The Rise Of Quality Assurance In Asian Higher Education

The Rise of Quality Assurance in Asian Higher Education provides information on the well researched quality assurance frameworks, processes, standards, and internal and external monitoring that have taken place around the globe. However, in Asia, where higher education has witnessed rapid growth, and is also contributing significantly to international education which is benefited by many developed countries, this data has not been readily available. In recent years, governments in Asia have made significant investment with an aim of creating education hubs to ensure that higher education is internationally competitive. This book examines the developments in higher education quality assurance in eleven Asian countries, providing systematic insights into national quality assurance arrangements and also examining the different approaches governments in Asia have implemented based on social and economic contexts. Includes chapters from eleven countries that examine quality assurance arrangements Explores untold case studies of countries, such as Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, India, and others Examines higher education context, quality assurance arrangements, effectiveness, challenges, and international quality assurance in Asia Offers contributions from leading scholars and practitioners who are working in higher education in Asia Provides engagement for research students

This edited volume examines the importance of quality issues in contemporary higher education systems in the Asia Pacific. Part One foregrounds relevant discussions of ‘quality’ within today’s globalized, interconnected, and complex higher education systems while Part Two focuses on selected universities in the Asia Pacific region. Chapter contributors discuss how quality issues and quality assurance mechanisms are implemented in their situation-specific systems. Part Three extends the research of higher education quality assurance in Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) and the diverse international student body in the Australian higher education system. The conclusion chapter discusses a typology of methods used by higher education systems in establishing effective quality assurance mechanisms.

This book illustrates the higher education quality assurance system and its impact on institutional transformation in China. It starts by describing the higher education system in China and its quality assessment schemes. It discusses in detail the Quality Assessment of Undergraduate Education (QAUE) and the Subject Evaluation, two of the most influential external quality assessment schemes, which are conducted on the institutional and subject levels respectively. In the second part of this book, QAUE is taken as an example for the impact analysis. Using case studies, it explores the impact of the QAUE on various dimensions of quality provisions in universities with different statuses and presents the views of various stakeholders. Based on the empirical findings from the Chinese schemes and the theories on organizational change and the mechanism of external quality assessment, it proposes a model to describe how quality assessment interacts with the evaluated universities and causes them to change.

This title was first published in 2001. Universities in developing countries have followed their counterparts in developed countries and adopted quality assurance to improve the quality of their activities. This text examines the wisdom of such a move when many of the conditions necessary for its success are not present. It concludes that quality assurance can be useful in developing countries because it shows how a university's seemingly disparate activities are related to one another to serve a common goal and how the quality of these can best be improved by using an integrated approach. Quality assurance also provides more focus and direction to the work of the traditional university system. However, it must be modified to suit the conditions prevailing in developing countries by being simple in design, modest in expectations and realistic in requirements.

University league tables at national, regional, international levels are increasingly complex, influential and controversial. In spite of criticisms on robustness of methodology and bias of indicators, higher education institutions continue to have an appetite for them and use or misuse them in their planning, policymaking and promotion activities. This publication will contribute to the much needed analysis of the implications, benefits and unintended consequences related to rankings and the broader issues of quality assurance in the Asia Pacific region.

Since the end of the 1990s, the Chinese higher education system has seen a dramatic expansion of enrolment. China currently has the largest higher education system in the world, however, the rapid growth resulted in concerns being raised about the quality of the system. In response, an array of external quality assessment schemes of higher education has been established, based on suggested policy designs and reforms. The establishment of an effective quality assurance mechanism is a major challenge for universities around the world, therefore, what experience and lessons can be learned from the Chinese practice? This book analyses the external quality assurance system of higher education in China. It brings together scholarship on this topic by renowned Chinese experts, reporting and discussing recent policy developments and research. It presents and analyses various quality evaluation schemes, covering undergraduate, postgraduate, and vocational levels of higher education. The theoretical roots and value orientation of Chinese higher education quality assurance are also reflected on. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Chinese Education and Society.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of quality assurance in Vietnamese higher education under the centralised management of the government after 15 years of development. By implementing quality assurance and accreditation mechanisms, the Vietnamese government expected to be able to control and improve the quality of the higher education system. The editors and contributors therefore examine and analyse policies and practices related to the establishment and development of Vietnam's quality assurance system. Amongst other things, the chapters investigate drivers of quality assurance, stakeholders engaged in quality assurance and the future of quality assurance in Vietnamese higher education in benchmarking with other quality assurance systems in the region and across the world. This book will be of interest and value to students and scholars of Vietnamese higher education, as well as quality assurance in higher education more generally, but particularly in developing nations.

Quality in higher education was not invented in recent decades – universities have always possessed mechanisms for assuring the quality of their work. The rising concern over quality is closely related to the changes in higher education and its social context. Among others, the most conspicuous changes are the massive expansion, diversification and increased cost in higher education, and new mechanisms of accountability initiated by the state. With these changes the traditional internally enacted academic quality-keeping has been given an important external dimension – quality assurance, which requires higher education institutions to continuously demonstrate and improve performance, and which also provides new systems of rewards and sanctions. However, the complex impacts of quality assurance policies have shown a need to further understand the quality issue in higher education.This book is about constructing a more inclusive understanding of quality in higher education through combining the macro, meso and micro levels, i.e. from the perspectives of national policy, higher education institutions as organizations in society, individual teaching staff and students. It covers both theoretical constructions for understanding quality and empirical investigation in the Chinese context. The questions addressed are: How is quality of higher education perceived by the institution, teaching staff and students, respectively? What are the main concerns for the institution, teaching staff and students in their own pursuit of quality? It has been concluded that quality of higher education is not only about educational quality, but also about expanding life chances for the students, prosperity in the administrative system for the teaching staff,and organizational prosperity for the institution. With regard to quality assurance and accountability in higher education special attention should be given to the values pursued and be careful to balance between immediate, single-value efficiency and sustainable development and a wider-range of values that higher education serves.