Recording

※The recording are available until the end of July, 2025.

【Full Recording】 ＜1hrs 55mins＞

 Click here for the recording in Japanese.

 
Report

The NIAD-QE University Quality Assurance Forum 2024 entitled “A Tectonic Shift in Quality Assurance of Higher Education: What can we learn from the latest UK experience?” was held on October 9, 2024. The forum invited Ms. Vicki Stott, Chief Executive of Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), the United Kingdom, and over 370 participants joined online and in-person from across Japan and abroad.

The program was chaired by Prof. MORI Rie from Research Department of NIAD-QE. The forum began with the opening address by HATTORI Yasunao. Ph.D., President of NIAD-QE.

Ms. Stott introduced with an overview of QAA, an independent, not-for-profit quality assurance agency established in 1997, with members of 275 higher education institutions in the UK. The model of quality assurance in higher education in the UK is different in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and QAA’s scope of service varies according to the needs of each nation’s sector. She noted that in recent years there has been an increased alignment in the overall direction of quality assurance and regulation across the UK’s devolved nations: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while the quality assurance landscape in England has been moving towards a slight different direction. She then introduced the quality assurance systems in each of the nations to explain further.

England in particular, Ms. Stott referred to its change of direction in the role of QAA after the withdrawal from the Register of English higher education providers, in which QAA had been acting as a cooperator in part of the assessment process. She emphasized that while the registration scheme focuses solely on the regulatory baseline, the withdrawal allows QAA to be more agile and responsive to the changing environment of higher education by providing advice, guidance, and good practices to its member institutions to help them achieve higher education quality above those baselines. She also introduced that QAA provides relevant resources relating to artificial intelligence (AI) in an agile manner, responding to the rise of AI in higher education.

In the latter half of the program, Prof. TODAYAMA Kazuhisa, Dean of Research Department of NIAD-QE, moderated the Q&A and discussion session. Many questions were asked by the audience such as the involvement of students in QAA's quality assurance activities, the status of appointments to reviewers from industry and other countries, and how good practices are identified in the review process. For the question of how far the use of AI in education has progressed in the UK, Ms. Stott pointed out, with her answer, QAA's views on the role of how AI should play and the need for guidelines to ensure its proper use. Audience also showed high interest in the Office for Students (OfS) which is the responsible body of the Register of English higher education providers. Ms. Stott explained the role of the OfS with a comparison with QAA. The discussion led to wider topics of the guarantee of university autonomy and the significance of universities to undergo evaluation, and the speakers and audience exchanged their perspectives enthusiastically until the very end of the session. The forum ended successfully with the closing remarks by Prof. Dr. MITSUISHI Mamoru, Vice-President of NIAD-QE.

Go to University Quality Assurance Forum 2023