Quality assurance in higher education : an international survey of current practice and lessons for South Africa
Quality has been one of the most talked about issues in higher education in the last fifteen years. Concerns about the quality of higher education have been directed predominantly at publicly-funded institutions which have been required increasingly, in the last decade, to do more with less and expected, simultaneously, to provide assurance that the quality of educational provision is not being compromised. Quality assurance systems, established to measure and assess the quality of higher education institutions and programmes, have become a global trend. This movement, which began in Europe and the United States in the early to mid-1980s, has spread to many other countries. Publications on quality in higher education draw contributors from, inter alia, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Chile and Canada. The Fourth Biennial Conference of the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education which was held in South Africa in 1997 attracted more than 50 papers by contributors from 20 countries and many more countries were represented. Appropriately the theme of the conference was "Quality without frontiers". South Africa has been engaged in discussions about quality since the National Education Policy Investigation was launched in 1990. Although a relative newcomer to the 'quality movement', South Africans have not hesitated to draw on international expertise in an effort to join the global university system, especially as international accreditation of qualifications looms on the horizon. However, the most important reason for establishing a quality assurance system in South Africa is the need to achieve acceptable standards of quality across a system which has been distorted over time as a result of apartheid's discriminatory policies. This study looks at the extent to which South Africa has relied on models of quality assurance developed in older academic systems, notably those in Europe. The study is interested in how much South Africa's approach has been borrowed and what dynamics within the South African system have given it its specific character.
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