Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how the Japanese and Taiwanese national quality assurance (QA) agencies, National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement (NIAD-QE) and Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT), transform their respective frameworks in response to social demands, and analyze and compare the respective approaches for the key concepts of autonomy, accountability, improvement and transparency.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative document analysis approach, this paper initially examines the higher education system, major policies and QA developments, after which the methods associated with the QA restructuring transformations are outlined in terms of motivations, expectations and challenges. Finally, the NIAD-QE and HEEACT evaluation policies and frameworks are compared to assess how each has prepared to respond to emerging challenges.FindingsDuring the QA framework restructuring, both the NIAD-QE and HEEACT struggled to achieve autonomy, accountability, improvements and transparency. While the new internal Japanese QA policy is assured through the external QA, the Taiwanese internal QA, which has a self-accreditation policy, is internally embedded with university autonomy emphasized. The QA policies in both the NIAD-QE and HEEACT have moved from general compliance to overall improvement, and both emphasize that accountability should be achieved through improvements. Finally, both agencies sought transparency through the disclosure of the QA process and/or results to the public and the enhancement of public communication.Originality/valueThis study gives valuable insights into the QA framework in Asian higher education institutions and how QA has been transformed to respond to social needs.
Highlights
The dramatic economic, political and social changes over the past few decades have led to significant changes in higher education in terms of expansion, massification, competition, innovation, deregulation and commercialization
While initial focus has been on the introduction of external quality assurance (QA), there has been a gradual shift toward internal QA in the past decade (Gover and Loukkola, 2015)
QA methodology has been a key issue when seeking to enhance the quality of higher education institutions
Summary
The dramatic economic, political and social changes over the past few decades have led to significant changes in higher education in terms of expansion, massification, competition, innovation, deregulation and commercialization. Because of the reductions in public funds, universities are required to be accountable and transparent in terms of quality With these funding changes, higher education institutions are expected to be more autonomous in the management of their financial and personnel resources and in their academic teaching and learning decisions (Costes et al, 2010), which has required them to be more accountable for their service quality and performances through regular quality assurance (QA). The most important change driver in higher education in the past decades has been the emergence of QA, with many QA agencies opening and others being expanded, as evaluation and/or accreditation tools have become a powerful way to regulate and rationalize interventions to define quality-based objectives and the associated criteria (Normand, 2016). The relationship between internal and external QA varies by country
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