Quality Assurance Systems in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

ENHANCEMENT OF QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES
appeals committee is expected to function independently and provide fair judgement about
the appeal.
Follow-up
In some economies, the responsibility and formal role of the quality assurance agency ends
with the review. The institutions are responsible for the planning and implementation of followup
measures. Depending on the nature of the recommendations, the ministries of education
or other stakeholders may react on the review. Some quality assurance agencies have built-in
follow-up procedures with varying levels of rigour; some require binding actions to be taken by
the HEIs and in other cases it may be left to the professional commitment that can be
expected of the HEIs.
Yet another approach is to link the follow-up to the subsequent reviews. In this approach,
follow-up is the responsibility of the institution, but QA decisions are valid for a specific
duration and follow-up is a strong consideration at the next review. This option links the
quality assurance cycles in various ways. The agency may choose to check on earlier
recommendations and base its subsequent QA decisions on how the institution or program
has acted on those recommendations.
There is an increasing acknowledgement in the region that follow-up should be added to the
essential methodological principles.
Quality Enhancement
Quality assurance is a resource intensive exercise for the HEIs as well as the QA systems
and to benefit optimally from such an exercise it is essential that the HEIs are helped further
to build on the QA outcome and enhance the quality of their provisions. Many QA systems of
the APEC region consider the participatory QA process itself as the main quality
enhancement (QE) activity. Over and above helping HEIs to benefit from the QA exercise per
se, a suite of initiatives are also being attempted by the QA systems. Some have incentives
and funding schemes to support quality enhancement initiatives.
Some QA systems steer the post-QA process follow-up strategies towards quality
enhancement. They facilitate continuous interaction with the HEIs through seminars and
various academic fora. Supporting projects that would enhance certain aspects of quality
education, running select projects and doing research on areas that need attention to
enhance quality, involving a cross-section of institutional members in consultations and
discussions on quality enhancement, and supporting networking among HEIs are a few
initiatives found among quality assurance agencies that contribute to QE of HEIs.
The publication program of quality assurance agencies can have a significant impact through
publication of guidelines, handbooks and resource materials for the use of HEIs. Training
programs for quality managers or steering committee coordinators and reviewers and
involving them in quality assurance exercises develops an academic community who are
sensitised to quality-related issues and who in turn contribute to QE of their own HEIs.
Quality of Quality Assurance
Monitoring QA
Quality assurance agencies have the obligation to demonstrate that the quality assurance
process as implemented by them achieves the desired objectives effectively. To this end, they
become accountable to many stakeholders to prove the credibility of the process and to
ensure the objectivity of the outcome. Networking, information sharing with international
counterparts, participation in international events and discussions and self-monitoring, most of
which are either internal or informal or ad hoc, are the predominant ways QA systems follow
to ensure their quality. A few good examples of systematic, external reviews are also seen.
Good practice identified by INQAAHE indicates that QA systems should be able to practice
what they preach and demonstrate their quality to the stakeholders in a more systematic
manner.
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