Own quality system means Scots suffer

Maxwell Irvine, who this week left his post as principal of Aberdeen University to become vice chancellor of Birmingham University, claims Scottish higher education institutions are suffering through having their own quality assessment system.

Although England has moved to a points system for quality assessment, more than 970 departments in 15 subjects have been judged on three ratings of excellent, satisfactory and unsatisfactory, and are now marketing themselves on this basis. Scotland has a fourth rating of highly satisfactory.

Professor Irvine said there were proportionally fewer excellent ratings in Scotland, which he did not believe accurately reflected Scottish teaching quality. But the English and Scottish ratings came into line when the Scottish "excellents" and "highly satisfactories" were added together.

Ronald Crawford, secretary of the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals, said these views had been put forward to the Miller group, which will next month publish its review of the Scottish quality assessment system.