QUALITY ASSURANCE AND IT'S RELEVANCE IN EDUCATION:

Quality, whether it is in business or education, remains the most important attribute that creates value
about the product/service for the receiver. It is also the means by which business/educational providers
differentiate themselves from their competitors. Adapting relevant strategies would help educational
institutions in creating higher standards of quality in education.

What is quality in education whether it is general education or tertiary or vocational education or higher
university education? How we measure and assure the quality of education offered by an institution to
say the institution is offering quality education?

The concept of “quality” is elusive, because it expresses a relative, though, noticeable difference
between one thing and another. There is a need to understand the different concepts which
predominates in education and are used to ensure quality.

Does this mean quality of facilities?

Does this mean quality of resources?

Does this mean quality of teachers?

Does this mean quality of teaching process?

Does this mean quality of curriculum and content?

Does this mean quality of management and governance?

Does this mean complying with standards or regulation established by government or regulatory body
or certification body?

To understand quality and quality assurance in education and training, it is clearly important to start by
defining the quality

QUALITY IN EDUCATION:

Quality in education is an ongoing process ensuring the delivery of agreed standards to achieve agreed
learning outcomes as a result.

As per Juran, quality is ‘fitness for purpose’, whereas Crosby defines quality as ‘conformance to
requirements’.

Harvey and Green (1993) identified five categories or ways of thinking about quality.

Exception: distinctive, embodies in excellence, passing a minimum set of standards.

Perfection: zero defects, getting things right the first time (focus on process as opposed to inputs and
outputs).

Fitness for purpose: relates quality to a purpose, defined by the provider.

Value for money: a focus on efficiency and effectiveness, measuring outputs against inputs. A populist
notion of quality (government).

Transformation: a qualitative change; education is about doing something to the student as opposed to
something for the consumer. Includes concepts of enhancing and empowering: democratisation of the
process, not just outcomes.

Later Watty (2003) suggested that the dimension of quality as perfection can be removed, since
education does not aim to produce defect-free graduates.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR QUALITY IN EDUCATION?

Is quality the responsibility of the educational institution?

Is quality the responsibility of independent quality assurance or certification bodies?

Is quality responsibility of Government??

First and the foremost, quality is the responsibility of educational institution itself. They need to ensure
quality of education delivered. Government bodies often play an important role in the quality assurance
of education. Usually government is either directly involved in controlling quality of education through
various mechanism or approves external agencies to manage the quality of educational institutions,
educational standards and provision.

There are different approaches to ensure the quality. In a recent approach, specially in public sector,
quality assurance is being used as watchdog approach, relying on government controls, professional
credentials, internal audits, and external inspections to maintain standards, weed out poor performers,
and solve problems.

Key methods/approaches to ensure the quality of education are:

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE

Quality assurance is a process by which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that
the standards and quality of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced. Quality
Assurance is a condition that leads to the achievement of transparency.
As per Vroeijenstijn, quality assurance is a structured and continuous attention to quality in terms of
quality maintenance and improvement. Achieving improvement requires an acknowledgement by
educational providers of a need to improve, an understanding of the appropriate focus of improvement,
knowledge of the means of achieving the objectives of improvement and an appreciation of the benefits
that will accrue from the effort.

It is suggested that without intrinsic motivation to improve quality, the best that can be hoped for is
compliance with external requirements. Compliance may pass for improvement in the short term, but as
soon as the need to display ‘improvement’ has passed, old habits are likely to re-emerge (Middlehurst
and Woodhouse, 1995). Askling (1997) also highlights the essential role of internal quality assurance as
sustainable approach for improving/enhancing the quality of education.

External quality assurance done by third person ensures integrity and acts as catalyst in improving the
quality of education, thus helping institution with its accountability to ensure quality of education.

Harvey (2002) argued that it is essential to have both the internal and external quality assurance to
ensure continuous and lasting improvements.

QUALITY CONTROL:

Quality control refers to the internal verification procedures (both formal and informal) used by
educational institutions in order to monitor quality and standards of education delivery to a satisfactory
standard and as intended.

QUALITY ASSESSMENT:

Quality Assessment is the process of external evaluation undertaken by an external body of the quality
of educational provisions in institutions, in particular the quality of the student experience.

QUALITY AUDIT:

Quality Audit is the process of examining institutional procedures for assuring quality and standards to
check if the arrangements are implemented effectively and achieve stated objectives. Quality audit also
checks if the quality of education (teaching/training) provided enables students to attain standards and
the assessments are conducted at the right level of the standards. It further checks if the institutions are
effectively discharging their responsibilities for the standards of awards granted in their name or in the
name of their certification body.

STANDARDS:

Standards describe levels of attainment against which performance may be measured. Attainment of a
standard usually implies a measure of fitness for a defined purpose.
QUALITY CULTURE:

Quality Culture is the adoption of quality as an overarching principle in every operation of educational
institution to ensure quality education is delivered. Quality Culture marks a move away form periodic
assessment to ingrained quality assurance.

QUALITY ENHANCEMENT:

Quality Enhancement is the process of positively changing activities in order to provide for a continuous
improvement in the quality of institutional provision.

ACCREDITATION:

Accreditation is the result of a review of an education program or institution following certain quality
standards agreed on beforehand. It’s a kind of recognition that a program or institution fulfils certain
standards. Accreditation could be in the form of approval from government authority to deliver certain
programmes.

There is a wide variety of Quality Assurance Agencies (QAA) worldwide involved with quality of
education. There is currently little uniformity or harmonisation of quality assurance agencies and their
procedures. Indeed many countries, regions and cultures are developing their own approaches to
quality assurance in education. Some agencies are state-driven; others are private, with many
intermediate forms.

The agencies of teacher education were established at the state, national and international level. These
agencies not only have the major objective of providing training to the teachers, but also facilitates
collaboration of teachers between the high level internationally recognized researchers and the teaching
staff at the international universities. The main areas that have been taken into account in this research
paper include, the agencies of teacher education at the state, national and international levels. At the
state level, the agencies are, State Institute of Education (SIE), State Council of Educational Research and
Training (SCERT), State Board of Teacher Education (SBTE), and University Departments of Education
(UDE). At the national level, the agencies are, University Grants Commission (UGC), National Institute of
Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA/NUEPA), National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE)
and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). At the international level, the
agency is, UNESCO. These agencies have the major objective of bringing about progression in the system
of teacher education.