Purposes, values and standards
This edition of higher quality appears at the same time as the Agency's new Strategic plan. There is a full account of the plan in the pages that follow, but there are some features of what we are publishing that I should particularly like you to know about.
The first is that we have a new mission. Now whatever you may think of mission statements, the task of creating one provides an opportunity for energetic, and possibly even invigorating, discussion about what everyone thinks they are doing. Or intend to do. Our new mission statement tries to give a clear idea of what we are going to be about in the next few years.
But a mission statement is hollow rhetoric if it isn't supported by a set of clearly defined purposes, themselves underpinned by agreed values and standards. For the first time, the Agency has stated not just what it is for, but also what it believes in, and has described the standards it has set for itself. These have all been fully endorsed by our Board and it will be interesting to see if they raise a clamour, or even an eyebrow, around the higher education community and beyond.
The values that a quality assurance agency for higher education signs up to must take into account the values of higher education itself. Surprisingly it is at present not very easy to be completely sure what those are. The traditional values, which took as axiomatic that higher education was in large part about personal development, that it took time and should be difficult, and was therefore not for everyone, and that obtaining a qualification or certificate was only one of its purposes, are now being strongly challenged by a combination of market forces, technology, and political policy.
Market forces, especially those resulting from the increase in the number of mature students over the past decade, have already forced higher education to address students' needs openly and directly. This is a fundamental change from the days when students were no more than apprentices to their academic masters, lucky to be accepted as such and grateful for the opportunity. Higher education then was in large part about the perpetuation of the academic species, a way of identifying the next generation of professors and lecturers. Students largely got what they were given. Those who didn't stay on to do research nevertheless had ready access to a range of worthwhile careers. Given the very selective nature of higher education admissions in those days, and the small numbers of graduates emerging into the job market each year, non-completion and graduate unemployment were, not surprisingly, vanishingly small. Now it is different. Increasing numbers of students view higher education principally as a means of obtaining a credential that will provide access to the career ladder, and they judge courses on how well that requirement will be met. Students now have the power of purchasers and they are beginning to use it.
In some areas technology has assisted this move: the rise, for example, of distance and electronically-mediated programmes has taken place mainly in the vocational areas of business and management studies; computing; accountancy; and law. For the most part these new opportunities emphasise advanced training rather than traditional higher education, and students' achievement is judged against explicit statements of what is expected of them by way of knowledge, skills and understanding. The personal maturation or transformational element is largely absent from these newer forms of higher education. Outcomes, not time served, are what is on offer.
This gradual redefinition of higher education now seems to have been endorsed implicitly by at least some parts of Government. The recent White Paper on higher education in England indicates that the bulk of the forthcoming expansion will be in foundation degrees, a qualification designed with employability as its central tenet. The Secretary of State has indicated his own view that the purpose of higher education is not to provide 'a finishing school', that learning for learning's sake is 'a bit dodgy' and that students 'need a relationship with the workplace'. While some institutions will no doubt continue to be able to offer the more traditional higher education with its emphasis on both qualification and personal maturation, it now looks as if this might become the exception rather than the rule, an opportunity to be bought, perhaps, through higher tuition fees. For most students, though, higher education may in future be about getting a useful qualification as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
Where does the Agency stand on these important questions? We are concerned principally, as our mission statement says, with safeguarding the public interest in sound standards of higher education qualifications and encouraging continuous improvement in the management of the quality of higher education. It is not our job to take a view on whether the current changes are desirable or not, to comment on whether higher education should be a major apparatus for social engineering, or no more than a means of obtaining a career-starting credential, or a continuation of the tradition of the transmission of knowledge over time in a scholarly environment. Or, indeed, a finishing school! All of these may be valid purposes for higher education. And (with the exception of the last, which we have not encountered) all are with us today in the work of the very diverse range of institutions that form the higher education community in the United Kingdom. The Agency's task in this confused and confusing world is to protect the public interest. It is our job to make sure that there is clear explicit and reliable information about what is on offer to students, that the tertiary qualifications being awarded meet at least the expectations of the Academic Infrastructure, that institutions are managing their academic standards and quality efficiently and effectively, and that the currency value of the UK's degrees and diplomas is maintained. It is also our job to help institutions to carry out their weighty responsibilities in these areas, by informing them of good practice, providing forums for discussion and keeping them up to date on what is happening elsewhere in the UK and internationally.
This approach is well embedded in our Strategic plan. The maintenance of standards and quality will, I hope, come to be recognised as a benefit to all, not least to higher education institutions themselves. In spelling out our purposes, values and standards we are challenging the higher education community to do the same.
