Quality management at HEIs within the context of general
provisions of
The development of market of educational services inevitably has to deal
with the issues quality assurance in education.
The concept of quality within the context of educational services provided by the HEI can be defined as correlation of the process or phenomenon with subjeclively set criteria peculiar to Higher Education. It is quality that gives grounds to necessity to provide procedures and event targeted at goal stating that the level of provided educational services is to be relevant to social, economic and personal needs, simultaneously assuring demand for specialists, high rating and competitiveness of the HEI.
At the basic documents of the
Table 1.
|
Name of the document |
Date and place of adoption |
Brief content |
|
|
June
18-19th
1999. |
One
of the main goal, which is considered to be basic for creation of European
Zone of HE and promotion of European system of HE to the whole world is being
provision of European co-operation within assuring quality of HE targeted at
developing compatible criteria and methodology. Quality is being considered
as the |
|
|
|
main condition for trust,
reliability, mobility, compatibility and attractiveness of the Zone of European
HE (ZEHE). |
|
Salamanka convention
of European HEIs and educational organizations. |
March
29-30th
2001. |
Quality to be the touchstone European domain of HE
has to implement basic academic values, i.e. to demonstrate quality. While assessing quality it
is necessary to take into account goals and objectives of HEIs
as well as their curricula Quality is to be demonstrated and guarantied in
order to be validated and approved by students, partners, society in Europe
and all over the world. |
|
Communique
of the meeting of European HE ministers. |
May
18-19th
2001, |
Quality
System of the HEI was proved to be of vital importance for assuring high
quality standards of national education and providing qualification
compatability in |
|
Conference
of ministers of HE. |
September
19th, |
The quality of HE is to become the fundament for
creation of ZEHE, Ministers stressed the necessity to develop criteria and
methodology for mutual utilization within the domain of quality of education.
They also focused on the principle of the HEI autonomy. The primary
responsibility for quality of HE is to be undertaken by the every HEI, and
thus providing avenues for verification of quality of HE within national
frameworks. |
Thus above mentioned information
proves that quality is being the basis for creation competitive system of
education, providing high reputation of European education within the world
educational domain.
In 1995 to implement the decision of
it general conference UNESCO has developed crutial
document called “Reform and development of Higher Education” [1] where the
world trends and objectives of the HE at current stage were expressed. At the
introduction to this document three main directions
“among the basic task of HE at the fast changing world” were identified. They
are the following:
-
meeting the needs of current
development;
-
internationalization of education;
-
quality
of education.
Quality of HE is being the cornerstone within the creation of the all European domain of the HE [2. p.2].
According to the UNESCO document
there are three aspects of educational activity that greatly influence at the
quality of HE.
The 1st – the quality of
the personnel which is to be guaranted by the high
academic qualification of academic staff and researchers of the HEIs as well as the quality of curricula, to be assured by
correlation of teaching and research as well as their correspondence to public
demand.
Second – the quality of students
training which, under the conditions when mass HE has become a reality, may be
obtained only by means of diversification of curricula, overcoming a gap
between secondary and HE, increasing the role of mechanisms of vocational
orientation and motivation of young people.
And finally –
the quality of infrastructure and “physical educational environment” of HEIs, which covers “all networks of conditions” of their
functioning, including computer networks and modern libraries.
These may be provided at the account of adequate funding, being possible under
conditions of real state approaches to HE to be all nation priority [1,
p.36-38].
The system of quality management of
specialists’ training is focused at achieving a/m criteria.
The main objectives of creating
quality management system (QMS) in HE are the following: improving the teaching
quality; further improvement of forms and methods of teaching; stimulating
competition between separate HEIs; verification of
teaching quality in newly established HEIs, HEI
accreditation, which is extremely topical under the conditions of HE system
diversification.
According to the report of the
National Committee on research in the sphere of HE of Great Britain, five steps
are envisaged for those organization who implemented (or going to implement)
the concept of quality assurance:
1.
The development of special manual
“Manual of achieving and assuring quality”.
2.
Marketing research of the labour
market aimed at identification of demand in specialists.
3.
Creating organizational structure
targeted at implementing new strategy aimed at obtaining quality.
4.
Teaching staff necessary methods and
tools; development of coherent questionnaires, answer lists, interview procedures,
brainstorming, development of Pareto tables etc.
5.
Organization of feedback with
employers aimed at identification of wether the level
of specialists’ training correspond to employers needs.
All those stages can be used at a
full rate by all HEIs with the aim to improve the
quality of teaching and academic management.
The following may be identified to be
the criteria creating methodological basis for the whole system of quality
management:
1.
Fundamental nature of knowledge.
2.
Correspondence of knowledge to be
obtained by the future specialists to prospective market demand (forecast for
the nex 4-5 y).
3.
Grading of the complexity level with
the account of permanent increase of its complexity.
4.
Interdisciplinary approach.
5.
Correspondence to the national
standards.
6.
The system of quality management at
the HEI teaching economics is to be constructed accounting basic principles
which are envisaged by the national policy in education.
QMS is to be aimed at the development
of creativity of students, implementing innovative forms of teaching, and
realization of feed back principle; increasing effectiveness of the teaching
process.
Assuring quality level of specialists training
under the conditions of market economy needs creation a definite structure
within Academic and Methodological Committee of the HEI which function is to be
organization and implementation some procedures on quality assessment of
training, teaching, quality of innovation and change.
Creating subdivision for quality
assurance and assessment of teaching process will enable to increase its
effectiveness, by means of assuring control of the quality of new courses,
teaching materials, changes dealing with both content of education and methods
of teaching. Organizationally the crew of such subdivision should include
administrative staff, teachers, who must be representatives from each
department (faculty) while students represent every speciality and year.
To assess the quality special
questionnaires are to be developed. They must assist teachers to estimate their
course and to further perfect it at the different stage of innovation
implementation.
The main advantage of that system is
its profound orientation onto the study of educational services market needs
and opinions of basic consumers of educational product (students) and employers
about the content and quality of training, which they can obtain at the
corresponding HEI and from targeted teacher.
On the other hand, this system can
perform control function, which alongside with state standards and requirements
enables to assure quality level of new HEIs.
Thus the issue of developing QMS in HE in
Bibliography:
1.
Reforms and development of Higher
Education. UNESCO program document, Paris, 1995.
2.
3.
Communique
of European ministers of HE.