scholarly journals Mexico's Approach to Quality Assurance

Author(s):  
Mohammed El-Khawas ◽  
Elaine El-Khawas

The last decade has seen substantial growth throughout the world in higher education quality assurance systems. As one knowledgeable observer notes, more than 50 agencies now exist worldwide that have roles related to quality assessment or quality assurance.1 In most cases, these agencies have been mandated by government decrees and follow a design developed by ministry officials. Often these agencies have encountered resistance or criticism. In other instances, their approach has had to be revised extensively— or even disbanded—after a short time. By the late 1980s, Mexican institutions of higher education were in dire need of additional funding. The financial crisis of the 1980s caused a 50 percent decline in the purchasing power of faculty salaries, forcing many qualified academics to quit their jobs or to take on additional employment. This resulted in severe staffing problems and a deterioration in teaching conditions at a time of increasing enrollments. This led to public concern and government demands for improving the quality of higher education. With the economic recovery in the late 1980s, the government was ready to increase public expenditures on higher education but insisted on reforms and increased public accountability.

Author(s):  
Olena Khrutska

Ukrainian higher education is in the process of reforming. In particular, there is a transition from a traditional discipline-based approach to competency, introducing a student-centred approach in teaching and learning, requiring a rethinking of approaches to developing educational programmes and ensuring higher education quality of at this stage. The Paris Communiqué states that quality assurance in accordance with the «Standards and Recommendations for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area ESG-2015» is one of the three key commitments crucial for strengthening and maintaining quality and cooperation in the middle of the EHEA. Therefore, ensuring the quality of higher education, in particular the quality of educational programmes, is relevant both to the Ukrainian and European higher education spheres. The article analyses the existing normative, legal and methodological bases on the issue of developing educational programmes in Ukraine. The requirements of the Law of Ukraine «On Higher Education» regarding the development of new educational programmes are researched. The requirements of «Licensing conditions for conducting educational activities» regarding the composition of the project (working) group and its head (program guarantor) are investigated. «Methodological recommendations for the development of educational programmes», «Methodical recommendations for the development of higher education standards», letters from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine with explanations of questions regarding the development of educational programmes are considered. The correspondences and contradictions between these documents and «Standards and Recommendations on Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area ESG-2015» are analysed. The normative requirements and methodical recommendations for implementation of successive stages of the process of development of new educational programmes are investigated. There is a discrepancy between terminology and aspects that the legal and methodological support is imperfect, in particular requirements regarding the composition of the working group, the rights and obligations of guarantors, and the involvement of stakeholders in the process of developing educational programmes.It is suggested to develop a normative background and methodological recommendations for covering the issue of responsibility of the head of the project group (the guarantor of the educational program), as well as to provide at the normative and methodological levels the possibility of involving not only scientific and pedagogical workers but also other stakeholders in the development of educational programmes.


Author(s):  
Kateryna Tryma ◽  
Natalia Salnikova

The process of higher education quality assurance is a strategic priority for the development of higher education in Ukraine. To meet the EHEA standards in the sphere of higher education for the Ukrainian HEIS to cooperate with European ones; the conceptual foundations of the reform of higher education, which are designed to provide quality educational services, are to be considered. Modern higher education policy in the European Higher Education Area to ensure the quality of higher education involves the involvement of various stakeholders in the functioning of higher education, including NGOs and associations, employers, local communities, and active citizens. Departmental HEIs began to form an internal system of quality assurance in higher education in 2016. At this stage, the relevant provisions have been developed, which regulate the distribution of powers to ensure the quality of education between different services and departments of the university. Based on the analysed documents, it was concluded that some structural units for quality assurance in higher education in departmental HEIs have not yet been formed, and the functions of compliance with quality standards are assigned as additional to existing structural units. Based on the analysis of news from the websites of departmental HEIs of Ukraine, it was concluded that departmental HEIs cooperate with international and Ukrainian non-governmental organisations whose activities are related to law enforcement. The priority of cooperation between HEIs and non-governmental organisations, which is publicly available on the websites of universities, is joint educational activities, training, conferences and round tables, professional development of employees. There are no documents outlining the influence of non-governmental organisations on ensuring the quality of educational services and information on the practical dimension of cooperation in ensuring the quality of educational services on the websites. The conclusion is made about the need to develop mechanisms for the cooperation of departmental HEIs of Ukraine with non-governmental organisations and the algorithm of the promulgation of this process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Volodymyr M. Moroz ◽  
Volodymyr P. Sadkovyi ◽  
Volodymyr M. Babayev ◽  
Svitlana A. Moroz