Peter Williams
Chief Executive
Strategic plan 2003-05
On 12 March 2003, we are publishing our new Strategic plan for the period up to the end of 2005. The plan sets out what we intend to do in this period, how we intend to do it, how we will measure progress and monitor the quality of our work, and the position we intend to reach by the end of the period.
In developing the plan, the Board of Directors started from first principles by examining the Agency's mission statement: did it express clearly and fully what the Agency was set up to do, and what it does? The Board found that the statement that was adopted in 1997 did not capture as fully as we would have wished the purpose and nature of our work, the benefits we hope we provide, and our overall contribution to the success and effectiveness of higher education in the UK.
The Strategic plan includes a revised mission statement. Alongside the new mission statement, the Board has developed explicit statements of the our purposes, values and standards. This will help to promote understanding of what we do, why we do it, the kind of organisation we are, the values we hold, and the standards we set ourselves in the conduct of our work. Taken together, the revised mission statement and the statements of purposes, values and standards define the nature, role and functions of the Agency.
The plan takes a three-year perspective. We are in a transitional period. We have completed the programmes of work inherited from our predecessor bodies in 1997 and have carried out the developmental brief inherited from Dearing and Garrick. During the period up to 2005, we will be developing and implementing successor methods and roles in relation to reviews and audits, information and communication, and quality enhancement. Many of these are proceeding at different speeds and with different emphases across the UK. The details are set out in the plan.
We are a UK organisation. All UK higher education institutions are Agency subscribers, the representative bodies of the heads of higher education institutions (HEIs) are the company's shareholders, and we contract with the four higher education funding bodies to provide the services they require. We value the diversity and differentiation that a devolved educational environment brings and work with our partners in the different parts of the UK to provide the appropriate services. This can place considerable pressures on our capacities. For example, at the time of writing (February 2003), we are engaged in running, implementing, or developing and implementing, 16 different forms of review method across the UK.
During 2002, we reviewed and renewed our own structures for managing our
work in Scotland and Wales, so that we can continue to function effectively
as a UK body in a devolved context. The Board has formally delegated responsibilities
to its committee in Scotland - now known as QAA Scotland - to manage our
work in Scotland and to provide the focus for the our contribution to Scottish
higher education.
The Advisory Committee for Wales has also been reconstituted. It has a broader
membership, revised terms of reference to provide the focal point of our activities
in Wales and is a conduit for advising the Board on the particular needs in Wales.
We are currently consulting on the development of an Agency Welsh Language Scheme,
which will be implemented on 1 August 2003.
We are also a leading player on the European and international quality assurance scene, where we seek to make sure that the UK voice is heard clearly and effectively. The European dimension in particular will become increasingly important over the period of this Plan, with moves towards the Bologna-inspired European higher education 'space', and it is crucial that a UK body is engaged in those debates. This will be an important part of our work over the next three years.
Copies of the Strategic plan 2003-05 will be distributed widely: to all subscribing institutions; partner bodies in the sector and governments; employer and student groups; professional, statutory and regulatory bodies; and subject associations. It will also be on our web site. We hope it provides a clear picture of the next three years' work and welcome any comments you might have.
Institutional audit in England
From consultation to implementation
Since the last edition of higher quality, there has been much activity to implement the process of institutional audit. A total of seven training events were conducted between October and January, with 125 auditors and 24 audit secretaries attending. We will not know how successful the training has been until we can evaluate the experience of the first round of audits, but evidence to date shows that the training is equipping teams well to carry out their role.
The registers of auditors and audit secretaries are full, with 300 auditors and 86 audit secretaries. The enthusiasm and commitment of those on the registers bodes well for the future. We still welcome new applicants who are interested in taking part in the process of audit and application forms are available on our web site.
Evaluation and feedback
At the time of writing, the first few briefing visits have taken place and the informal feedback is that these have gone well. We are, of course, learning a great deal as each event adds to our experience. The feedback from each event is being passed on to the next team so that we can build on good practice. A formal and more detailed evaluation of the process will be taking place once the first audits are complete and the outcome of the evaluation will be fed into future training events.
In the interim we are considering how the outcomes of audit - particularly any general messages that emerge from audit reports - might be communicated most effectively to the sector. In the past, our analyses of audit reports have been presented on an occasional basis in the Learning from Audit publications. The new institutional audit process provides us with an opportunity for more focused consideration of specific themes and for more regular communication of general findings. We welcome comments on the information that you would find most useful and on your preferred ways of receiving it. Please send comments to s.clark@qaa.ac.uk by Monday 31 March 2003.
Preparation for 2003-05
Preliminary meetings for the autumn term 2003 audits and the allocation of teams to institutions are under way. Dates for audits are also being agreed with those institutions to be visited in spring/summer 2004.
Collaborative audits
As part of the overall schedule of work for the rest of this year, there will be an overseas audit of collaborative arrangements between UK institutions and partners in Italy. We are anticipating that the programme of overseas audits will continue in future years although the scale will depend on the other demands on our time.
We are also in the early stages of agreeing a programme of audits of collaborative provision, which should start in the academic year 2004-05. The process for these audits is being developed and more details will be available soon.
Nicola Channon
Sarah Clark
Subject-level review in HEIs in England
Developmental engagements
The programme of developmental engagements, an integral part of the arrangements for the transitional period (2002-05), is now under way. The first of the 113 developmental engagements for the academic year 2002-03 was completed in January and there will be approximately 60 developmental engagements in the academic year 2003-04. Feedback from the early developmental engagements is very positive.
Developmental engagements provide an opportunity for institutions to test, in cooperation with the Agency, the strength of their internal review procedures at the level of the discipline or programme, and the robustness of the evidence they use in those procedures. A key outcome is an evaluation of the internal review processes, including comment on the value of self-evaluation in these processes. As such they are intended to help institutions prepare for audit. A second outcome is a threshold judgement of confidence or otherwise in both the standards set and achieved for the programmes involved, and the quality of learning opportunities that support students in achieving the academic standards.
Two of the more novel features of developmental engagements are the inclusion in the team of an institutional nominee, and the opportunity for students at the discipline or programme level to make a written submission. Early indications are that institutional nominees have taken a constructive and positive approach to developmental engagements. They have contributed objectively to team discussions, the making of judgements and evaluations of the internal review procedures, and to report writing. Two-thirds of eligible student groups have chosen to make a written submission. The quality of the submissions received to date reflects the seriousness with which students have approached developmental engagements. The remaining third of student groups have worked with the discipline-level staff in the production of the self-evaluation documentation.
Academic review in HEIs
During the academic year 2002-03, 14 HEIs are involved in 19 academic reviews in the following subjects:
Accountancy
Computing
Earth, Environmental Sciences and Environmental Studies
Engineering
English
History
Law
Social Policy & Administration and Social Work
The first of these reviews is due for completion in mid-March, so it is too early to report on evaluation of the participants' experience. We can say, however, that the self-evaluation documents (SEDs) received to date have provided an appropriate basis for the reviews, which are progressing well.
By April the schedule for reviews in 2003-04 will be finalised. After Easter we will be contacting institutions to confirm submission dates for SEDs and the start week for reviews. Some 13 institutions will be involved in around 30 reviews.
Colleagues from both subject areas and central departments have received briefing about the method. Subject review facilitators have received separate briefing sessions about the method and their particular role. If there are any changes in personnel that mean further briefing is required, please contact a.christou@qaa.ac.uk, telephone 01452 557113, or w.stubbs@qaa.ac.uk, telephone 01452 557087.
Adam Biscoe
Alexa Christou
Higher education in English further education colleges
Academic review of directly-funded subjects
The review of the current round of subjects in FECs ends in June. This academic year, there are 81 reviews scheduled; 27 were completed in the autumn term. Most reviews resulted in a judgement of confidence in academic standards. Those reviews where reviewers did not award a confidence judgement in standards fell short in the area of assessment; this was also the case for reviews conducted from January to July 2002. Almost all colleges achieved a judgement of either approved or commendable in the three aspects of the quality of learning opportunities: teaching and learning; student progression; and learning resources.
We value the responses to questionnaires returned by colleges, review coordinators and specialist reviewers about their experience of the process. These are analysed and reports sent to HEFCE (as the commissioner of the reviews). Unfortunately the number of forms returned by institutions is diminishing and we would like to encourage colleges to complete and return the questionnaires they receive from us. Each one is read and analysed by at least two members of Agency staff. The comments are entered on a database to allow more detailed analysis. This year, we will also meet with a number of focus groups for each method of review, and seek to verify the trends appearing from the questionnaires and the extent to which they reflect your experience. This spring, we are holding focus groups for the HE in FE reviews that took place in the calendar year 2002. We hope that, if approached, you will be willing to participate in order to help us improve the effectiveness of our procedures, and operate in an open and transparent manner. Our specialist reviewer programme has already been revised in the light of some of your comments.
Between September 2003 and June 2006, there will be a new set of subjects eligible for review. These subjects are listed in the last edition of higher quality and in Annex K of the Handbook for academic review. The largest subject areas are art and design; communications, media, film and television studies; and building and surveying. We have invited applications to be reviewers, screened the applications, and training of specialist reviewers has already begun. We still welcome applications for reviews of HE in FE, from those with experience of teaching higher education in FECs and/or experience of collaborative provision in one of the subjects under review. The form is available here
We will provide briefings about academic review to FECs who are new to the process. This will assist subject leaders with the stages in the production of the self-evaluation document for the new subjects beginning in autumn 2003. There will also be briefings for subject review facilitators in colleges where this is necessary. From Easter 2003, we will write to all colleges with information about the proposed schedule of reviews, the workshops and briefing sessions.
HE in FEC Liaison Group and Forum
Last summer we established two groups to promote dialogue with the directly-funded FECs that deliver higher education, the HE in FEC Liaison Group (the Group) and the FEC Forum (the Forum). The first meetings of the Group and the Forum were in July and December 2002 respectively.
The Group has representatives from colleges with different amounts of higher education provision. The Mixed Economy Group (MEG) is represented by its chair. There are also representatives from the Association of Colleges, the Learning and Skills Development Agency, a HEFCE-funded consortium and a college with franchised provision. This group meets three times a year and is chaired by Gillian Hayes, Head of Operations in the Reviews Group at the Agency.
The Forum meets twice a year and is chaired by Stephen Jackson, Director of the Reviews Group. The Forum consists of the Group members and also representatives of HEFCE, OFSTED, the Adult Learning Inspectorate, Edexcel and the Learning and Skills Council.
The groups provide an opportunity to exchange information about the various review and inspection regimes to which FECs are subject and the impact of these on colleges. Possible ways of easing the burden on colleges are being discussed and liaison between the different agencies has been enhanced. As a result of discussions at these groups, we will be organising a conference next autumn on innovations in higher education resulting from the targets for increasing participation.
Penny McCracken
Review of foundation degrees
England
As we reported in the last issue of higher quality, HEFCE has commissioned the Agency to review a sample of all types of foundation degree in the current academic year. Between February and June 2003, 35 reviews will take place over three periods, each lasting approximately five working weeks.
The review will form part of a wider evaluation of the award carried out by evaluators appointed by HEFCE. The evaluators, from Liverpool John Moores University, will use the self-evaluation reports, statistics and review reports generated by all the HEFCE-funded prototype programmes and by the non-prototype awards, which are within the sample for review.
The sample has been selected to reflect the range of subjects, types and numbers of institutions and consortia, geographical locations, mode of study and student numbers. The subject areas most frequently included in foundation degrees are education, art, design and media.
The aims of reviewing this new award include a developmental aspect. While reports of individual reviews will be confidential to the consortia, HEFCE, the Agency and the HEFCE evaluators, an overview report will be published to share innovation and good practice. In the interests of encouraging self-critical evaluation, no institution will be identified.
Northern Ireland
We have also been commissioned by the Department of Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland to carry out a review of the seven pilot foundation degrees, which began in 2001. These are all in aspects of computing. We are collaborating with the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) on these reviews. ETI will carry out the work within the colleges, while we will review the work of the universities in assuring the standards and quality of their awards.
Penny McCracken
The work of the Agency in Scotland
Enhancement-led institutional review
We are fully involved with Universities Scotland, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) and the student bodies to take forward the implementation of the Quality Working Group model of enhancement-led quality assurance. At the beginning of January we issued the draft handbook for enhancement-led institutional review (ELIR). The consultation period ends on 28 February and the final version of the handbook will be published at Easter 2003. We are also providing professional support for the sector groups that will implement the new enhancement engagements. The groups working on the first two topics (Student Needs and Assessment) are currently being formed under the chairmanships of Professor John Harper, (Assistant Principal, The Robert Gordon University) and Dr Simon van Heyningen (Director of Quality Assurance and Vice Provost [Teaching], University of Edinburgh). These groups will meet monthly between now and the summer to plan their programmes for 2003-04.
Academic review in HEIs
Within the new enhancement-led arrangements for quality, external subject-level review continues only in HEIs that have not had the opportunity to demonstrate the robustness of their internal systems. Four reviews have been scheduled and completed at UHI Millennium Institute in business and management, earth and environmental sciences and studies, sociology, and education. Three reviews are also being undertaken at Bell College, covering provision in business and management, engineering and hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism. In April 2003, a programme of subject reviews will take place at the Scottish Agricultural College. We will also conduct two follow-up reviews arising from 'no confidence' in standards judgements arrived at during 2001-02.
Norman Sharp
Janice Ross
Next > The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF)
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