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| October 2005 | Volume
18, Issue 5 |
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FEATURE FROM THE ARCHIVES Methods of Document Recognition and Authentication (Jan. 2003) REGIONAL
NEWS PRACTICAL INFORMATION FROM THE ARCHIVES Asian Students Have More Opportunities at Home (May 1999)
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Practical Information
By Antony Stella, PhD Asia and the Pacific Rim is a fast-growing region, characterized by cultural, linguistic, social, political and economic diversities. With a few exceptions, the majority of Asia-Pacific nations are developing ones. The economies of many of these developing countries are growing rapidly, and are under pressure to support that development with skilled human resources. Governments in these growing economies recognize the direct relationship between high-quality higher education and a prosperous domestic economy, and therefore, are investing more in higher education. With more taxpayers’ money being spent on higher education, governments also want assurances that the recipients are both efficient and proficient. As a direct result, higher education reforms are beginning to give quality-assurance mechanisms a central role in increasing national capacity to provide improved educational opportunities. The growing need for more and improved higher education has implications not only within the nation, but also across national borders. Beyond National Borders In recent years, the need for quality education has led to a marked increase in the mobility of people, programs and institutions across national borders. Mobility of administrators, scholars, teachers, and — predominantly — students, has been an integral aspect of higher education for centuries. Historically, student mobility has been the proxy for all mobility. However, recent developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) bring new dimensions to “who” and “what” moves across borders, and “how.” Today, mobility is not confined to students — as time goes on, the rapid growth of other forms of mobility (program and institution, for example) will make student mobility a less satisfactory indicator. The 21st century’s methods of educational delivery and mobility across national borders defy traditional ways of understanding “educational providers, educational delivery and educational qualifications.” Consequently, the portability of qualifications obtained through new, cross-border educational providers — especially in higher education — is becoming an issue of concern, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. The number of regional quality-assurance agencies is growing rapidly to deal with the various methods of educational delivery, including cross-border education. Issues relating to cross-border education are presenting challenges not only to emerging quality assurance systems but also to mature quality assurance agencies of the region. CHALLENGES OF CROSS-BORDER EDUCATION Critics of cross-border education point to the risks posed by unscrupulous providers: operating without appropriate government supervision; providing low-quality educational services while aiming at maximum profit; undermining equal access to higher education; and limiting protection of students, including issues concerning the recognition of qualifications. The issue of student protection from low-quality, cross-border education is real in many countries. Students often face difficulties in translating degrees obtained from cross-border providers into national equivalents. In addition, there are cross-border providers operating in many countries who aggressively market their courses by assuring equal treatment and recognition of their awards in the provider country. But student experiences in many collaborative ventures indicates that they can find their certificates do not give them a competitive edge or benefit in further studies, or employment in the provider country. Furthermore, cases of questionable providers who collect tuition fees but are unreachable when the student finds out he or she has been deceived are growing increasingly common. Questionable providers also are creating a bottleneck for genuine providers. Even the most competent educational providers face obstacles at different levels due to the general belief that cross-border education providers exploit students. On the other hand, with unprecedented developments in science and technology, cross-border education can play an important role in knowledge and human resource development. Most courses offered by universities can be delivered to any part of the world with the right technology, and this provides new opportunities for learners. Among the benefits: filling the need to provide diverse training opportunities; flexibility in curriculum development, which responds to the needs of industry; and enhancing the range of learning opportunities providing access to higher education. If managed appropriately, and if encouraged in areas that are of relevance to the partnering countries, these opportunities can bring mutual benefits and strengthen the national systems of education. This understanding of benefits implies there is a need to differentiate “good” from “untrustworthy” educational providers, and that students should be empowered to make their choices from the opportunities that cross-border education can bring. Quality assurance can bridge this gap between “mistrust” and “new opportunities” by ensuring and assuring the quality of cross-border educational provisions. This is especially true in the Asia-Pacific region, where most national capacities are currently inadequate. There is a growing awareness among the region’s quality-assurance agencies that they have to work together and address both national and international challenges. Toward that goal, the Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) has the potential to make a significant impact on the regional capacity for quality assurance. Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) The APQN is a quality-assurance network that serves a region with more than half the world’s population. Although established independently as a legal entity, APQN has been able to draw on the experiences of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), the worldwide network of quality agencies. Founded in 1991, INQAAHE started with 20 members; there are now 150 members. Increasingly, these agencies are finding that while they want to know what is happening to their colleagues in other parts of the world, they are most concerned with working together in their own geographical region. This has resulted in the creation of a number of regional networks — APQN is the network that addresses the needs of the Asia-Pacific region. APQN was founded in Hong Kong in January 2003 and was legally incorporated as an association in the State of Victoria, Australia, in December 2004. The Secretariat of APQN is housed at the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) in Australia. In 2004, the World Bank agreed to provide funds to support initial capacity building in the region through APQN. From October 2004 to September 2005, the bank provided