Stakeholders win quality battle

Voices of students and employers have taken precedence over the higher education sector in shaping the new standards regime for universities, quality chiefs said as they unveiled the new quality assurance blueprint this week.

The framework document, published in full exclusively in today's THES, heralds a new era of public accountability in higher education. The Quality Assurance Agency claims consensus but its framework has left the universities and the funding councils with major reservations.

Despite strong objections from universities that the plans will damage institutional autonomy and lead to a national curriculum for higher education, the final framework includes the controversial requirements for minimum benchmark degree standards and requirements for explicit statements of the intended outcome of courses.

QAA chief executive John Randall writes in The THES that in many aspects, "it is the views of the external stakeholders that must prevail. There was overwhelming support from employers and students for clear and verifiable information about the outcomes that programmes are intended to achieve".

So despite "significant reservations" from universities, "programme specifications and subject benchmarks remain as central features of the new model".

The regime will be underpinned by a new qualifications framework, "to ensure that qualifications that share a common title are of a common level and nature", and codes of practice in areas such as internal monitoring and student complaints.

The framework has changed significantly since a consultation document in March, reflecting the delicate balance between creating a regime that was hands-off enough for universities and tough enough for the funding agencies, which have a legal obligation to monitor publicly funded provision.

But the blueprint, where flexibility is the buzz-word, has left many alienated. Despite signing up to its "broad principles" earlier this month, the English, Welsh and Scottish higher education funding councils have warned that "there is a long way to go". In a joint response issued simultaneously with the report, they said: "A great deal of detail remains to be worked through. Some of the proposals are better articulated than others, and it remains to be demonstrated that the many innovative aspects can be effectively delivered in practice."

The funding councils are concerned about the "light-touch" approach, designed to reduce intervention and bureaucracy but seen as too much of a concession to universities which will be allowed to propose their own cycle of external scrutiny, closely aligned with internal reviews.

The QAA document says: "In due course the level of external scrutiny needed to make reliable judgments may reduce." But the funding councils warn that "getting the right mixture (of internal and external review) is more important than reducing the bureaucratic burden per se." Cutting red tape should not be at the expense of "rigour".

"High-risk" provision, such as complicated franchised provision, or provision attracting a high number of student complaints, will be subject to extra scrutiny.

Poor provision will be inspected again within a year, and an unsatisfactory second report, "could result in a loss of funding".

A confrontation is expected between the funding councils and universities over quality "ratings". The funding councils have said it is "highly desirable" that the QAA's published assessments include "summative quantified ratings" of institutions' strengths and weaknesses. "But we do not underestimate the difficulties of deriving ratings within the proposed framework which can robustly withstand legal challenge," said the funding councils.

The proposals will be fine-tuned during a two-year pilot period, beginning this academic year.