Dear All,
Each of us can admit and appreciate that quality of education is determinative and a good teacher cannot be satisfied with the current standards. How can the high quality of education be ensured at universities?
In Hungary the two most explicit safety regulations are accreditation and habilitation.
“Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met. If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the appropriate agency.”
During accreditation not even the educational program but also the person preparing and delivering the program is evaluated.
„Habilitation (from Latin habilis "fit, proper, skillful") is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his own pursuit in many countries in Europe, Central Asia. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires that the candidate write a professorial thesis (or habilitation thesis) based on independent scholarship, reviewed by and defended before an academic committee in a process similar to that of the doctoral dissertation. However, the level of scholarship has to be considerably higher than that required for a research doctoral (PhD) thesis in terms of quality and quantity, and must be accomplished independently, in contrast with a PhD dissertation typically directed or guided by a faculty supervisor.”
Habilitation proves that a person is able to teach at university level.
Thus, the safety rules are good. The trouble is that a simple head of department can ignore them and has the power to charge anybody without the necessary knowledge, evaluation and experience.
How is the quality assurance in your countries and who can be charged for delivering a course?
Dear Andras
It has to be a very meticulous operation on part of all stake holders. For the engineering and technology programs we depend upon the accreditation to make sure that the standards are maintained. I am giving the two accreditation standards that we maintain here. We will have a cycle of once in every six years, a team of experts come from these accreditation agencies who will visit our university and spend some time (2 to 5 days) to go over all the curriculum, facilities and meet various people to ascertain that we are maintain our standards.
We also have our internal curriculum committees and faculty senate that will ensure that the quality is maintained. Also it is ultimately the students who will join who would be seeing all these details to select an appropriate university.
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.atmae.org/resource/resmgr/docs/handbook_2011_outcomes_asses.pdf
http://www.abet.org/accreditation-criteria-policies-documents/
Dear Nageswara,
Thanks for your usual thorough and accurate comment. We have the same process of accreditation you described. I would like to know if the process is over how are measured and respected the rules and standards fixed during accreditation? Is it possible that accreditation standards are not maintained because of personnel interests?
Dear @Andras, there is no assurance for quality to be maintained! Politics is so influential! The Accreditation and quality assurance commission ..." shall be independent and function on the principle of professionalism. Besides the implementation of the accreditation procedure and issue of licenses the Commission shall propose the following standards and procedures determined by the National council: standards and procedure of accreditation of higher education institutions; accreditation of study programs; self-assessment and quality evaluation of the higher education institutions"!
Many private Univesities as some State Universities have passed accreditation process without elementary conditions fulfilled!
http://www.kapk.org/index.php?lang=en
The accreditation process is really tedious. It starts approximately one year before, when we need to prepare a self study report that shows how the standards specified by the accreditation agency are adhered by our university. We just went through the process and I was chairing our department programs. The typical timeline is shown in the attached document. The self-study report is sent one month before the team is supposed to visit the University. When the team visits the department they will make sure that what was written in the report is existing in position. Also many details which could not be incorporated in the report are presented to them. The team goes painstakingly through all the material and make sure that all the standards are adhered to. Here is a sample of team checklist for the process. If there are problems with the procedures is they do not meet the criteria, then questions will be raised and we need to answer them to their satisfaction. If anything needed to be improved then they will specify. If there are any problems then accreditation is not granted and a grace period of one or two years is given for the rectification so that the committee will come after the period to make sure that we are able to comply with all the standards.
http://www.atmae.org/?page=VisTeamConsDocs
Dear @Andras,
Much of what happens in the Education process largely depends on the integrity of individual Professors, not (in my opinion) on the accreditation process. In fact, it is as @Ljubomir has observed.
On the bright side, from what I have observed, higher education tends to work very well across the board, provided those doing the teaching keep up with their profession. In my opinion, most Professors have integrity and provide a good frameworks for learning.
I think that the most important "marker" of the quality of high education is a final qualification of the students and graduates. In the other words, if students/graduates after studying under guidance of one or other teacher/professor can easy find job in the top company or top university, just mean high level of this teacher.
All other criterium like Habilitation are only formal and in some case are dependent from politics.
