1. Mirjam Woutersen, Nancy van San and Henri Ponds
Towards EFQM in IQA?
Mirjam Woutersen, Nancy van San and Henri Ponds
Date:

2. Preface
NVAO since 1 February 2005, complete staff about 35 fte (board, policy advisors and supporting staff)
Programme accreditation in the Netherlands and Flanders, about 700 programmes every year
Workload high, looking for a lean and effective system of IQA, partly based on EFQM
Systematic approach IQA since spring 2006
External review in 2007 with a positive result
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6. Scheme EFQM Staff HEIs / HE Society Performance results Leadership
Human Resources
Strategy & Policy
Resources
Processes
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7. Why EFQM? Stimulates organisational learning and innovation
Helps identification of stakeholders’ and staff needs and balancing those needs
Identification of enablers of quality
Identification intended results (~stakeholders needs)
Measurement of the performance and success
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8. Defined organisation processes in 2006
1. Leadership, Strategy & Policy A B C
Proces
Manage-
ment
2. en 3. (Initial) Accreditation
4. Legal Affairs
5. International Affairs
6. Additional Tasks
7. Communication
8. Support Services
9. Internal Quality Assurance
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9. Quality Areas A B C Staff Management 10. Human Resources Resource-
11. General Services
12. Finance
13. ICT
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10. Intended Quality process
(Initial) Accreditation and International affairs severe
Other organisation processes less severe
Strategic objectives and target figures
Planning documents and reports of progress
Evaluation activities
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11. Intended Quality process
Yearly quality-report to the board
Feedback from the board on proposals for measures for improvement
This feedback should enable coherence between the organisation processes (systematic approach)
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12. Topics of a planning document
Name organisation process
Administrative information
Strategic goals
Targets for the next year
Evaluation activities
Accountability
Proposed measures for improvement
Documents
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13. What we learned up till now (2008)
Don’t produce a lot of paper and don’t discuss very long about documents, otherwise resistance grows
Quality improvement is a also a result of a immediate, spontaneous action
Managing this IQA-system as an additional task for the board of a rather small organisation is complex
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14. What we learned - 2
Due to high workload not all planned evaluations were carried out.
Coherence between primary and secondary processes is not self evident
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15. Proposed measures for improvement
Reduce the number of quality areas
Choose e.g. two concrete quality targets in every process every year, not more
Organise evaluation activities that give inspiration to the staff to work on quality (projects and meetings with stakeholders), rather than written evaluations
Organise on a yearly basis a special day focussed on quality improvement for staff to create dialoque
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16. Discussion
1. Quality Agencies (QA) must perfome on IQA as HEI should (‘Practice what you preach’!).
2. QA should evaluate all organisation processes and not only the key processes (systematic approach).
3. QA should make public the results of IQA.
4. Every staff member has a role in IQA.
5. IQA means primary working on a quality culture and not a formal, systematic approach.
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17. Discussion
6. Good procedure description by manuals is the basis of valid accreditation decisions. Evaluations are less important.
7. Full application of EFQM is ‘a bridge too far’ for mostly rather small accreditation organisations.
8. Meetings or verbal consultation of stakeholders should be preferred above written evaluations.
9. Quality Agencies need a coordinator within the organisation for IQA.
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