Quality enhancement after quality assurance in England: continuation or divergence?

1
Quality enhancement after quality assurance in
England continuation or divergence?

• Ourania Filippakou
• Institute of Education, University of London
• Copenhagen, 25 Aug 2008

2
The issue

• Quality in higher education is ideologically
  constructed and conducted

3
Quality as a network of discourses

• 1 The discourse of quality assurance
• 2 The discourse of quality enhancement
• 3 Other (secondary) discourses and
  sub-discourses

4
Indicators of the ideological character of
quality in higher education

• 5 elements
• 1 Partiality
• 2 Asymmetrical distribution of power
• 3 Social struggles
• 4 Loss of voice
• 5 Naturalness

5
Types of ideological discourses

• 1 Ideologically heavy
• 2 Ideologically light

6
Figure Quality as a network of discourses
Quality Assurance
Quality Enhancement
accountability
Improvement
assessment
Scholarship of teaching learning
Fit for purpose

• QUALITY

Managerialism
Teaching learning
Academic development
Sub-discourse
Sub-discourse
Institutional research
efficiency
Student satisfaction
Self-study
Markets/ consumers
Ideologically heavy
Ideologically light
7
Discourse, Ideology Legitimation

• Discourse
• Openness
• X ? Future QAA?
• a legitimate quality system?
• creative spaces
• Ideology
• Heaviness v v Lightness
• Old QAA New QAA
• legitimation crisis legitimation problem
• Closure

8
Possibilities

• Quality assurance is ideologically heavy
• Quality enhancement is ideologically light
• So there are more spaces for creativity and
  innovation as far as quality enhancement is
  concerned