1. The Accountability for Quality Agenda in Higher Education
- Author
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Group of Eight (Australia) and Gallagher, Michael
- Abstract
Governments in many countries exert pressures on universities to be more accountable for the results they manage to achieve with the resources available to them. A recently added twist, ironically within the context of falling government investment and rising student demand, is that governments are intruding into areas which have long been regarded as prerogatives of autonomous universities. The accompanying paper has been prepared as a draft to focus discussion between Australian and British policy analysts in the first instance, and later with US counterparts. The main reason for a bilateral discussion initially is that there are three significant factors in common between the Australian and British higher education contexts. First, there are commonalities in the structure and culture of universities in the UK and Australia. Second, in both countries there has been a longstanding convention of parity of esteem of higher education awards. Third, in both countries there has been an increasing interest on the part of government in matters of higher education quality assurance and research quality verification. Indeed there are some shared policy and program features, reflecting regular interactions among policy makers and academic and professional staff between the two countries. This paper is intended to help make sense of what is happening and inform public debate to promote balanced outcomes. Attached are: (1) Australian Higher Education Graduate Statement (Sample); (2) US College Portrait (Example); and (3) University of South Australia Teaching and Learning Academic Standards Framework 2009. (Contains 2 figures, 5 tables, 47 boxes, and 15 footnotes.)
- Published
- 2010