Twenty years of quality assurance in higher education: What's happened and what's different?

摘要

Twenty years before when the QA in higher education started accreditation agencies primarily looked in to resources and processes. Now the institutions are made to directly access and provide evidence on the results of student learning. This is because the traditional methods of instruction are being radically changed. Distance and technology based learning are new methods gaining ground. So the earlier infrastructure facilities in the institutions are becoming less relevant today. The technologies are speeding up the reviews and reviews and feed backs and make things happen faster. The Bologna process in Europe has made the quality assurance dimension discharged through ENQA (the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education formally the European Network for Quality Assurance). Similar establishments have been established in other regions as well. Also, US accreditors have been reviewing and accrediting colleges and universities in other countries. These developments movement of students have made the QA in higher education global. This article examines the effects of the changes brought by QA in higher education in the past twenty years.