Quality Assurance in Further and Higher Education: A SACRIFICIAL LAMB ON THE ALTAR OF MANAGERIALISM

Abstract

Presents the case that in the 1990s further and higher education in the UK is facing unprecedented and increasing levels of market accountability precipitated by the legislative processes of Conservative administrations. Linked to their new responsibilities and freedoms (made possible by the 1988 and 1992 Education Acts), management in the newly incorporated institutions is becoming increasingly “business‐like”. The need for managers to justify their actions and demonstrate quality and effectiveness has never been greater. Hence the proliferation of league tables, performance indicators and the focus by audit units on measurement of an increasingly complex array of process and output statistics. The result has been a preoccupation with quality, among other issues, which is linked to performance appraisal and management techniques synonymous with the commercial sector of the economy. Points to the limitations of such models as TQM and of management‐driven approaches to quality which deprofessionalize, and proposes the need for a collegial model of organizations which accepts the central importance of interactive professionalism in assuring real quality of teaching and learning. Acknowledges the existence of common strategic drivers within the international and European arena and points to the need for quality assessment systems which overlay professional practice and serve to provide relevant information in a comparative international context.

Citation

Holmes, G. (1993), "Quality Assurance in Further and Higher Education: A SACRIFICIAL LAMB ON THE ALTAR OF MANAGERIALISM", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 4-8. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684889310040686