Observations: there are 2 key observations in this section:

Degree of ownership: In the view of organizational structure (devolution of responsibilities and degree of decentralization), the distinction in implementing IQA between 2 Groups was explored to be due to the degree of ownership for quality assurance process among the Universities rather than the degree of decentralization.

When QA activities at faculty level were discuss with Deans at some Universities, the representative Dean in CTU was the only one who planned to have a QA team especially responsible for QA works at his faculty. He also affirmed that this decision derived from his awareness towards the important role of IQA for his faculty. In the same vein, the Director of QAC in HSU expressed her efforts for confirming the position of quality center and developing quality culture in HSU. As she said, “the unclear status for accreditation results in the fact that QAC’s role is not well recognized in the University. Therefore, I would like to develop a website where all of QA information will be publically available to all HSU’s stakeholders. However, it took me a lot of time to explain to the Marketing Manager the importance of and benefit may get from this website”. Likewise, in the case of CTU and HSSU, the QACs have been conducting many QA activities, for example the internal audit using MoET’s standards, program evaluation using AUN’s standards or the development of quality assurance handbook, protocols, or direct QA consultants to the related units within the University. More importantly, when asked to describe the approach to internal quality assurance arrangements, these leaders highly emphasized the QA’s purposes and the spirit behind them. These attitudes seemed to be resulted from some leaders’ ownership of the internal quality assurance process within some Universities.

A contrasting case is illustrated by VU and DNU, the VU’s QAC used to conduct internal audit on the faculties after the training by Profqim project; however, this activity was not sustainable. The VU and DNU also do not conduct any other QA activities, except the assistance on the self evaluation process for the whole University. In some other Universities, BDE&TU for example, seemed to see quality assurance activities as a burden and they do not feel ownership of this concept in their Universities.

Apparently, the degree of ownership for QA process in the Universities in Group 1 is more obvious than the Universities in Group 2. It was revealed that the factor here is not so much with the extent to which the University is decentralized but rather whether managers in the University feel ownership of the quality assurance process and feel attached from it in their everyday activities.

Manager’s perspectives on IQA, regarding financial resource and staff development:

Regarding to financial resource, the two opposite opinion on the issue of financial resources (see Resources in this section) emerged the situation that there are differences between 2 Groups of Universities in terms of their understanding toward QA. While all Universities in Group 2 focus on the

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costliness of accreditation process and found the scarcity in finance as the hampering factor for them to implement IQA, most of the Universities in Group 1, where their QA processes are more explicit do not see the issue of finance as a cause for not implementing a good system of IQA. This situation confirm the fact the most of the Universities in Group 2 interpret the implementation of IQA as the preparation of self evaluation reports for accreditation. In addition to that, some Universities in Group 2 also emphasized the inadequate funding for the investment of Universities’ infrastructure or facilities as constrain to develop IQA system. This approach adopted by such Universities has an impact on how the condition on financial resources is perceived. It seems while the Universities in Group 2 considered the adequate funding as prerequisite for QA processes, Universities in Group 1 considered funding as a condition to facilitate the process of implementing QA works.

Therefore, manager’s perspective on QA (or correct interpretation of QA) turns out to be important to the implementation of holistic institutional QA system. Indeed, to some extent, the data collected from the interviews confirmed that the more explicit internal QA arrangements are those that derive from the Universities whose managers have better understanding about QA. CTU is a typical example. The fact that the Vice Rector of CTU is very knowledgeable about QA has resulted in CTU’s attention to internal quality process, conscious planning and reviewing academic goals. In this aspect, the factor of QA perspective has more impact on IQA implementation than the elements of financial resources.

With respect to staff development arrangement, the emerging theme shown through the aspect of staff development in the Universities indicates that Universities have not implement staff development schemes in an integrated way with QA works, which results in the situation that teachers do not feel enthusiastic about QA works (see case 4, 5, and 8). When discussed QA activities at faculty level, most of the Universities complained that their teaching staffs did not appreciate QA works, and some even considered it as a burden. This is in line with the study of EUA (2002-2003). It was claimed that quality assurance arrangements which often include internal audit, institutional self evaluation or the conduct of teacher evaluation are likely to be perceived by teachers as threat to their career development or as appraisal process, but not an opportunity for them to improve their performance, leading to the ineffectiveness of IQA processes. In fact, the interview results showed that most of the Universities whose perspectives on quality assurance arrangement focus more on input rather than process and output resulted in the implicit link between the policies on staff development arrangements and IQA arrangements. For this fact, the awareness of teachers toward the role of QA in Universities was mentioned by some Universities as one of the hindering factors for IQA implementation. This actually results from Universities’ perspectives toward staff development schemes for promoting IQA implementation.

In short, the observation from the Universities’ views of financial resource and staff development schemes toward the development of IQA system reveal that the perspectives toward QA have an impact on the approach the Universities adopt to implement the system of IQA.

In conclusion, beside these two aforementioned factors (the degree of ownership and the perspectives on QA), in the light of the interviews, it was also shown that, staff’s expertise in QA (QA knowledge), degree of training in QA, and the lack of explicit accreditation’s consequences, are considered as the factors that may support or hamper the Universities to implement IQA for their continuous improvement as well as internal and external accountability. It was also revealed that within higher education institution in Vietnam, the use of accreditation, self evaluation, program evaluation and internal audits are some common forms of quality assurance processes. Apart from that, evidence from the interview results analyzed in this section also answered the questions whether there are explicit differences in implementing these aforementioned QA processes among Universities and whether the international projects could improve QA status in Vietnam’s higher education since the end of their supports. Those questions, which are also the research questions of this study, will be thoroughly discussed in the following section.

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Chapter 5: