AQ 97 - Bramley

AQ 97

Proceedings of the AQ 97 Conference
Winchester, 2 December 1997

"I want my money back!"

Alan Bramley
School of Mechanical Engineering
University of Bath
[email protected]

Will the corridors of higher education echo with such claims from students? Has the 'quality imperative' needlessly precipitated ill-conditioned bureaucracy in the quest for quality management in institutions of higher education, at the expense of quality itself?

The student has recently become much more of a stakeholder in his or her own education, with a reducing grant and an increasing loan both contributing to a growing burden of debt. Students will demand much more value for money with the introduction of fees: appeals concerning degree classifications are already increasing. And isn't it entirely reasonable that the student should have some prior assurance about the quality of provision at the university he or she has chosen?

How can this be managed?

External examiners, standards metrics, accreditation, teaching quality assessment (from each of the three funding councils), and academic audit are a significant - and in their totality probably counterproductive - burden on the current system and beg the need for some degree of rationalization. Indeed, is this paraphernalia sustainable in the long term?

The results of these many measurement exercises are often used as the basis for league tables. But not only do these tables compare different levels of provision - both within one university and for each subject across all HEIs in the UK - but they conflate the results of research and teaching assessments. How this helps the stakeholders to evaluate the quality of education is at best unclear.

In practice, the benefits from external assessment and audit tend to arise from the alliances that are built during the preparation for and execution of the visit: between staff and students, between departmental staff, between departmental staff and colleagues elsewhere in the university, and between staff of the HEI and the visiting team. These alliances enable good practice to be identified, shared and disseminated more widely: within the department, within the university, and in the organizations whose representatives comprise the external team.

Much can be gained by sharing good practice through collaborative ventures. Some of these have already brought partners together. There are signs that co-operation - within an HEI, regionally, nationally and internationally - is being recognized as the way forward.

The range of presentations that follow cover many of the key issues. I believe they will be valuable in disseminating good practice and facilitating the building of alliances....

Then maybe they won't want their money back after all.