UK Quality Assurance Agency: Anglia Poly fails

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by oxpecker, Oct 21, 2004.

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  1. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

  2. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Or at least is being put on something equivalent to RA warning status.

    http://www.qaa.ac.uk/revreps/instrev/Anglia04/summary.htm

    From glancing at the summary, it looks like the problems are confused administrative oversight, not inferior teaching or student work. The QAA says:

    Outcome of the audit

    As a result of its investigations, the audit team's view of the University is that:
    there can be limited confidence in the soundness of the University's present and likely future management of the quality of its programmes and the academic standards of its awards...

    Despite confirming at the programme level some of the weaknesses in the University quality processes, the team was able to state that the standard of student achievement in the programmes was appropriate to the title of the awards and their place in The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and that the quality of learning opportunities available was, in each case, suitable.
     
  3. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Maybe Anglia is the first University under new rules, but the Quality Assurance Agency gave Bolton Institute a weak review in some areas back in 1995. Nevertheless, today the Bolton institute has "been extremely successful in recent Quality Assurance Agency reviews and have been deemed 'Excellent' in seven subjects: Psychology, Education, Nursing, Health Studies, Biology, Philosophy and Textiles."

    My first education out of high school was at the Bolton Technical College, UK , now named Bolton Institute (and soon to be Bolton University).

    I believe the UK QAA and the US regional accrediting agencies perform a valuable service in maintaining academic standards.
     
  4. Professor Kennedy

    Professor Kennedy New Member

    I agree with Ian Anderson. Heriot-Watt is entertaining a QAA visitation in late 2005-early 2006 and this is foreshadowed by the current serious in-depth review of every School's quality assurance procedures (there are six Schools in HWU), which goes a lot deeper than the usual 'paper trails'.

    The basic premise appears to be that if a university says it is providing 'x' to students and faculty, that it can prove that it is doing so.

    The last time the early QAA visited EBS it had the unfortunate feature that the academic chairman of the visiting team (consisting of university academics and civil servants) that the team was chaired by the Dean of a rival, and somewhat hostile, Business School and this biased the report until the new Director of the then QAA re-visited and corrected some of the report's assessments on grounds of fairness and accuracy.

    However, the UK QAA now has considerable experience of the UK university system and much more credibility (Oxford refused, for example, to particpate in a QAA visit because of its doubts about its objectivity, but has long ago withdrawn its objections, as have most institutions).

    The response of the Anglia Poly new Principal is worthy of note and is more important that the headlines about is previous failures. Raising and maintaining high standards is more important than the occasional summary headlines. It is when deficiencies are buried that an academic institution really fails its students and their employers, and not when deficiencies are exposed.
     
  5. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    It's interesting that the VC has had the job for just 6 months, and the pro-VC for 1 month. Hopefully they knew what they were getting into.
     
  6. Professor Kennedy

    Professor Kennedy New Member

    Hi Oxpecker

    If you join an educational institution and you have a QAA report on the desk with a recent survey of the institution's deficiencies, what better start could you have?

    Instead of having to spend a year looking for the hidden problems, you can read the report in a week, check everything that is mentioned and then spend the year putting it right.

    What a dream start!
     

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