61

July 2012

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ARTICLES

Time to assess the impact of quality assurance on European higher education

Josep Grifoll Saurí - Head of Quality Assessment department of AQU Catalunya

There is at the present time a need for quality assurance agencies and other related bodies (such as ENQA, EUA and ESU) to assess the usefulness of policy consisting of the external review and evaluation of quality in higher education (HE), in the sense that HE is a service. It is a service that is highly complex and sophisticated; it is considered by society to be a public good, even though it has certain characteristics of a private good; and it is offered by a large number of state-run universities in Europe.

This isn't to exclude the private universities, I'm just pointing out that this policy is a new development in the public sphere. There are those who are possibly opposed to it, probably because of the associated methodology that is sometimes overly mechanistic, although it does represent an important transformation in governance. And I would even go so far as to say that it opens up new channels in the on-going evolution of democratic systems by facilitating monitoring of the quality of public policies and the services that the public, users and taxpayers associate with them.

It actually incorporates highly interesting principles and practices, including those of transparency in the undertaking and results of reviews; the active participation of the different stakeholders in determining the concept of quality in higher education; and the technical independence of QA agencies through encouragement given to review and evaluation work led by teams of experts and users, which are mainly students.

Demonstrating the impact of external quality assurance in higher education is highly complicated, and this is due to three very clear reasons:

  1. External quality assurance does not operate in isolation, and its effects may be influenced, altered or masked by other policies.
  2. The universities develop internal systems that also have an impact.
  3. The rapid development of the methodology applied by QA agencies makes it difficult for systems that measure impact on the basis of the comparison of situations at different times to consolidate.

At the end of 2011 ENQA agreed to establish a working group to study the impact of external quality assurance systems on higher education in Europe. The working group was formed very quickly, beyond initial expectations, with nineteen (19) European QA agencies, and its activities were set in motion in Barcelona.

Although the working group on the impact of external QA has started to work with more questions than answers, it is precisely the abundance of issues and questions that should lead to a rational construct concerning the impact of current QA processes, and one that is suitable for the future development of new review and evaluation policies.

The initial issues are direct ones, such as:

  • Are we satisfied with current external QA systems?
  • To what degree are national systems compatible with growing international concurrence in the higher education sector?
  • Are our systems efficient from the point of view of time-related implementation and use of resources?
  • Do reviews and evaluations provide the users with useful information?
  • Do we need to accredit all university programmes? All of them, every 'n' number of years?

These can then be backed up by questions that are more involved, such as:

  • Could the fact that there is an effective external quality assurance system be ultimately considered by the users to be an element in itself of the quality of a university degree course?
  • To what degree is impact associated with the allocation of additional resources?
  • Who is responsible for developing the impact of external QA systems: the agencies, the universities, policymakers...?
  • What do we want to measure, the quality of the product being offered by QA agencies, or the way in which this product is used by third parties to generate an impact?

These are some of the many initial issues of the working group that will serve to identify six broad areas of impact, which are formulated through the following questions:

  • How does external quality assurance (EQA) foster the European dimension of higher education and consolidation of the EHEA?
  • To what degree does EQA contribute to improvements in the national system of higher education?
  • How is the governance and management of institutions of higher learning improved?
  • In what way does EQA lead teaching and learning processes towards excellence?
  • What can be done to prevent the appearance of provision that is below set levels for minimum quality?
  • How far does EQA provide public information for decision-making?

The working group has started with three activities
  1. An inventory of the way in which the agencies measure the potential impacts of their activity.
  2. Systems used by the agencies to upgrade their review and evaluation methodologies and the relationship between this and the search for impact on and the enhancement of higher education.
  3. Ways to measure impact in previously proposed areas of impact.


QA agencies in the ENQA working group on the impact of
external quality assurance on higher education

Agència del grup de treball ENQA


There has been widespread application over the last fifteen years of the external system for the quality assurance of university education in different European countries, including Catalonia. Fifteen years may seem a long time although it is just a brief moment in the long history of the universities. When it comes to measuring impact, we thus need to take into account that the system has yet to enter a stage of consistent maturity.

ENQA EQAR ISO

Generalitat de Catalunya

Via Laietana, 28, 5a planta 08003 Barcelona. Spain. Tel.: +34 93 268 89 50

© 2012 AQU Catalunya - Legal number B-21.910-2008