In the U.S., the quality of three factors-- teaching, research, and administration-- determines the quality of higher education. Quality of teaching is in theory assured by student evaluation of teachers, but questionnaires for evaluating courses vary from university to university, and the significance of student evaluations for rewarding or penalizing faculty also varies. Some universities are so-called "teaching schools," where student evaluations truly matter for professors' promotions and raises. Other universities are primarily "research schools," where faculty prestige among peers plays a major role in guaranteeing quality. Finally, quality control of administrators depends on their answerability to faculty and alumni (ex graduates) and/or to State legislators in the case of public universities. This control too varies by institutions and is by far the most difficult of the three factors to determine. In sum, it is easiest to guarantee research quality, most difficult to control administrative quality, and of intermediate difficulty to regulate teaching quality.
Dear Andras,
Interesting issues. It is true that almost all functioning universities get their accreditation in a periodic manner, from accrediting agencies recognized by the department of Education in the case of America. Universities and colleges invite accredited agencies in order to be evaluated and become valued centers of learning and research so that students put their fortunes to attend those schools and established scholars seek employment there.
But there is no such a thing as habillitation in America. You have indicated that it is the highest academic qualification a scholar can receive from his own endeavor of a considerable depth and quality better than a PhD thesis. That means it takes a time for that, as it includes works of publications and academic communications made.
How long does it take to get that certification? I also assume that the person is already a university faculty but this particular training is to enable the person become a researcher on the outer frontiers of his/her field to be a research adviser and perform higher academic jobs than common university educators.
Dear Ljubomir, Jim and Taras,
Many thanks for your characteristic and honest opinion.
You may be right that accreditation and habilitation are formal assurances and the so called human factor decides in each issue. Certainly, I was aware that good will, ethics and critical sense are the really important factors influencing the education quality. Unfortunately, these human characters are difficult to assess and regulate.
Are you sure that the above mentioned assurances cannot help?
What do you think what would be the right solution if any?
Dear Nelson,
Thanks for your fine comment.
Reading your answer, I realised that my question was not accurate. I am sorry. I wanted to ask what determines the quality of teaching in higher education institutions?
Dear Thread Participants,
Today, I cannot follow this thread because I am one of the organisers of a celebration on the 35th anniversary that we got our MSc degree at our Alma Mater.
Have a good and sunny Saturday!
Congratulations, dear @András, I do wish You to celebrate for many,many years!It's a fine Jubilee!
Dear András,
I extend my very best wishes to you and the organisers of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the birth year for the M.Sc. degree at your Alma Mater.
in Greece there exists the "Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency"
http://www.hqaa.gr
which is responsible for the evaluation of all universities.
Unfortunately the "Habilitation" degree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation) is not present in Greece.
Other big issue: professors are of a 'lifetime duration' and I have not seen nobody to lose his/her position...
Dear Paul Hubert, Ljubomir and Jim,
Many thanks for your congratulations. Fortunately, 82 of my university mates came from the 125. In spite of the rainy weather we had a very good meeting and many chatted with each other even till 3 o’ clock in the morning.
Dear Dejenie,
Regarding habilitation, Demetris has found a source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation) .
Habilitation is a degree of mature scientists. Prerequisite is a PhD degree and successful university teaching practice. One should prepare a so called habilitation thesis including the detailed evaluation of research and education results of the person applied for the habilitation. This thesis contains the most important original publications, too. One should submit also: curriculum vitae, list of publications, list of citations, the main points of the thesis, list of scientific results, list of his scientific connections (researchers and scientists the candidate worked together) . In addition, one delivers a lecture in the subject s/he generally teaches in his/her mother tongue and a lecture on one of his/her scientific topic in a foreign language. The lectures are evaluated by a committee of distinguished scientists most of them from another university. The teaching lecture is presented also for students. Certainly, these lectures are public and the habilitation board invites officially all the teachers of a faculty. One should submit an application for the habilitation act and if the habilitation board accepts it, generally a year is provided for the implementation of the act.
Dear Andras, yes, habilitation is an important step in people career. But this step is quite far from the quality of the education. Generally, all habilitation step are same in the frame of one country. But the quality of education in different Universities even in the same country is very different.
Dear Taras,
Dear All,
I agree with you that the habilitation process and the evaluation principles are the same however, the ad hoc habilitation boards differ and so the output of the personnel evaluations is not the same.
The main point may be the continual control of the teaching performance and quality whether the structure and quality fixed in the accreditation description are observed or not. Unfortunately, heads of departments can determine - without respecting the accreditation - who delivers the lectures of a given subject and often they decide not according to the merit and the knowledge but informal and subjective relationships.
Certainly, accreditation is but a formal condition however, how can be built the teaching structure of a subject if not even the accreditation is respected.
I would like to know what other quality assurances of subjects are there at your universities?
Dear Cecilia,
Many thanks, you widened the participants’ horizon in the field of liberal arts.
