Quality Assurance Systems in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

ENHANCEMENT OF QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES
4. Internal QA Processes
All quality assurance practices of the APEC region emphasise and recognise the value of an
analytical and self critical process being undertaken by those who undergo the external QA
process. The published materials and the web sites regarding the QA initiatives of the region
indicate that a number of terms are frequently used to refer to similar phenomena, e.g. selfstudy,
self-evaluation, self-analysis, self-assessment and Performance Portfolio. The term
self-assessment is used in this report.
4.1 Preparation of Self-assessment Report by the
Institution/Program
Usually, a set of standards and criteria, pre-determined by the quality assurance system,
forms the basis for the self-assessment report. There are generally national consultations to
ensure wide participation of the stakeholders in evolving the standards and criteria. The
institution (or program) undergoing the process is asked to do a self-assessment and report
on how it meets the standards set or criteria identified for the quality assurance procedure.
The level of detail and analysis provided by the institution/program vary. Some systems
require institutions to provide only basic data and information regarding each of the standards
or criteria, with marginal expectations on the ‘assessment‘ part of the report. Others require a
more evaluative or analytic report. The QA systems of the region recognise that capacity to
prepare an evaluative report is the desirable stage in the development of quality assurance
capacity among institutions. The underlying assumption in insisting on the self-assessment is
that an institution that really understands itself—its strengths and weaknesses, its potentials
and limitations—is likely to be more successful in carrying out its educational mission and
more committed to addressing shortcomings revealed than one without such self-awareness.
The survey indicates that the QA systems guide HEIs to prepare a meaningful selfassessment
report and the level of guidance varies. This is in recognition that a thorough
quality assurance exercise needs a good set of information on the pre-determined criteria and
standards to sustain quality judgments. This may pose a significant new challenge to HEIs
(even to the ‘good’ ones), especially in the initial phase of introducing external quality
assurance in a system. Over a period of time HEIs might have developed reporting systems
for other purposes which may be totally different from what the self-assessment process
requires. If HEIs are not helped to develop their capacity for conducting the self-assessment
process, and for reporting that process in a way that will facilitate the QA exercise, it might
result in incomplete/insufficient reporting. Realising this, the quality assurance bodies of the
region provide guidelines to facilitate the HEIs in the self-assessment process. There are
considerable differences in the level of detail of the guidelines, however.
Most quality assurance systems provide guidelines about what is expected of a selfassessment
report and help HEIs appreciate the spirit of introspection. Some quality
assurance systems provide only brief guidelines as to how the self-assessment report could
be organised and how to present themselves within the broad framework given by the quality
assurance agency. However, when HEIs must adhere to more specific criteria, detailed
guidelines and manuals that include a list of questions to be answered and tables to be
presented with data in a particular way, are developed. Such specific formats can be centred
on quantitative data. In this approach, one added bonus for institutions is that it could help
them to develop information systems, which may be used not only for supporting selfassessment
but also for management and institutional decision-making. Brunei, Chile, Hong
Kong, Japan, Philippines and Vietnam have QA initiatives that require the institutions to fill up
pre-structured formats.
Some systems offer a lot of flexibility to design their self-assessment and the consequent
report. Partly in response to the growing diversity of institutions, and partly also in response to
complaints from institutions about the burden of repeated accreditation visits, some regional
accrediting agencies in the US offer different options for how a self-study could be conducted.
For example, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education has four major models for
self-study: Basic Comprehensive, Comprehensive with Emphasis, Selected Topics and
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