Based on the results of the analysis of world experience on the participation of higher education graduates in assessing the quality of educational activities of higher education institutions and the quality of higher education in general, the possibility of including students in expert groups for monitoring the quality of higher education has been substantiated. There was considered the history of implementation the toolkit for surveying the students into the mechanisms of monitoring the higher education quality. Comparative analysis of the domestic experience on attracting the higher education graduates to the assessment of higher education quality with the relevant foreign experience has been conducted. The peculiarities of the organization and conducting of students surveys within the framework of the international consortium "Student experience in the research university" are determined. The authors have considered the prospects of use of the online survey toolkit for the quality control system in higher education, as well as the level of professional activity of universities. The requirements for a software product, that the expert in assessing the quality of higher education can use to ensure the effectiveness of online surveys of students and the guaranteed achievement of the goal of appropriate monitoring are given. The advantages and disadvantages of online surveys of students as a tool for monitoring the quality of higher education have been identified. The benefits of using the cloud service survey by the organizer for development of the questionnaire for students surveys and analysis of the received answers have been proved. In addition, the paper provides conclusions on the possibility of using the online survey of students in the system for quality assurance in higher education both at university and at the state level, as well as practical recommendations on the use of questionnaires for higher education applicants in the framework of mechanisms for monitoring its quality. The directions of further scientific researches concerning the development and using cloud technologies for assessing the level of quality assurance in higher education institutions, the quality of educational activities and higher education as a whole have been formulated.


2004 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Kurt De Wit ◽  
Jef C. Verhoeven

Higher education in Flanders has seen some major changes in the 1990s. One of the key elements of the new higher education regulations was the quality assessment system. This exemplified best the government's policy of granting all institutions of higher education autonomy, making them responsible for their policies, while still keeping the quality of higher education somewhat under governmental control. In this article, we focus on the tension between the government's aim of improving and controlling the quality of higher education and universities ' concern for their autonomy. We describe the Flemish government's view on issues of quality in higher education and confront these with an account on the basis of case studies of how the quality assurance system was actually implemented in universities. We conclude that the model of the "market state" or the "evaluative state" is only realised partially in Flanders. The government is still interventionist when it comes to key policy issues


Author(s):  
Olena Orzhel ◽  
Kateryna Tryma

The article is dedicated to the issue of student involvement in higher education quality assurance and evaluation – a vital and highly relevant issue in today’s higher education of Ukraine. Changes instigated by the Law of Ukraine «On Higher Education» of 2014, foresee an active role of students in the formation and evaluation of higher education quality as 1) final beneficiaries, 2) interviewees and participants in accreditation of study programmes, 3) external evaluation experts during study programmes accreditation, as ruled by current legislation. Taking into account the significance of students’ role in quality assurance, it is necessary to find out: how university students interpret quality of higher education and higher education quality assurance; how students perceive their role in the formation and enhancement of higher education quality; to what extend they are ready and committed to influence and improve the quality of higher education. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to investigate students’ opinion on the quality of Ukraine’s higher education. To this end, students’ survey was conducted with the focus on the following: what is quality and quality assurance in students’ opinion; how respondents assess the quality of education in their HEI and in Ukraine in general; whether students can influence the quality of study programmes and quality of higher education; what hinders improvement of study programmes and enhancement of quality of higher education. The survey was conducted in May – October 2020; the respondents were 115 students of five Ukrainian universities (years three and four of bachelor programmes and master students) who volunteered to take part in the survey. The research resulted in the following conclusions:  1) There is no integral, holistic understanding of higher education quality among student community. Representatives of different HEIs interpret higher education quality differently, though in total 60% of respondents interpret quality as « new, relevant information and knowledge». 2) On the whole, respondents value the quality of higher education rather low: only 25% of students regard it as high. At the same time, most of surveyed students rate the quality of their study programme higher, than the quality of higher education in their university or the quality of educational services in Ukraine in general. 3) Students of different HEIs are rather diverse in their interpretation of quality assurance of higher education and choice of different means for quality enhancement. On the whole, respondents give preference to those tools that anticipate active students’ participation in quality assurance, like asking the teacher to change the manner of teaching, or leaving a complaint with student self-government, discussing the quality of teaching in a focus group, or filling in an evaluation questionnaire. 4) Students who participated in the survey demonstrated critical thinking and fair judgement of their negative impact on the quality of higher education by stating that low student motivation is the most significant factor that obstructs quality enhancement. Other factors cited by respondents include low teacher motivation, underdeveloped infrastructure at HEIs, teacher workload. 5) The positive finding of the survey is that the majority of students are confident in their capability to influence the quality of higher education in their HEI and only 21% responded they are deprived of the possibility improve higher education quality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Md. Ruhul Amin ◽  
Md. Rashidul Islam Sheikh

