Quality assurance Higher education development and reforms Jiří Nantl (Masaryk University/Council of Higher Education/ National Board for Qualifications, Czech Republic) Lithuania National Bologna Seminar, Kaunas, 15/4/2008

Introductory remarks  Quality has always been the core of the educational business, but …  (1) There is a growing contemporary trend towards greater institutionalization and formalization in quality assurance (peer-review and shared opinion on quality within the academia is not enough anymore)  (2) quality assurance has become one of the key components of a higher education institution`s profile

Accountability in higher education  Higher education system is generally expected to be accountable to the society/government for its outcomes  The concept of quality can define whether the production of higher education meets the actual needs of the society  However, this can only work if the government and other external stakeholders are themselves aware of the societal needs and are able to articulate them  There's no point in measuring the outcomes without knowing the goal in advance

Setting the goal in higher education  Higher education goals are commonly either vague or disputable among various stakeholders  Institutions, staff, students as a group and as individuals, industrial sector and individual enterprises, unions, and government do not have the same expectations of the higher education outcomes (though some or many of them may overlap)  Various stakeholders must agree on the goals at system, institutional and programme level. (Must all types of stakeholders be involved at each level?)  Can qualification frameworks serve this purpose?

Quality assurance in the Czech higher education system (1998 – 2008)  1998 Higher Education Act: autonomous public institutions accountable to, and funded by, the government became basis of the system (plus private institutions authorized)  Higher education institutions must - assess their academic and other activities regularly and publish the assessment results - advice students and applicants on career opportunities enhanced by the degree programmes - reveal statistical information on admission tests and entrance procedure results - undergo institutional evaluation by the Accreditation Commission - seek for accreditation of all the degree programmes (granted up to 10 years) from the Accreditation Commission  Higher education funding remains largely based on inputs (student numbers, slightly modified in 2004 by inclusion of graduate numbers into the formula)

Quality assurance practices I  At the national system level, accreditation remains the basic tool for assuring quality (measured as statewide threshold standard)  Programme accreditation procedures demands have led to overloading of the Accreditation Commission (preventing it from performing institutional evaluations to a larger extent)  There are inextensive nationally coordinated benchmarking activities too (Centre for Higher Education Studies)  Rankings of higher education institutions have emerged as published by media since 2006 (but suffering from methodological problems heavily)

Quality assurance practices II  At the institutional level, there has been practically no genuine and comprehensive self-assessment by a higher educational institution (with a few exceptions: EUA Institutional Evaluation, Salzburg Seminar Universities Project)  Most institutions organize course evaluation (but this mostly helps to identify extremes in teaching quality and there is common problem with the return-rate of questionnaires)  Some institutions organize other surveys targeting various groups (students, but also staff, alumni etc.)  Programme evaluation/assessment remains generally underdeveloped (due to the lack of an appropriate learning outcomes concept)

Quality monitoring and assurance at the Masaryk University  University policy defines the quality monitoring as identifying the position, role, strengths and weaknesses of the institution within the higher education in the nation and abroad by benchmarking against agreed performance indicators  Quality monitoring practices rely upon the support by the university information system (all data including questionnaires collected electronically, which results in the highest return-rate in the nation in all the kinds of surveys)  There are annual (and overall) evaluations of the 9 faculties by the rector's team (while at most faculties, the dean's team evaluates the several departments)  There is a self-assessment of the university included in the annual report (approved by the university Senate and submitted to the Board of Trustees)  Comprehensive quality assurance strategy is being developed so as to enable external stakeholders (government and industry) to participate in programme quality assurance

Source: MU Office for Strategy and Development (Ms Basovnikova), 2007 Quality monitoring surveys at the Masaryk University

Czech higher education reform and the quality assurance issue  OECD Thematic Review on Tertiary Education 2006 /  White Paper on Tertiary Education (currently under debate) calls for institutional accreditation (rather than accreditation of several programmes)  National Qualifications Framework for Tertiary Education (under development by 2009) will define the nationally agreed learning outcomes expected at each cycle and level of higher education

Future of institutional quality assurance  White Paper would require higher education institutions to develop internal systems of quality assurance including: - Rules for academic planning, development of degree programmes/curricula - Student admission policy - Student assessment policy (grading criteria etc.) - Academic staff recruitment policy and career system (incl. academic work evaluation) - Public availability of information on an institution's performance  White Paper calls for increasing role of external stakeholders in quality assurance

Future of programme quality assurance  National Qualifications Framework (NQF) contains a proposal for two types of descriptors applicable at each cycle and level: - General (generic descriptors applicable to all qualifications) - Sectoral (specific for a cluster of programmes/disciplines)  Sectoral descriptors might help to solve the problem with external stakeholders such as the industry: - As individual enterprises, they can imperil the academic standards by their demands towards a particular programme - As a group, they commonly have difficulties to express clear and coherent demands towards the higher education system as a whole

Concluding remarks  Various stakeholders involvement in quality assurance (and higher education planning) must in each case be done at the appropriate level of the system  Qualifications frameworks and the concept of learning outcomes are essential (if not sine qua non) for further development of quality assurance  The prime and ultimate responsibility for the quality must rest with the higher education institution (quality is a key tool for competition among institutions)  Stakeholders involvement cannot undermine the authority of an institution over its own activities  Higher education reforms can succeed, if they create a balanced relationship between the government and higher education institution (where both sides are accountable)

Thank you for attention and questions. Jiří Nantl Registrar, Masaryk University Žerotínovo náměstí 9, Brno Czech Republic