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Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Australian Higher Education:

An Assessment of Australian and International Practice

Executive summary

Australian universities are all self-accrediting. In the absence of a system of external examiners or an independent quality assurance authority, how can anyone know how good the degrees are? Several other countries - New Zealand, Britain, the USA amongst others - have agencies of different kinds which examine the quality assurance processes of their universities and, in some cases, the quality of students’ work. Professional bodies in such fields as medicine and engineering assess the curriculum and standards in their fields and accredit professional schools and faculties. In the face of increasing international competition, can Australia continue with its present system unchanged?

This paper discusses issues in accreditation and quality assurance and assessment and outlines the present situation in Australia. It describes the practices in Britain, New Zealand, the United States, Sweden and the Australian vocational education and training system (VET) and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each.

It then proposes a Modern Australian Model which builds on the self-examination processes now common in Australian universities. It proposes a national agency which shall be minimally intrusive within universities but which is still able to proclaim to the world that Australian degrees are of a good standard, carefully scrutinised. The agency will also be able to represent Australia in discussions which are beginning to take place on international accreditation.

A model is needed which builds on current and recent practice, which embraces both quality assurance and accreditation. It must accommodate not just the existing self-accrediting universities, but institutions aspiring to university status, whether public or private. It must also be appropriate for non-university providers of courses, some of which award their own degrees, others of which prepare students for the awards of existing universities. It must be relevant to those providing in novel ways, such as corporate providers and "virtual" (computer-based) providers.

Its purpose would be to ensure, for the institutions themselves, for the Australian Government and the general public, and for students, that degrees are all of a sound standard in which the Australian people may have confidence and pride. Its methods would include audits of institutions’ quality practices and for this purpose an independent agency would be needed.

The central quality activity of the agency would be an audit of institutions based on a detailed self-assessment, including benchmarks of standards. The process assumes that institutions have appropriate quality assurance policies and procedures in place and that convincing evidence can be produced that these are working to good effect. Should the audit reveal serious areas of weakness, the institution would be given a reasonable period to address such matters.

Higher education institutions now make annual submissions to DETYA (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs) in the Profiles context on their Quality Assurance and Improvement Plans for the forthcoming triennium. These plans outline the institution’s goals, strategies for achieving those goals and the indicators used to monitor progress in achieving those goals. These plans should be made available to the agency to assist in the audit process.

Reviews of faculties, schools or departments are now standard practice in nearly all universities. In line with trends in quality assurance these reviews should give particular weight to degree standards and graduate outcomes. The reports of these reviews and the follow up action taken on them within the university would be of major interest to the agency.