Quality Assurance In Higher Education

The quality issue turn in Central and East-European (CEE) countries, telling the development of higher education Quality Assurance (QA) policies in view of the transition from elite higher education to mass higher education, was marked by influences from outside the region [3].

There are identified five broad approaches for defining quality in higher education. These are (i) quality meaning exceptional, where quality is related to conception of excellence; (ii) quality meaning perfection, where quality has consistent and error-free attributes; (iii) quality meaning fit for purpose, where quality fulfils the perceived requirements of stakeholders; (iv) quality meaning value for money; and (v) quality meaning transformation, i.e. quality necessarily

The past four decades have witnessed the transformation of higher education in most of the countries from elite to a mass system. This expansion has come about through the merging of two very different concepts of higher education: the traditional universities and colleges, which were accountable to no-one for the quality of their provision, and the recent professional and vocationally oriented institutions of higher learning, which are accountable to the monitoring and accreditating bodies. The massification of higher education has been accompanied by the development of a set of much more intrusive quality assurance and inspection arrangements. Although most of the universities and colleges of higher education are, in general, still free to develop degree and diploma syllabuses as they please, their teaching and learning arrangements are now subject to an array of external peer judgements, some of which may have direct financial consequences. As a result, a vigorous debate is now underway in most of the developed and developing countries

It is frequently stated that an institution's internal committees of faculty are kept on track through the guidance of external review committees (Dow, 1992). To Frazer (1992) the first stage of external review "must be a document reporting the self-evaluation", but further visits should be for the purpose of meeting with both small and large groups at the institution. However, quality assurance might be achieved within an individual program in a university as a process of internal review.

 Internal Approaches

L'Ecuyer (1993) mentioned that "quality assurance is first and foremost up to the institutions themselves. Central agencies are not there to do the institution’s job, but to ensure that they do it properly and, if necessary, more satisfactorily”. According to Becher (1992), it has a positive effect on faculty involvement, interest, and teaching effectiveness.

 Outcome