Earlier this year, QAA consulted on a draft Quality Code for HE in the UK. In commenting on this, I was rather critical, but in good company as EAUC pitched in as well. Having "listened", QAA has released a revised code which is available (along with details of some of the feedback it received), here.
There is, I think, some improvement and evidence of good listening by QAA – up to a point ...
1. In the draft text, the five themes "that cross subject boundaries" were:
- graduate attributes
- education for sustainability
- civic responsibility
- internationalization
- enterprise and entrepreneurship
These are now ...
- academic and digital literacies appropriate to the academic level of the student
- education for sustainability
- citizenship
- enterprise and entrepreneurship
- internationalisation
- ethical behaviour
This is a less incoherent list than before, so we should be a little bit grateful.
2. The draft text said:
Higher education providers engage with a number of themes that cross subject and discipline boundaries and inform the design of learning and teaching activities and the currency of the curriculum.
The wording now is:
... higher education providers consider the way their strategic approach reflects themes that cross subject boundaries. These themes reflect topics which may be considered to have a broad relevance to the purposes of higher education and its wider context in society.
... which seems better as it stresses the relevance of the themes to "the purposes of higher education and its wider context in society".
For me, however, it is still a problem that it's education for sustainability [EfS] that is identified as the theme, rather than sustainability, as it is the latter which has the social relevance, whereas EfS / ESD is a means of student engagement with the theme.
And, anyway, they are still just "themes" which institutions "may" (i.e. need not) include. I closed my first commentary in this way:
"The important achievement would be an acknowledgement by QAA that the world now faces a range of severe challenges which threaten the quality of lives, the resilience of economies, the integrity of the biosphere, etc., and that UK HE has both responsibilities and agency here. Section C of the Code, which sets out Indicators of Sound Practice, seems a likely place [to make this point]. Here, Indicator 1 says: "Higher education providers publish information that describes their mission, values and overall strategy". But Section C is not currently subject to consultation. A pity."
No change here. Only one cheer, then, I'm afraid, for the QAA.
Given that HEFCE recently spent over £200k exploring quality assurance / enhancement and ESD through an LGM project, where the chief executive of the QAA chaired the project's uber impressive Expert Advisory Board, there seems to have been little influence on the QAA itself. Chagrin and pity.
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