Capitulation and compliance or creative detachment? Examining quality promotion at the University of Natal in the light of the new external quality assurance regime

This paper explores the implications of the South African Higher Education Quality Committee’s (HEQC) shift from its own key understanding of quality as “fitness of, and for purpose”, and “transformation” to an understanding of quality as, in Harvey and Green’s classification, “conformance to specifications”. This focus contrasts with the approach of the University of Natal as promoting, developing and implementing quality initiatives, guided by a philosophy of partnership development. The new external quality assurance environment will have significant implications for quality activities at institutions in South Africa. It could be seen to run counter to the long-term efforts of the Quality Promotion Unit (QPU) at the University of Natal, and policies and procedures put in place to encourage organizational change and quality improvement in areas such as student feedback, promotions for academic staff, academic staff development, and student assessment. We believe it is essential to include both accountability and improvement aspects of quality to encourage a culture of continuous improvement rather than a culture of compliance. The key question for the QPU is whether we alter our strategies to accommodate a compliance philosophy, and in the process alienate our partners within the institution, or do we wait for the first audit

Improving reviews – can the centre hold?

This paper undertakes an exploration of quality reviews, focusing on the tension between central organisation and ownership at the periphery. At Monash, area reviews form a major component of the evaluation moment in the quality management system of planning, acting, evaluating and improving at the organizational level and throughout all levels of the university. All areas, including support services, faculties and research centres are subject to review. Similarly, at the University of Natal in South Africa, cyclical reviews are required for all areas of university activity. The models of implementation, are, however, very different. The Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ) is responsible for leading and supporting driving quality within Monash University, but devolves the responsibility for organising and conducting the reviews resides with to the area concerned. On the other hand, the Quality Promotion Unit at the University of Natal has a comparatively greater role in running the reviews concerned. In both instances the Units are busy reflecting on their processes on the basis of their experiences and feedback from the areas concerned. In this paper we examine and compare the approaches so that the resulting lessons from these experiences will be of use to other universities undertaking reviews in support services and faculties. We focus particularly on the issue of how much involvement is optimal and what sort of support is needed for areas conducting reviews