Title: Baltic Sea Universities Network The 10th Baltic Seminar of University Administrators Role of governi
1Baltic Sea Universities NetworkThe 10th
Baltic Seminar of University AdministratorsRole
of governing bodies in higher education. Recent
developments in higher education governanceRiga,
Latvia, 14-15 May 2009 The ways universities
assure.RHEA in Gdansk
- Maria Mendel
- University of Gdansk, Poland
- pedmm_at_ug.edu.pl
2The contextual understanding of quality assurance
in Polish universities
- The sources of popular thinking and the dilemmas
it evokes - Global and local (glocal)
- Market-driven world (economic rationalisation of
social life) increasing role of measurement and
parametric assessments knowledge-based society
credential society academic capitalism and
lack of sense of education when professors dont
care of their students mass-higher education
lack of work. - DILEMMAS increasing feeling of false in the
university performances (meanings of not fair
game, political cheating, etc.) everybody
knows that university education is incomplete
and hardly acceptable as fair. - Specifically Polish
- process of social, political and educational
transition .Democracy under construction and
testimony of former system (peoples ambivalent
approach to the institutions, lack of trust in
public sphere, etc.). - DILEMMAS one could ask It is not in accordance
to be honest and talk of quality assurance in
Polish HEI. - Thus ambiguity and frustration become the
features of now-a-day rhetoric in which Polish
academics approach the issue of HE quality
assurance.
3Redesigning of thinking democracy in quality
assurance - RHEA -
- Redesigning of Higher Education and Academy -
RHEA (www.ug.edu.pl) - This is a period of every-year conferences (2-3
per year) called RHEA, the name that
metaphorically refers to mythical Mother of Gods.
- Gdansk RHEA is planned to give the birth the
excellence understood as good - democratic and
including all the voices of HEIs stakeholders -
discursive practice of quality assurance. - It means
- 1. to soften the autocracy of contemporary
university - 2. to deliver
- democracy in quality assurance
- democratising quality assurance..
4How to get such things done? The basic attempts
to democratise quality assurance
- Following the concept by Lee Harvey 19922008
and in the light of RHEA results we may say that - On the one hand UNIVERSITIES LOOK/FEEL AUTOCRATIC
(perhaps that is the fate of quality assurance). - On the other they are BASTIONS OF DEMOCRACY
through their social critical role. - QUALITY NEEDS DEMOCRATISING (it needs to be a
more democratic process) - QUALITY IS A DEMOCRATISING PROCESS (it acts as
agent for democracy) - Therefore we ought to develop and appeal for
- AN INCLUSIVE QUALITY ASSURANCE APPROACH
5Thus RHEA conferences are aimed to
- establish the HE community (in local, regional,
national and European level), network of
different entities and individuals (such as
university people students, academics and
administrators, international and Polish invited
speakers, Bologna Experts, etc.) mutually
involved in critical thinking and reflective work
on higher education, research, development, and
university management. - give them a chance to the peer-reviewing via RHEA
conferences forum discussions, debates,
exchanges of their experiences and their critical
opinions. - Peers are insiders to the sector, provide
insight, understand issues and are, therefore,
supporting and sharing Harvey 2008.
6The ways universities assure...Towards
democratising quality
- AGENCIES OR INSIDERS?
- Maybe quality assurance, to become democratic,
needs to focus not on external agendas but the
internal agendas of higher education institutions
(...) Democracy in quality assurance is not
achieved by agencies (...) Harvey, 2009. - This is essential in an inclusive quality
assurance approach. The university insiders are
stakeholders being able to evaluate themselves
for the best results. - HOW WILL QUALITY BE ASSESSED?
- The external quality assurance methodology
(represented in majority of the procedures)
caused some concern in institutions as it
involves outside assessors going into
institutions and, among other things, observing
what takes place in teaching and learning
situations Harvey 2008. - The internal, inclusive quality assurance
approach seems to identify the nature of quality,
assess the perceptions of different stakeholders
and attempt to identify a flexible and dynamic
methodology that will take account of the
disparate perspectives and ever changing
circumstances Harvey, Burrows and Green, 1992.
7What else? The nearest future...
- 2008-2009
- RHEA conferences
-
- 1. School and university education system
cohesion or a big gap (November 2008) - with
participation of Minister of Education and
Vice-Minister of Science and Higher Education - 2. The quality assurance and internal systems of
quality assurance (March 2009) - with prof. Hakan
Hult (Linkoping University) and the experts from
Jagiellonian University and Warsaw University who
are responsible of internal quality assurance
system. - 3. The efficacy of higher education (June 2009)
- The RHEA conferences since the end of September
have huge and wonderful audience about 500
participants.
8- The next, June 2009 RHEA conference will give the
forum for the Polish Universities Accreditation
Commission (UKA), unique institution which is
composed of pro-rectors representing all Polish
universities and which organises evaluation by
peer-reviewing that emphasises the educational
goal of mutual institutional and individual
learning and that significantly use soft,
qualitative assessment (observation, mutual
interviewing, etc.). - The UKA presents one of the ways in which
universities democratically assure about quality
of education they offer. - However the UKA is the agency and - quoting
Harvey - the insiders, not agencies achieve
democracy in quality assurance. But the UKA - by
its influence and organisational role - may
fruitfully support and help to train democratic
quality assurance. - RHEA - as perhaps influential concept - could do
more. It evokes democracy, it is democracy in
practice which stabilise university in its
meaning of a bastion of democracy where - a public pedagogy is produced in a range of sites
and public spheres Giroux, 2008.
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