Now that the QAA has embraced ESD – or so we're told, and HEFCE has spent a fortune encouraging / exploring / enabling this – I expect its fortunes (ESD's that is) to diminish even further. Having experienced the QAA's Framework practices at first hand when it was at the height of its powers (~2002/3), and I was a Head of Department, I have not wished it (institution or practice) well ever since. It is unsurprising, therefore, that I find myself agreeing with Paul Greatrix's comments in his book – available through Registrarism.
He says ...
The absence of any evidential benefit of external quality frameworks is addressed and compared to the excessive cost of operating such systems. The programmatic imperative, that quality assurance systems must work, is shown to be corrosive of trust in universities. The debate about academic standards in the 1990s is discussed and the definitional difficulties in relation to standards are examined. It is argued that greater explicitness about standards, as urged by the 1997 Dearing report and exemplified by the NVQ model, causes significant problems. Standardisation, it is proposed, is all too often used inappropriately as a surrogate for standards. These problematic strands converge towards the end of the 20th Century with the development of the Dearing-inspired QAA framework.
Detailed scrutiny of the QAA proposals for a code of practice and benchmark statements on standards shows that the QAA model, even after modification, offers only the appearance of quality. The costs of the QAA framework outweigh any alleged value in terms of quality enhancement. ... The QAA framework overall it is argued here offers only the prospect of decline and of damaging that which it is intended to assure; it is indeed dangerous medicine.
Happily, the QAA's first shot at embracing ESD was so risible (despite HEFCE's £zillions) that even normally-supportive commentators spoke out. Sadly, I understand that HEFCE still thinks there is something to celebrate here.
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