Quality Assurance Systems in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

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ENHANCEMENT OF QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES online learning. Most QA agencies consider distance and online provisions only if there is some amount of face-to-face learning integrated to it and do not monitor purely online delivery of programs. 36
ENHANCEMENT OF QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES 10. National and International Cooperation 10.1 UNESCO-OECD Guidelines for Quality Assurance of CBHE Most QA systems have indicated that they have considered the UNESCO-OECD guidelines and the implementation is at various levels of achievement. The UNESCO-OECD guidelines address six different stakeholders. The guidelines addressed to the quality assurance agencies recognises the diversity found in the various aspects of quality assurance among the national systems and calls for a coordinated effort at regional and/or global level, in order to tackle the challenges raised by the growth in new forms of cross-border delivery of higher education. In general, QA agencies have indicated that they found the guidelines useful. The key recommendations of the guidelines are about including foreign and for-profit institutions/providers as well as other non-traditional modes of educational delivery in the scope of quality assurance, strengthening the network initiatives for the quality assurance agencies to discuss cross-border education issues, information dissemination on the quality assurance mechanism and its implications, adherence to ‘Code of Good Practice’, mutual recognition agreements with other agencies, and making the assessment procedures open to international peers. As the discussion so far indicates these are the areas where a lot of changes and mew practices are emerging in the APEC region. Networks of QA bodies such as INQAAHE and APQN have promoted discussions on UNESCO-OECD guidelines among their member agencies. To help governments put systems in place in-line with the guidelines, UNESCO-Bangkok and APQN have jointly developed a Tool Kit and that has resulted in awareness building among the QA bodies of the region. Some QA bodies have stated that they already fall in line with the UNESCO-OECD guidelines and a few more are initiating actions and projects to build on the guidelines. In the coming year NZQA will lead a coordinated approach among government agencies, quality assurance bodies and other key stakeholder groups in a project 'Improving the Quality Framework for Off-shore Cross-border Education' which will include most of the guidelines. The Transnational Quality Strategy of Australia gives due recognition to the UNESO-OECD guidelines and the national quality assurance agency of Australia states that its QA practices are already in accordance to the UNESCO-OECD guidelines. There are also a few responses that indicate that either the agencies are yet to become familiar with the guidelines or of the opinion that the guidelines are too general to be of any use to them. This is still a developing area and a lot of discussions are going on. 10.2 Cooperation There are only a few examples of cooperation between economies and they are in the form of Memoranda of Understanding. For example, the New Zealand government has a memorandum of understanding with the Malaysian government, whereby any local qualifications delivered in Malaysia must meet Malaysian as well as NZ quality assurance standards. The government of Australia has agreements with Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand and Japan. AUQA has memoranda of cooperation (MoC) with a number of other QA agencies of the region. In each case the general purpose is for further mutual understanding and trust, but each also has one or more specific purposes. As mentioned above, the focus of the MoC with NZUAAU is the contribution of New Zealand good practices to AUQA’s Good Practice Database. With the HKCAA, the objective is sharing information about Australian institutions operating in Hong Kong. Discussions are under way with the MQA on a MoC that would emphasise joint audits of Australian campuses in Malaysia; and with the Shanghai Education 37
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