The developing countries have also witnessed a rapid expansion of their higher education systems. This expansion has transpired with greater differentiation of HEIs into new forms and in conjunction with an increasing recognition of the importance of knowledge for social and economic development (World Bank, 2000). However, progress has been uneven and sharp contrasts remain across and within higher education systems in these countries. Whilst movement to mass higher education is a reality and enrolments in developed countries have reached in some cases over 80 percent (World Bank, 2000, 2002), the developing countries seldom enrol more than 25 percent of the 1 8-24 age cohort (Lemaitre, 2002). The average higher education enrolment for developing countries was only 9 percent (for 1 995) and 9.8 percent (for
200 1 ) (Hopper, 2007, April; World Bank, 2002). Furthermore, Frazer ( 1 994) points out that the expansion of higher education in many countries had not brought the prosperity some promised it would. In Frazer's words:
There are well-known examples of developing countries that undertook massive expansion of higher education only to discover that there were many unemployed, underemployed, or misemployed graduates who were disillusioned and often a focus for discontent. In other countries, employers complain about the inability of graduates to contribute to their enterprises. (p. 1 02)
Thus the unequal progress has generated demands from within and outside higher education for greater effectiveness. From outside higher education this has led to demands for the quality of courses to be exposed. From those within, there was "an urgency to check, change if necessary and demonstrate the value of their courses" (Frazer, 1 994, p . 1 02).
2.4.2 Crisis in Higher Education
Technological development and the impact of information technologies, the pervasiveness of the internet, and the possibilities that open up with distance and on line education are well known. However, many of the students in developing countries do not own computers or have access to the internet (Lemaitre, 2002). Whilst there are exceptions, the quality and relevance of research, teaching and learning has continued to decline in public HEIs in developing countries. According to a World Bank study, overcrowded and deteriorating physical facilities, limited and obsolete library resources, insufficient equipment and instructional materials, outdated curricula, unqualified teaching staff and poorly prepared secondary students still plague the developing countries (World Bank, 2000). Similar conditions can be found in many new private HE Is that have mushroomed in several of these countries. Lack of full time qualified lecturers is an important factor resulting in poor quality education in both public and private institutions in these countries. Formidable new challenges have arisen for developing countries, as a consequence of the rapid and chaotic expansion and under-funding of public systems, whilst the for-profit private sector only focuses on short-term, market driven needs, thereby raising issues of quality. Hence, the developing countries operate in a much more difficult and complex environment, in so far as quality improvement of their higher education sector is concerned. Not only do they have to assure quality, they must also develop the conditions that make quality possible (Lemaitre, 2002).
Faced with a ' crisis' in higher education, the developing countries also started to address the quality imperative, drawing principally on the experiences from developed countries. The 1 990s have witnessed a great increase in the establishment of formal QA agencies in several developing countries. More recently, the smaller states of the world have followed suit. In the Caribbean, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St Kitts and Suriname are reported to have established national systems to monitor higher education providers (Gift et aI. , 2005) and for the smaller Eastern Caribbean states the establishment of one agency for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) region is under active consideration. In the Asia and Pacific region [in addition to Australia, New Zealand and Japan] , several countries including China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam have established national QA bodies within the last decade (Lenn, 2004).
Lim's (200 1 ) study, which is one of the few studies that interrogates the relevance and usefulness of QA systems within contemporary HE Is in developing countries, concludes by cautioning developing countries not to establish sophisticated QA systems, such as those seen in developed countries. The reason for this, according to Lim (200 1 ), is the lack of many of the conditions required for the successful implementation of QA programmes. These QA programmes, Lim (200 1 ) argues, need to be "modified to suit the conditions prevailing in developing countries, by being simple in design, modest in expectations, and realistic in requirements" (p. 8 1 ).
2.4.3 Lowering of National Barriers
Concern for quality has also arisen due to the lowering of national barriers to entry in both developed and developing countries (Frazer, 1 994) . This has come about through political changes, significant increase in travel and the electronic communications revolution. Consequently there has been a great increase of students involved in higher education both within the countries and abroad. More and more students have access to a diversified range of courses within the country while others became capable of travelling to other countries for the purpose of higher education. This increased mobility of students "produced a need to understand the equivalencies of qualifications, the standards reached and the values to be attached to credit for something learnt in one country to be transferred to another" (Frazer, 1 994, p. 1 02).
Thus a compelling need to establish equivalencies of qualifications and to validate both local and overseas qualifications has been generated.
2.4.4 The Role of Transnational Agencies
Transnational agencies, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Commonwealth Secretariat and UNESCO, have actively promoted and financially contributed to the rise of the QA movement in the developing countries
(Commonwealth Secretariat, 1 988; UNESCO and Commonwealth Secretariat, 1 997).
Aid projects have supported the establishment of national QA agencies. It is therefore not surprising that many of the developing countries have established 'accreditation' agencies, in keeping with the policies espoused by powerful multilateral agencies with financial leverage.
Furthermore, other international and regional organisations have contributed in significant ways to the internationalisation of the policy-making environment, with regards to QA in higher education. The International Network of Quality Assurance
Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), founded in 1 99 1 by representatives of
some 20 national QA bodies, increased to more than 1 90 members by 2007 (Craft,
1 992; INQAAHE, 2007). In addition, a number of regional associations for QA
agencies have recently emerged. The most firmly established of these is the European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQAHE), which was founded in 1 999, whilst the most recent ones include the Network of Central and Eastern
European Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (CEE Network) and the
Asia Pacific Regional Network, established in 2003 .
These movements at the international level, it can be argued, serve to facilitate the much anticipated liberalisation of trade in services through General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATSl These are designed to serve the interests of the neoliberal construction of the 'market' and the so-called 'knowledge economy'. It could be observed that these are not necessarily the prime interests of higher education systems
7 During the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which lasted from 1986 to 1994, the General Agreement for Trade in Services (GATS) was agreed. The GATS allowed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to set the rules and regulate the international trade in the services sector, including intellectual property and education. This agreement sets the rules of international competition in services and facilitates the establishment of international market in education, opening up national education systems to the global education market (Singh, 2002; Knight, 2002). This has
In many developing countries which still remain at the early stage of their establishment.
Nevertheless, QA in higher education is also a reality in developing countries. It has taken different forms in different countries. The next section reviews some of the better known approaches and methodologies of QA.
2.5 A Critical Review of Quality Assurance Methodologies
Literature on the developments in QA points to great variety in methodologies. This literature also shows a "significant degree of borrowing by national systems of higher education from others" (Harman, 1 998, p. 347). With respect to QA methodologies Harman (1 998) states:
While the methodologies employed in various QA reviews and assessments vary considerably, most depend on one or a combination of a limited number of key methodologies. (p. 3 53)
This section critically reviews some of the common QA methodologies employed in higher education. The key methodologies that could be identified from the literature are: ( 1 ) self-studies or self-evaluation, (2) peer review and audits, (3) the use of relevant statistical data and performance indicators, (4) student surveys, (5) accreditation, and (6) use of industry-based frameworks.