Achieving a balanced quality portfolio: The relative costs of quality control and enhancement schemes

Abstract

This article points out that there are costs associated with schemes for ensuring quality in higher education, and the more elaborate the scheme the higher the cost. Further, the marginal quality returns decrease as the measures become more involved and more expensive. There are also differing relationships between cost and quality return for quality control and quality enhancement schemes. In the former, improvement in quality tends towards a plateau as teaching and courses reach some minimum acceptable standard. There may even be a decrease in quality if schemes become excessively time consuming or inquisitorial. Quality enhancement schemes show smaller reductions in marginal quality returns as investment increases. Workshop‐type schemes tend to peter out as the level of offering increases, but project‐type approaches continue to show returns unless the investment becomes very high. These relative cost structures are used as an argument for evaluating quality measures themselves, for simplifying quality control measures where necessary, and for a shift towards quality enhancement. It is suggested that institutions need a balanced portfolio of quality measures, with basic quality control schemes to ensure minimum standards, workshops up to the level of market demand, and remaining resources allocated for quality enhancement initiatives through schemes such as grants for educational development projects.