Dear András Bozsik
It is well known that there are many purposes of quality assessment in HEIs.
Some of them are: - to improve the input, processes and the output of HEIs as well as to inform the stakeholders and the society about the level of accomplishing their goals and
objectives and the position achieved in the education sector.
Moreover, for the purpose of selecting the best approach to appraise the quality of HEIs in developing countries, we must take into account the fact that the selected approach should not be based on ad hoc principles; rather, we have to consider all the above characteristics of assessing the performance of HEIs which, if so done, leads to true and comparable results (Al Sarmi and Al-Hemyari, 2014 a, b&c; Al-Sarmiet al., 2015).
In fact, “the uniformly optimal technique of measurement for any of the HEIs does not exist, i.e. it is not easy to derive or suggest an optimal procedure or global (comprehensive) and impartial or the best dimension’s package of measurement to assess the performance of any of the HEIs for two main reasons; these reasons are: the differences (variety of degrees, programs and specializations) of HEIs and the nature of the HEIs in developing countries” ( ibid).
In order to inform the stakeholders and the society about the HEIs institutional performance, the HEIs have to be focused on performance models, i.e. developing a suitable, applicable and accurate assessment process that is able to measure the overall performance and to know how the HEIs can achieve their mission, goals and objectives and to improve their output.
According to the key conclusions given by many educators/researchers/authors/legislators from different countries and various cultures, and who are working in the field of the quality of HEIs - for example, Fielden and Abercromby (2001), Chevaillier (2003), Francos, (2004), Bunting et al, 2010;Al-Hemyari and Al Sarmi (2015, 2014,2013) and Duque (2014), the ideas and techniques of the issue of accurate and effective measurement of the quality of HEIs and their difficulties were explained in these conclusions; accordingly, they declared that what they had identified was that the accurate and effective measure of the quality of HEIs should be focused on and, furthermore, should be aligned with, their visions, goals or trends and policies, and that it would be a necessity that this be carried out within a contextualization of the issue of quality of HEIs.
Several important approaches were discussed in:
1- Z. A. Al-Hemyari, S. Al Bulushi and A. Al-Humairi (2017). Quality Teaching of Private HEIs: Comparative Study based on Students’ Perceptions and Expectations. Int. J. of Quality and Innovation, 2017, Vol.3, No. 2/3/4 , pp.209-228.(Inderscience).
2- Z. A. Al-Hemyari and A. M. Al-Sarmi (2017). HEIs Quality Improvement Through Students and Academic Staff’s Perception: Data Analysis and Robustness of the Results. International Journal for Quality Research, Vol.11, No.2, pp.261-278(Serbia and Indexed in Elsevier).
3- Z. A. Al-Hemyari and A. M. Al-Sarmi (2017). Al-Farahidi Performative model to assess HEIs. 4th OQNHE Conference 2017, Muscat, pp.1-15.
4- Z. A. Al-Hemyari and A. M. Al-Sarmi (2016). A Framework for Fostering the Quality of HEIs: Data Collection, Evaluation, Indication and Validation. Int. J. of Quality and Innovation, Vol.3, No.1, pp.42-66 (Inderscience)...
Regards,
Zuhair
We do have many corruption in accreditation process in Serbia.
The following announcement is interesting:
Taking into account the Government’s decision (in Serbian) no. 02-371/2018-1 as of January 31, 2018. regarding the establishment of the National Accreditation Body (“Serbia’s official informer” No. 9, dated February 2, 2018), the Commission for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (CAQA) hereby informs Higher education institutions it is authorized to perform only technical tasks from now on. This means that it can no longer make any decisions about the accreditation of higher education institutions and study programs, nor accept new accreditation requests, until corresponding authorities decide otherwise (National Council for Higher Education or National Accreditation Body).
http://www.kapk.org/en/home/
We have a council for higher education whose purpose is to ensure higher standards of education. They credit institutions and their programs and module after a very rigorous evaluation exercise
Dear All
1. It is really important question.
2. I think that the other techniques, such that the international or national rankings, performative models of HEIs, the performance indicators techniques, ..etc should be utilized and used in assessing the quality of HEIs.
3. As an alternative view, I refer to the following question, which is addressed in the ResearchGate; and may it needs your attention:
What is the reality of the dissimilarity between the institutional and program accreditation on the one hand, and the Rankings of HEIs on the other?
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_reality_of_the_dissimilarity_
between_the_institutional_and_program_accreditation_on_the_one_hand_
and_the_Rankings_of_HEIs_on_the_other
Regards,
Zuhair
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