The evolution of a modern society largely depends on the essence of quality higher education. In a developing country, higher education has enormous potential to foster its development. Universities all over the world are changing actors of culture and remain the center of transformation and growth. Different Education Commissions have been formed in Bangladesh to explore the potentialities and create highly skilled human resources to contribute the national development (Topader, 2021). Due to the economic and globalization change emphasis on the quality education in education policy across the world. As a result, policymakers, academicians, and professionals in Bangladesh have expressed various issues regarding the quality of higher education. Over the last two decades, the standard of higher education in Bangladesh has steadily deteriorated (Rabbani & Chowdhury, 2014). In this regard, the government, ministry, and UGC have taken various initiatives to ensure quality higher education, especially at the tertiary level, to meet global demand. In this regard, this research aims to learn more about a particular scenario of higher education quality and investigate policy options for higher education in Bangladesh. In this connection, this study tried to determine the specific design of quality higher education and analyze the policy options for higher education in Bangladesh.


Osvitolohiya ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 111-116
Author(s):  
Svetlana Zaskaleta

The article analyzes the problem of ensuring the quality of higher education. Ukraine aims to be in the European trend towards modernization of higher education. Ensuring the quality of higher education is much planned and at the same time the availability of the necessary resources (academic and administrative staff, students, academic and administrative leaders; financial, material, informational, scientific, educational resources etc.); organization of educational process that most adequately reflect modern trends in the development of national and world economy and education; the control of educational activities at the higher education sector and the quality of training of specialists at all stages of training and at all levels: the higher education institution, for higher education in different national and international (European) level. Quality assurance requires a lot of preparatory work. This is an extended process that requires continuous improvement of the achieved performance. The general tendency of professional training of specialists in the countries of the European space is determined. It is to ensure the quality of higher education. The quality assurance of higher education is governed by the legal framework of the countries (the Law on Higher Education and related by-laws). Higher education quality assurance tasks are carried out by the Agency for the Supervision and Quality Assurance of Higher Education, in accordance with EU legislation and recommendations in the field of higher education quality. It is noted that the mechanisms of quality assurance of higher education are constantly being improved, which is the key to the development of higher education systems in the countries of the European area. Quality assurance is a priority of the Bologna Process, but its mechanisms are not seen as a goal. Their ultimate goal is to improve the quality of teaching and research. The quality assurance bodies support the institutions in their further development and, equally, play a key role as defenders of the public interest. Key components of the quality assurance system of higher education is to ensure the quality of education at the Universities, processes of quality assurance in education teaching and learning; approval monitoring and periodic review of programs for assessing the quality of teaching staff, educational resources and support for students of information systems


Author(s):  
Nina Batechko

The article outlines the conceptual framework for adapting Ukrainian higher education to the Standards and Recommendations for Quality Assurance in the European higher education area. The role of the Bologna Declaration in ensuring the quality of higher education in Europe has been explained. The conceptual foundations and the essence of standards and recommendations on quality assurance in the European higher education area have been defined. The Ukrainian realities of the adaptation of higher education of Ukraine to the educational European standards of quality have been characterized.


Author(s):  
Seema Singh

Quality, as we know so far, was originally developed in the manufacturing industry. In the area of higher education, the adoption of quality control has been superficial and diluted by the exercise of academic . Further, the prevailing culture of universities is often based on individual autonomy, which is zealously guarded. Thus, it is usually difficult to apply the features of quality to higher education considering the fact that quality requires. However, the quality of higher education is very important for its stakeholders. Notably, providers (funding bodies and the community at large), students, staff and employers of graduates are. The most commonly grouped dimensions of quality are product, software and service. In the changing context marked by expansion of higher education and globalization of economic activities, education has become a national concern with an international dimension. To cope with this changing context, countries have been pressurized to ensure and assure quality of higher education at a nationally comparable and internationally acceptable standard. Consequently, many countries initiated “national quality assurance mechanisms” and many more are in the process of evolving a suitable strategy. Most of the quality assurance bodies were established in the nineties and after a few years of practical experience, they are rethinking many issues of quality assurance. At this juncture where countries look for experiences and practices elsewhere, the experience of India has many valuable lessons and this report is an attempt to share those developments..


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