Policy and accountability

The vision of the world economy has influenced education policy development. Within a world economy, competitive advantage is seen as dependent on having a well-educated workforce. This chapter examines the shift, in the last decade, within higher education policy in Britain, and in many other countries, towards increasing focus on issues of quality. Accompanying this shift is the move from an elite to a mass higher education system. Four interrelated themes dominated the mass higher education agenda: accountability and value for money, maintaining standards, measuring outputs and external quality monitoring (EQM). This chapter focuses on the first three and discusses the impact of quality-policy on the development of an educated workforce. The author concludes that emphasis on short-term gains and the pressure of budgetary constraints will lead to serious long-term consequences for higher education institutions.

The vision of the world economy has influenced education policy development. Within a world economy, competitive advantage is seen as dependent on having a well-educated workforce. This chapter examines the shift, in the last decade, within higher education policy in Britain, and in many other countries, towards increasing focus on issues of quality. Accompanying this shift is the move from an elite to a mass higher education system. Four interrelated themes dominated the mass higher education agenda: accountability and value for money, maintaining standards, measuring outputs and ...  [+] Show more