What are the values shaping university quality assurance?

摘要

This thesis identifies the core ideals of the university, and its expected role within the nation state and the global community, in order to propose necessary characteristics of an international quality assurance standard. Today most discussions of quality assurance overlook the need to define explicitly the core values of the university that characterize, underlie, and inform notions of academic quality. Deeply held notions of the university---its historical foundation, its interaction with the nation state, and its ideals of knowledge---continue to shape its identity and interaction in the global economy. The methodological approach to this thesis, the "problem-approach", is rooted in the comparative education scholarship of Brian Holmes and Ruth Hayhoe. Textual analysis focuses on values that support national/indigenous knowledge and forms of the university. Policy initiatives of the World Bank, UNESCO, and the OECD are evaluated to determine which practices best support an inclusive international quality assurance standard.