The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven autonomous emirates that follow different economic models. There is a process for quality assurance at the federal level, however, each emirate takes its own approach to assure the quality of its institutions. This has resulted in different procedures and varying levels of oversight and…

Over the last two decades, considerable progress has been made in establishing and implementing robust, comparable quality assurance processes throughout much of the European higher education sector. However, concerns persist over degree portability and recognition as current systems are rooted in national contexts. In particular, specialised…

This paper discusses three central issues relating to quality and standards: clarity, comparability and responsibility. The issue of clarity is that we have reached a point of disjunction between the questions being asked by the public and the answers being provided by quality assurance professionals. The issue of comparability comes in two forms:…

In recent years, Bahrain has taken serious actions to diversify its sources of income and solve major national problems such as unemployment. Through this process it discovered that one of the main factors for its economic problems was the quality of higher education on offer. This led to the creation of a national Quality Assurance Authority that…

South Africa's external quality assurance agency, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC), commenced its first cycle of institutional audits in 2004. During 2005, three public higher education institutions were audited, namely the University of Cape Town, the University of Stellenbosch and Rhodes University. The process of preparing for and…

Collecting feedback from students on their experiences of higher education has become one of the central pillars of the quality process. Many surveys are being carried out but it is not always clear how fit for purpose they are. This paper compares the fitness for purpose of a nation-wide survey and a tailor-made institutional survey. The National…

The aim of quality assurance codes of practice and guidelines is, in theory, to give a clear indication to stakeholders, governments, financers, partners and the public at large about the various course providers and the level of education they offer. This paper compares six different quality assurance codes of practice and guidelines and uses the…

Various total quality management (TQM) approaches are explored and some core elements specified. Generic problems of TQM and those relating to higher education are analyzed. It is argued that while there are some aspects of TQM that are applicable in the collegiate setting, the specific approach is inapplicable in higher education. A new…

The paper presents the experiences gained in the pilot project on mutual recognition conducted by the quality assurance agencies in the Nordic countries and the future perspective for international quality assurance of national quality assurance agencies. The background of the project was the need, on the one hand, to advance internationalisation…

This article analyses the impact of national quality audit of Swedish higher education institutions between 1995 and 2002. It also looks at the programme and subject reviews that have succeeded the audits, in order to compare results. It is found that the audits have resulted in the development of policy and structure of institutional quality work…

Several countries employ a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) as one means by which information on qualifications is made available to labour markets. Although the term 'National Qualifications Framework' is not used consistently across national borders, a qualifications classification system is an important element in all NQF models. An NQF…

This article focuses on the impact of research and education evaluation on two universities: Trento State University (Italy) and the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). The article adopts a system approach to evaluation and proposes a model to describe and analyse evaluation systems. The analysis has been carried out by means of in-depth…

South Africa has embarked on a process of education renewal by adopting outcomes-based education (OBE). This paper focuses on the linkages between total quality management (TQM) and the outcomes-based approach in an education context. Quality assurance in academic programmes in higher education in South Africa is, in some instances, based on the…

Efforts to improve the quality of academic programs in the United Kingdom, United States, and Netherlands have followed three general approaches: the logic of competitive markets; application of incentives; and professional self-regulation. Strengths and weaknesses of these approaches for improving academic quality are examined through the lens of…

A survey of 67 external evaluators from professional associations, 80 department heads, and 162 department faculty investigated effects of a trial departmental-evaluation program in Taiwan universities, focusing on whether assessments conducted by professional associations were better and more appropriate than those conducted by the education…