher Education- accreditation like practices;

ENQA occasional papers 2

Institutional Evaluations in Europe; ENQA Workshop reports 1

International Initiatives and Trends in QA for European Higher education; ENQA

Exploratory Trend Reports

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Apendix: Further questions:

Despite the comprehensive nature of this handbook it is not exhaustive and these are
some issues that you should also consider when dealing with Quality Assurance:

1. What is the optimal way of assuring the quality of transnational education provision
to protect the interests of students while ensuring that the objective of widening
access to higher education is achieved?

2. Given different philosophies about the purposes and aims of higher education and the
diversity of transnational education provision can there be a single solution to the
quality assurance dilemma?

3. Given the challenges of managing new modes of delivery such as on -line distance
learning and transnational education provision, is there a need for greater focus by
quality assurance agencies on institutional quality management processes?

4. Do the new modes of delivery and study imply some re -thinking about the use of
duration of study or contact hours i.e. input factors as any kind of measure of learning
or descriptor for academic qualifications?

5. Should the focus shift to clearer definition of outputs: learning outcomes and
competences?

6. Without clearer definition of outcomes and academic standards at national level is

international comparison possible?

7. Should quality assurance agencies seek greater participation of a wider group of

stakeholders in higher education in their processes and governance to tackle the
review of new provision and providers? For example, how many actively involve
employers, recent graduates and/or students?

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8. Is there is a tension between the fact that while higher education is becoming more
international its quality is still mainly being assessed in the national context?

9. How can quality assurance contribute to improving the international comparability of

higher education and the recognition of diplomas and degrees, in the first instance in
the European context, but also in the wider international context?

10. Which methods and mechanisms for quality assurance and accreditation will best
facilitate such international comparability and can be linked with recognition
measures such as credit transfer and accumulation, including lifelong learning tracks?

11. How can quality assurance systems address the quality of programmes offered by
new types of higher education provid ers, including commercial and virtual
institutions?

12. This is even more complex where these providers may be offering transnational
provision. What then is the responsibility of national-level or other actors for the
quality assurance of transnational education and related issues such as consumer
information and protection?

13. How can the international dimension of higher education be better integrated in
quality assurance systems and methods?

14. How can coordination between actors and agencies in the field of quality assurance
and those involved in internationalisation including recognition agencies be
improved?

15. Will there be a shift in the functions of quality assurance systems as a result of
stronger international influences and applications?

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16. While quality assurance in the national context is typically geared towards
accountability and improvement, in the international context there seems to be a need
for an increased focus on transparency and consumer information for students?

17. At what level should initiatives in this area be undertaken, and by whom?

18. Will Networks and multiple accreditation initiatives contribute to quality

improvement and transparency other than identify minimum threshold levels of
quality?

19. How artificial will common international qualification frameworks be if they have to
cover o include all the existing national frameworks?

20. Is there a need for convergence of terminology?

21. Is there a role for the EQNA in working towards proposing (and using) a common
terminology for quality and standards?

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