Quest for effectiveness in assuring external quality

The conclusion that a universal recipe for assuring quality in higher education would be difficult to design does not necessarily liberate external quality assurance agencies from the responsibility of sustaining quality. It is just a pragmatic reality. As such, scholars have continued to establish suggestions that can help to effectively assure and sustain quality in higher education. Some of these suggestions are discussed in the subsequent sub-sections.

6.3.1 Features of an effective quality assurance system

Quality assurance agencies have a responsibility to demonstrate the effectiveness of their quality assurance system. Kis (2005:30–32) suggests the following as some features of an effective quality assurance system:

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 Clarity of purpose: Expectations among stakeholders regarding the aims and the outcomes for assuring quality differ, hence the aim of assuring quality must be clear.  Legitimacy: The external quality system needs legitimation to create impact in assuring

quality through either regulation or support from stakeholders.

 Dynamic link between internal and external processes: External quality arrangements should be complementary to the internal quality process.

 Flexibility and confidence in higher education institutions and internal processes: External quality agencies should emphasise the re-establishment of trust and confidence in the internal quality process.

 Adequate follow-up procedures and feedback linked to action: External quality agencies should have clear follow-up procedures leading to appropriate action and improvement from successful evaluation.

 Regular and cyclic quality monitoring viewed as a process: External quality assurance must be regular and cyclical to encourage continuous improvement in assuring quality.  Prudence and flexibility in linking results to funding: A careful balance of performance and consequences should be maintained, as the issue of linking quality results to funding is controversial.

The features of an effective quality assurance system as suggested by Kis provide insights for policy makers and implementers of the quality assurance policy into the considerations applicable to establishing and sustaining quality for higher education.

6.3.2 Characteristics of good practice in external quality assurance

Grifoll, Hopbach, Kekalainen, Lugano, Rozsnyai and Shopov (2012: 26) in the third ENQA survey on external quality procedures in Europe invited quality agencies to identify some of the characteristics of good practice with which quality assurance agencies were mostly satisfied, and which could impact positively on the development and implementation of quality assurance activities in the future.

The areas of good practices reported by Grifoll et al. (2012:25–27) are the following:

 Practices regarding external quality assurance procedures: Good practices involve embracing a variety of approaches at both programme and institutional levels, such as accreditation, certification, auditing, validation and recognition.

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 Practices that enhance stakeholders’ involvement: Good practices enhance involvement of stakeholders in quality assurance of higher education and attempt to increase the participation of different stakeholders in external quality assurance procedures.  Practices regarding infrastructure and resources of agencies: Good practices aim at

improving the internal infrastructure of agencies and centre on the growing importance of the use of information and the generation of electronic platforms and software tools to deal with the external quality assurance procedures of agencies.

The survey identified areas that quality assurance agencies could consider for implementation and the authors suggest a vision for the future of quality assurance reviews and elucidate the type of activities on which agencies concentrate part of their energy and interests (Grifoll et

al., 2012:25).

6.3.3 Common elements of national quality assurance frameworks

There have been international efforts through studies, literature reviews and conferences to consider commonalities in national external quality assurance frameworks.

Following the survey for the European Union on national quality frameworks in France, the Netherlands and the UK, by van Vught and Westerheijden (1993 cited in Billing 2004:117), van Vught and Westerheijden (1993) list common elements of quality assurance frameworks for higher education:

 A national agency is required to coordinate and support quality assurance within institutions and which is independent of government.

 Self-evaluation as a vital focus for the external quality assurance process.

 External peer review should be conducted to explore self-evaluation in the higher education institution through site visits.

 These evaluation activities should be publicly reported.

 There is no direct relationship of the results of external quality assurance to funding of higher education institutions.

Vroeijenstijn (2003:81–82) suggests the following for a general quality assurance model:  Self-analysis and external assessment by peers

 External assessment organised by an independent agency  A public report of the external assessment

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 Internal quality care in institutions in which the quality agency looks beyond quality procedures put in place to the quality of inputs, process and outputs

 Accountability of external assessment.

