Higher education quality assurance: is it a driver for cultural change, or a competitive game, asks Emeritus Professor John Brennan.
Writing for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), Professor Brennan argues that effective quality assurance can contribute to innovation within higher education. But some institutions are using quality assurance to improve their rankings and 'win the competitive race'.
Professor Brennan claims that quality assurance can play a major reputational-enhancing role within increasingly stratified higher education systems.
'In today's HE world, with a growing diversity of institutions and providers, most of us have only a very limited direct experience of the full range of higher education institutions and have only limited information on which to base reputational judgements', he says.
Higher education providers in the UK, as autonomous bodies, have responsibility for their own quality and standards. However, QAA as external reviewer of the full range of higher education institutions has a role in making sure that all higher education providers have the right mechanisms in place to meet nationally agreed expectations. All reports on each institution are publicly available
Professor Brennan contrasts this external review with universities' own internal self-evaluation processes, and questions which has more impact.
'In some cases, the major impact comes from the internal self-evaluation process, rather than a visit from an external review team. Some staff use the opportunity to address frustrations, or to raise the status given to teaching in an environment which otherwise focused mainly on research.
'Other institutions focus more on the external review. One Pro Vice-Chancellor of a post-1992 university told me that an institution of this type could not afford the reputational risk of an embarrassing encounter with QAA.
'In considering impact, the "big news event" of a published quality report might lead to little or no action, while a possibly unacknowledged change in practice that comes about during the course of preparing for quality review may become an integral part of an institution over many decades.
Professor Brennan argues that it is not realistic to expect institutions to ignore the 'competitive games' they are being asked to play.
'But it would be good if they could remember that they are only games and that universities continue to have important functions to play and important social impacts to make that do not depend on rankings and competitive advantage.
'Quality assurance makes an important contribution to these functions, by providing opportunities for institutional learning - from self and from others - and as potential drivers of change.'
John Brennan, who is Emeritus Professor at the Open University and Visiting Professor at the University of Bath and London Metropolitan University, is the latest higher education expert to write for QAA's think piece Talking about quality, published today.
ENDS