35

Març 2008

Taking into account that, within the frame of reference of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), one of the basic principles of quality assurance is "the interest of students as well as employers and the society more generally in good quality higher education", and that education is the direct result of study programmes and curricula, the main mission of a university quality assurance (QA) agency should be the review and accreditation of these programmes; if education is good, everything goes well and "all's well that ends well". Indeed, looking at reliable accreditation processes with a long experience, such as those carried out by ABET in the US for more than seventy years, one sees that their mission is programme accreditation (in the case of ABET, engineering programmes). If we look more closely at the details of such accreditation, the nine basic criteria (educational goals, learning outcomes, curriculum structure, etc.) include teaching staff, the facilities and administrative management, elements that would also form part of what is known as an institutional evaluation. Nearer to home, the same thing occurs with the review of recognised university degree programmes (Royal Decree 1393/2007), which also includes academic staff, physical resources and services, and the quality assurance system.

According to the Spanish Universities Act, "the universities shall evaluate and monitor the efficient development of recognised degree programmes, in addition to the procedure for their accreditation"; no reference is made to either the concept of institutional evaluation or specific institutional evaluations, however, possibly because the lawmakers believed that earlier legislation which detailed institutional evaluation (for example, for the selection of public service teaching staff) would be sufficient to assure institutional quality (in itself, a difficult concept to dovetail with the concept of accreditation).

On the other hand, it is unimaginable that a university college or faculty that did not take care of its study programmes would be accredited. Both types of evaluation (of institutions and programmes) overlap and, moreover, either of the two carried out appropriately makes the other one unnecessary.

Things are not that simple, however; going back to the beginning, another of the basic principles of quality assurance in the EHEA is "the central importance of institutional autonomy, tempered by a recognition that this brings with it heavy responsibilities", together with the recognition that "the primary responsibility for quality assurance in higher education lies with each institution itself, and this provides the basis for real accountability of the academic system within the national quality framework". If we overlook the fact that, in Spain, the oft-extolled university autonomy is stifled by the regulatory framework, according to this principle the main aim should be institutional evaluation.

At the present time, at both the national/central government and regional/Autonomous Community regulatory levels, many programme evaluations are being carried out, particularly at the ex-ante assessment stage, where recognised degree programmes are reviewed prior to being authorised, a matter of capital importance for both the authority that funds them and for the universities that implement them; however, this is of relative importance in terms of actual programme quality, which needs to be reviewed in subsequent follow-up and accreditation procedures; after all, a proposal is a promise, and even the most sincere of promises often stumble as a result of the pitfalls of everyday life.

AQU Catalunya has extensive experience in both institutional and programme evaluation. At the present time, we believe that, once certain "details" that concern the Steering Committee for University Policy and/or the Spanish Government have been overcome, the review of recognised degree programmes will be a main activity in our activities plan for 2008. At the same time, however, the conclusions of the agency’s external review process carried out last summer recommend that we reinforce cyclical institutional evaluations, an activity that will need to be appropriately set out in the strategic plan that, in collaboration with the education authorities and the universities, we are on the point of drawing up. It is a shame that we were unable to participate in the EUA-coordinated institutional reviews carried out (some are still going on) by the universities.