Far Behind Quality Control

A BRITISH parliamentary cornmittee of inquiry recently asked Oxford University vicechancellor John Hood and Oxford Brookes University vicechancellor Janet Beer, who were sifting next to each other: Is an honours degree in history from Oxford University worth the same as an honours degree in history from Oxford Brookes? The MPs marked the vicechancellors ’ replies, which were probably pretty standard for British universities, as not up to the standard of a year 12 essay.

Dr Hood responded: "At Oxford, we apply a consistent standard in awarding degree classifications. We use external examiners and we take their assessments very, very seriously." Professor Beer said: "It depends what you mean by equivalent and worth", adding that her university knew its honours degree was "of a national standard".

The committee wasn ’t satisfied with the responses. Its chairman, Phil Willis, said: "I ’m treating this conversation with incredulity. It costs twice as much to educate a student at Oxford University than at Oxford Brookes, and you invest significantly more time, and you are creaming the world ’s best students, yet you say the outcomes are the same." Notwithstanding the criticism, British universities have a better system for maintaining standards than their Australian and US counterparts. Each British university appoints an external examiner for each of its coursework programs, to report annually on its academic standards, the rigour of its assessment processes and the performance of its students, and to compare these indicators with those of other universities.

External examiners are normally expected to attend assessment board meetings and to endorse assessment outcomes before final results are confirmed.

Britain ’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education also has a procedure for investigating reports of "causes for concern" about an institution ’s academic standards. The procedure provides for a brief preliminary inquiry, to be followed, if necessary, by a full investigation.

The QAA publishes investigation reports and, if a cause for concern is substantiated, the institution is required to adopt a plan for rectifying shortcomings.

The QAA has also developed an academic infrastructure to give institutions a shared starting point for setting, describing and assuring the quality of their programs. This comprises a qualifications framework similar to the one in Australia, program specifications and a code of practice for assuring academic standards.

The code has 10 parts covering things such as student admission, program approval, assessment and providing for students with disabilities. The infrastructure includes benchmark statements for 57 disciplines that specify with reasonable clarity the knowledge and skills that students are expected to possess.

The European Bologna process is developing somewhat similar subject statements as part of its so-called Tuning process. So far Tuning has developed statements of the knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities that students are expected to display in nine disciplines at three levels: bachelor, masters and doctorate. It has also developed fuller "reference points for the design and delivery of programs" in chemistry, European studies and physics.

The Tuning project covers 47 countries, many very different from each other, so its statements are more general and descriptive and thus less useful than Britain ’s subject benchmark statements.

At its present rate of progress Australia is years away from establishing even the standards framework that British MPs criticised so vigorously. The Australian Universities Quality Agency established a reference group in 2007 that produced a broad standards framework that the agency says guided its audits in 2008. It has now established an advisory group to develop a generalisable national structure for academic standards for Australian higher education.

AUQA says its advisory group has explored contemporary contexts and considered various options for assuring academic standards, but it has published no more detail. While it may suit some universities for the agency to have such a leisurely and permissive approach to maintaining standards, it is not in the interests of the sector, let alone the community it serves.

Gavin Moodie is a higher education poLicy anaLyst at Griffith University who writes reguLarLy for the HES.

Australian