The Australian Higher Education Quality Assessment Framework: Its Success, Deficiencies and Way Forward

Higher education policies related to quality assurance are implemented in many countries. The purpose of such policies are to ensure the provision for high quality education, university accountability and transparency in the use of public funding, confidence of various university stakeholders, competitiveness of higher education in the global arena and meeting the needs of the diverse stakeholders. The current Australian Higher Education Quality Assurance Framework was implemented in the year 2000. While the current framework has served us well with evidence of success, it is clear that the new policy on quality assurance will be more rigorous and it will be implemented in 2011-2013 as a result of the review of higher education in Australia in 2007/2008. The aims of the paper are to provide a brief history of quality assurance and its evolution in higher education in Australia and to analyse the success and deficiencies of the current quality assurance framework used by the government. The analysis of the framework is based on the views of 40 participants from 25 Australian universities and also the views of the three authors who have been in the quality assurance role in various institutions.