Shabani et al., (2014:148) in a conceptual framework for analysing quality assurance in higher education in Africa, identified the following as functions quality assurance agencies perform:

 Assessing institutions and /or programmes

 Approving higher education public and private institutions

 Approving new academic programmes and higher education institutions  Establishing minimum academic standards

 Carrying out annual performance reviews

 Monitoring and accrediting institutions and programmes

Harman (1996:43, 88) considered the following common elements of new systems of quality assurance that have emerged internationally:

 Peer review and site visits

 High degree of independence of managing agent  Reporting of results and method used

 Link between outcomes of assessments and funding decisions

 Levels of evaluation, at either systems level (national reviews of disciplines and institutional evaluations) or at institutional level (departments, faculties, schools, programmes)

 Follow-up activities after reporting.

Materu (2007:23) and, Okebukelo and Fonteyne (2014:19) considered the activities of quality assurance agencies in countries across the African continent and noted a convergence in the activities of quality assurance agencies despite quality agencies being at different levels of development. Quality assurance agencies at programme and/or institutional level used accreditation and auditing as approaches to assure quality in higher education while going through similar methodological elements of:

 Self-assessment,  Peer review,  Site visits,  A written report,

134  Declaration of status.

The attempt by scholars to show the commonalities among individual national quality assurance systems provides a direction in thinking about higher education quality and the practices available in the management of quality assurance in higher education systems (Harman, 1996:45). The common elements are therefore a rich source of information providing alternative or additional data to better the existing quality assurance frameworks and helping to indicate points of strength and weakness in the quality assurance frameworks.

6.3.4 Recommended strategies for assuring quality in the higher education system Harman (1996:91–96) recommends some strategies to consider when assuring quality in the higher education system. The recommendations are particularly suggested to ministers and senior officials, the academic core and quality agencies, as outlined below:

 Accept that new initiatives and approaches may be necessary: Traditional approaches to assuring quality have proved to be inadequate to operate in the new international environment with increased competition in tradable services such as education and increased mobility of skilled and professional labour.

 Choose from a wide variety of approaches and methodologies that are available and that have been widely tested in several countries and institutions: Extensive experiential data and documentation about the value of a variety of different approaches are available for analysis before any decision is made.

 Look for an approach and methodology that not only suit the system, but are also cost- effective and likely to gain the support of academic staff: The quality initiative should fit well the culture and operational norms of institutions. If a good fit is not achieved, there is a likelihood of resistance, especially from academic staff. In addition, cost- effectiveness is important in view of the pressure on institutional budgets.

 Try to include an approach that incorporates elements of self-study, peer review and external reporting: International experience demonstrates clearly the value of self- studies, peer review and external reporting of the results of an evaluation process.  Place major emphasis on clear guidelines, openness, review of documentation and

analysis of evidence: A quality assurance mechanism should have clearly written guidelines, and processes should be as open as possible to develop confidence of all those involved.

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 Develop mechanisms that ensure fairness in the processes employed: Fairness in processes involved is essential to generate and maintain wide support for the process.  At systems level, consider the desirability of incorporating elements of both

disciplinary reviews and institutional assessments: The quality assurance mechanism should consider horizontal reviews of disciplines or departments and reviews of institutions.

 Place major emphasis on improvement in quality at institutional level: A quality assurance system should desire to achieve continuous improvement by emphasising quality management at institutional level.

 Take care to work out and specify clear external reporting arrangements prior to the commencement of the first review: The issue of a report after evaluation should be openly discussed in the development phase of any quality assurance mechanism. There should be a clear specification of external reporting requirements.

Why discuss generalisations? I discuss generalisations in a quest to establish sustenance in assuring quality for the Zambian higher education system. In this quest, I appreciate that all quality assurance agencies operate in their own national context and that a quality assurance system cannot be transplanted from one country to another. The generalisations provide data that can be used to design quality assurance systems that can work in specific contexts. In other words, the point of convergence provides a useful resource base for moving forward towards improving and sustaining quality in the higher education system.

With the support of Vroeijenstijn’s (2003:81) argument that there are more similarities than differences in answering the question, “How is quality assured in the higher education?” than in “Why is quality being assured?”, generalisations have provided insights into how quality can be assured and sustained.

6.4 Considerations for sustaining quality assurance for the Higher Education