Enhancing quality in tertiary education: Institutional effectiveness

THE UNIVERSITY Council of Jamaica (UCJ) is the national External Quality Assurance Agency (EQAA) and is firmly committed to ‘Assuring Quality in Tertiary Education’.

The UCJ is guided by its mission to increase the availability of high-quality tertiary level training in Jamaica through the development of robust quality assurance systems that ensure excellence, transparency, integrity and adherence to standards.

The increased diversity in programme offerings has made quality assurance increasingly relevant, as institutions now compete globally on the quality of their educational provisions.

The term ‘quality’, sometimes referred to as ‘academic quality’, describes how well the learning experience provided by an institution facilitates students being able to successfully complete the tertiary programme, earning them an academic award (such as associate, bachelors or masters degree). These academic awards are used by students to gain employment and signal to employers that they have attained the knowledge, competencies and skills required in the world of work. Institutions, therefore, have the responsibility to ensure that their teaching and learning process is effective and leads to student success while in the institution and success in the workplace.

Student success necessitates the existence of a robust Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) system. That is, a system that allows an institution to measure itself against globally recognised standards established for the operation of tertiary education institutions. This quality assurance system is applied to various types of institutions, delivering different types of programmes of study and at different levels. An effective IQA system should therefore allow an institution to evaluate and determine whether its: Mission and goals are appropriate; Academic programmes meet the standards for the discipline and the profession and are consistent with the mission of the institution; Teaching staff are competent, appropriately qualified and providing effective teaching and learning experiences (the institution should also apply fair and transparent processes for the recruitment of its staff/faculty); Learning resources are adequate and appropriate to enable student learning (including library and information, technological and physical resources); Student support services are appropriate and readily accessible; Management of its financial resources in changing economic conditions is adequate and effective;

Engagement in continuous improvement is informed by gathering and analysing data on its effectiveness and on student success (including indicators such as dropout rates, time to completion, placement rates and working within the profession for which the graduate was trained), and that

ACCREDITATION

Accreditation is the status granted to an institution or programme that has been found to meet or exceed established standards for educational quality. Accreditation is, therefore, the stamp of approval of the recognised EQAA that gives the institution or programme, locally and internationally, its credibility, recognition, and acceptance. Accreditation, as practised, is a voluntary activity, and is the preferred and most widely used method of external quality assurance across the globe.

Registration is the first step in the accreditation process and is therefore accepted as a pre-accreditation status. The aim of registration is to certify that an institution meets certain minimum operating guidance on the requirements for evaluation. In Jamaica, the EQAA is the UCJ. such data are used to guide planning, decision-making and resource allocation.

Consistent with the Guidelines of Good Practice by International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), the remit of an External Quality Assurance Agency (EQAA) is the promotion of quality education and student achievement. In so doing, the EQAA recognises that quality is primarily the responsibility of the tertiary education institutions themselves, and supports this principle in its criteria and procedures. It is therefore logical that the guidelines and standards provided by EQAAs promote an effective IQA system within institutions. The EQAA also has the responsibility for providing tertiary education institutions, within their respective jurisdiction, with clear

standards required for the conduct of a tertiary institution in Jamaica.

Following registration, the next steps in the accreditation process are: Self-evaluation by the institution Peer review by colleagues external to the institution Decision-making by the EQAA. Self-evaluation requires an institution to assess itself against established standards and present the findings in a self-study report. By evaluating its own effectiveness in achieving its mission and purpose, institutions will become engaged in a process of continuous improvement in terms of its educational provision and outcomes. At the peer-review step, the institution or programme is evaluated by external peers who are experts in the field. The information garnered from the self-evaluation and peer review stages is used to make a judgement on the quality of the programme or institution. The process also recognises and respects institutional autonomy and academic freedom. The accreditation process, therefore, promotes institutional effectiveness through self-evaluation, self-regulation and accountability.

There are two forms of accreditation, namely, programmatic and institutional. Programme accreditation focuses on the evaluation of a specific programme, while also reviewing the institutional systems in place to support and ensure the quality of that programme. Since its inception in 1987, the UCJ has been using programme accreditation as its primary method of external quality assurance. The decision to use programme accreditation was a strategic one, given that quality assurance was new to the tertiary sector in Jamaica at the time. This type of accreditation proved to be an appropriate way of guiding institutions towards the development of their own IQA mechanism.

INSTITUTIONAL ACCREDITATION

Institutional Accreditation is a comprehensive evaluation of the institution and its academic and administrative effectiveness, with specific focus on its IQA system. Institutional Accreditation status also covers tertiary-level programmes

offered at the institution. Programme accreditation, on the other hand, evaluates the quality of specific programmes offered by an institution, while reviewing the institutional factors that affect the quality of programmes. These factors chiefly include, its curriculum, the quality of academic and other staff, the quality of the intake of students, and the learning and other resources available for the effective delivery of that programme. The UCJ’s approach to both institutional and programme accreditation is consistent with good practice in other jurisdictions.

As part of its continuing role in promoting institutional effectiveness through developing IQA in institutions, the UCJ will be giving more focus to Institutional Accreditation. ALTHEA HERON Executive Director The University Council of Jamaica