US$362,200, with the possibility of similar funding in each of the two successive years. The success of APQN’s first year of activities has already ensured further funding. Building on the voluntary work of member agencies, seed money from the World Bank and nominal membership fees, APQN envisions “to be a self-sustaining network by 2010, in which it will come naturally to members to use APQN as a first point of reference for advice or support.” Toward its mission “to enhance the quality of higher education in Asia and the Pacific region through strengthening the work of quality-assurance agencies and extending the cooperation between them,” APQN is implementing a many-fold strategy. Capacity Building In most of the region, quality-assurance initiatives in higher education are relatively new, with about two-thirds of the agencies having been established in the last decade. These agencies can benefit greatly by studying the lessons and experiences of established programs and by creating a platform that would bring quality-assurance agencies together to share experiences. APQN serves this particular purpose well. APQN has begun a strong program that shares information and builds capacity while considering the unique national contexts in which the agencies have to function. It is important to note that different countries have different needs, and APQN’s capacity-building activities recognize those differences. In new small systems such as those in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Laos, Myanmar and Pakistan, capacity-development efforts aim to help the countries establish quality-assurance agencies. Representatives from these countries are invited to participate in APQN meetings, and consultancy services to these countries to help establish quality assurance agencies are considered. Countries such as Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam — which have emerging quality-assurance systems — are helped to train their agency staff in good quality-assurance practices, and to train the trainers for external reviews. In India, Indonesia and the Philippines — where quality assurance agencies are already functioning — the goal is to introduce reforms and new elements to their practices. That work is supported through staff exchanges, workshops and consultancy services. To ensure the appropriateness of capacity-development activities, the APQN Secretariat assesses the needs of the different countries by performing a Needs Analysis. Based on the findings of those analyses, APQN sets out specific areas of activity, such as training and development, staff secondments and exchanges, the provision of an information clearinghouse and consultation services through a pool of external peer reviewers. As mentioned earlier, cross-border education is one area that quality-assurance agencies need to address. According to a survey conducted for APQN in 2004 by AUQA and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), Australia, India, Malaysia and New Zealand were the only respondents that had some mechanisms in place to ensure the quality of the exports of their higher education institutions. For the import of educational services, according to the survey, “Monitoring of Transnational Activities,” there were mechanisms only in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand and the Philippines. In other words, quality assurance of cross-border higher education will require serious attention. Tool Kit on Quality Assurance of Cross-border Education To address this issue, APQN is working with UNESCO Bangkok to develop a “tool kit” for member agencies. This kit will provide guidelines on appropriate quality-assurance mechanisms to assure the quality of cross-border education — both imports and exports. It will be a reference for policy makers and educational planners to ask the right questions and make appropriate decisions in dealing with cross-border education. APQN is aware that any progress in tackling the quality assurance of cross-border education requires that different agencies work in collaboration with one other.
As the quality-assurance agencies in the region help each other in capacity development and start working together, it also is expected that they will contribute to promoting mutual recognition of each other’s decisions. This is another area where APQN likely will make a significant impact in the region. Mutual Recognition An analysis of the current practices of quality-assurance agencies of the region reveals a great deal of diversity. Variations can be seen in the methodology (accreditation, audit or assessment), the nature of the process (mandatory or voluntary), the unit of assessment (institution or program), the outcome of assessment (no grading, two-point scale or multi-point scale) and the policy on disclosure of the outcome (confidential or public). However, they also have common elements: They base their evaluation on a well-defined, transparent framework, and they conduct the quality-assurance exercise as a combination of self-study and peer review. This commonality should help agencies explore mutual-recognition possibilities. With increasing mobility of students, institutions, graduates and employers across national boundaries and the consequent increase in qualification-recognition issues, consideration of the mechanisms for mutual recognition has become important. There is a growing consensus among APQN members that quality agencies should mutually recognize each others’ decisions whenever possible. In fact, APQN would like to see by 2010 all its full members recognizing each others’ judgments. Furthermore, the network envisions all operations of higher education institutions would be subject to the requirements of only one agency. In other words, there would be no quality barriers to the full mobility of students across the region. This will require a shared understanding of quality that would permit agencies’ mutual recognition of decisions. Toward this goal, discussions and projects on mutual recognition among small groups of agencies are in the pipeline. In addition, a project-group report on mutual recognition has been written, and based on the recommendations of the report the next stage of the project will soon be initiated. In a parallel development, two member agencies of the network that perform whole-of-institution quality assurance evaluations — AUQA and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of India — are to explore in some detail the possibility of and the mechanisms for mutual recognition. The initial stages of this project, which is to begin soon, will be geared toward better understanding each other’s processes and reflecting on how much confidence they can have in each other’s procedures. The Asia-Pacific region is in the midst of many changes in higher education and quality assurance. Recent efforts toward promoting regional cooperation in addressing quality-related issues have been very encouraging. As the only association linking all the quality-assurance bodies in the region, APQN is ideally placed to play a major role in strengthening this cooperation. Antony Stella is Audit Director at the Australian Universities Quality
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