Quality assurance in higher education in the global context

Abstract

The evolution of the systems of quality assurance (QA) in higher education has taken various shapes, forms and sizes in the global context. Yet, at the core, each of these QA design ideals invokes the logic of institutional, external accountability aiming for quality assessment, improvement and enhancement. The current chapter argues that reality of QA in a specific context is not subject to the analytical categories drawn upon by the scholars as well as by the policy makers. Reality of QA at the implementation level, involves, in varying degrees, influence of global, national, regional and local dimensions. Relying on a critical realist philosophical standpoint and taking cue from the concept of Glonacal Agency Heuristic, the current chapter delivers threefold objectives. First, at a conceptual level, it explains the stratified reality of QA in higher education in the global, national, regional, local and everydayness dimensions. Second, it discusses the recent trends in QA in HE in the global context. Third, given the degree of global influence of QA movement, the national, regional and local dimensions of QA in Africa are discussed. The layered approach adopted in the chapter highlighted that within the global context, the African concern for quality in higher education and its effort to assure it should follow an indigenous route, emanating from its ground reality, organically.