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Quality assurance, why is quality assurance in school education important .

Quality assurance involves the systematic review of educational provision to maintain and improve its quality, equity and efficiency. It encompasses school self-evaluation, external evaluation (including inspection), the evaluation of teachers and school leaders, and student assessments.

Developing strong quality assurance systems is crucial to support high-quality, inclusive education across a European Education Area . It is also important to support the implementation of the 2018 Council Recommendations on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning and on promoting common values, inclusive education, and the European dimension of teaching .

Furthermore, quality assurance is vital to create the conditions for facilitating student mobility across Europe, in particular through enhanced transparency and trust. Quality assurance also plays a key role in supporting the mutual recognition of upper secondary qualifications and the outcomes of learning periods abroad .

What is the EU doing to support quality assurance?

The Commission assists EU Member States in further developing their quality assurance systems through the activities of the Education and Training ET 2020 Working Group on Schools . This Group is composed of experts from EU national governments and stakeholder organisations. 

The group meets regularly to examine specific aspects of policies linked to quality assurance in education, to discuss shared challenges and to exchange best practices. The Working Group has provided guidance for policymakers on quality assurance for school development. It has also produced a report on supporting school self-evaluation as a key mechanism for school development.

The Commission has produced the expert report Better learning for Europe's young people: Developing coherent quality assurance strategies for school education .

Furthermore, in its Communication on school development and excellent teaching for a great start in life , the Commission has outlined areas for action to improve school education, including through the development of quality assurance systems.

The accompanying Commission Staff Working Document provides research and evidence supporting the recommendations contained within of the Communication, as well as results of work at the EU level to develop school education policies.

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Ensuring Quality Education

UNESCO believes that education is a human right for all throughout life and that access must be matched by quality. The Organization is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to cover all aspects of education. It has been entrusted to lead the Global Education 2030 Agenda through Sustainable Development Goal 4.

UNESCO Office in Tashkent with its national partners implements a number of programmes and projects in areas of quality of education, improving curricula and supporting teacher training and the development of teaching materials, inclusive life-learning for all. UNESCO actively cooperates with the Ministries of Education (Ministry of preschool and school education, Ministry of higher education, science and innovation).

UNESCO works with schools to promote the ideals of UNESCO valuing rights and dignity, gender equality, social progress, freedom, justice and democracy, respect for diversity and international solidarity. The UNESCO Associated Schools Network (ASPnet) connects more than 12,000 schools in 182 countries, more than 45 schools in Uzbekistan are connected to this network and implement concrete actions in three priorities: education for sustainable development, global citizenship education and inter-cultural and heritage learning.

UNESCO also cooperates with educational institutions and universities around the world. UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN Networks involves over 850 institutions in 117 countries, promotes international inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities through knowledge sharing and collaborative work. Eight UNESCO Chairs at seven universities in Uzbekistan are connected to global network to pool their resources, both human and material, to address pressing challenges and contribute to the development of their societies.

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Quality and learning indicators

Understanding what quality means varies between countries. Different education actors and organizations also have their own definitions. However, most tend to agree on three broad principles: the need for relevance, for equity of access and outcome, and for proper observance of individual rights (UNESCO, 2004).

UNESCO’s framework on the variables of education quality has five dimensions:

• Learner Characteristics : including learner aptitude, perseverance, readiness for school, prior knowledge, barriers to learning, and demographic variables.
• Context : including public resources for education, parental support, national standards, labour market demands, socio-cultural and religious factors, peer effects, and time available for schooling and homework.
• Enabling Inputs : including teaching and learning materials, physical infrastructure and facilities, and human resources.
• Teaching and Learning : including learning time, teaching methods, assessment, and class size.
• Outcomes : including skills in literacy and numeracy, values, and life skills. (UNESCO, 2004: 36).

The use of indicators

For educational quality and learning outcomes to improve, planners need access to evidence-based analyses of the current situation, trends over time, and information on the strengths and weaknesses of a system, and their causes. A strong monitoring and evaluation system that looks at relevant indicators can provide that evidence. Indicators can help track the progress of strategies and programmes within an education sector plan. Indicators of education quality can have meaningful implications for policy by enabling comparisons to be made across time, within different places or contexts, or against standards or global benchmarks such as Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) .

More specifically, indicators enable educational planners and decision-makers to:

• Monitor changes in areas such as teaching quality, the curriculum, and student performance, which can alert policy-makers to impending problems.
• Measure the impact of educational reform efforts.
• Encourage an education system to improve by comparing it, or parts of it, with other countries or systems.
• Focus attention on educational subsystems that may require improvement, such as particular districts or levels of education.
• Focus attention on key equity indicators, such as the performance of different subgroups such as girls, students living in poverty, or students with disabilities. (Adapted from Kaagan and Smith, 1985: 24).

Indicators for monitoring education quality

Education systems are typically analysed in terms of context, specific inputs, social or institutional processes, and outputs or outcomes. Indicators can be developed to measure issues that fall under each of these categories.

• Context indicators : provide information on the contextual factors that affect learning, e.g. student characteristics, socio- economic conditions, cultural aspects, status of the teaching profession, and local community issues. Context indicators are often challenging to develop and measure as they concern qualitative issues. Common data-collection tools include surveys, classroom observations, inspection reports, and self-evaluations.
• Input indicators : primarily measure the deployment and use of resources to facilitate learning. They reveal whether the planned financial, material, and human resources are being delivered in the planned quantities, at all levels of the system. Information on input indicators is relatively easy to obtain since inputs are often “countable” by nature, and management processes involve keeping records of many inputs automatically. One challenge may be the differences between producing inputs and ensuring that they are available at the endpoint. For example, the textbook/pupil ratio may be measured in terms of the number of textbooks that are delivered, or by the number of textbooks in use in schools. In some cases, there may be a discrepancy between the two figures.
• Process indicators : measure how educational programme activities were conducted – whether they were carried out to the desired standard of quality. This includes how specific educational processes are conducted in practice, e.g. the application of standards, teaching quality, time on task, school climate, and educational leadership. Like context indicators, process indicators also concern qualitative issues and may be obtained through surveys and pedagogical observations, inspection reports, and self-evaluations.
• Output indicators : measure the effects of the programme activities to see whether the programme objectives were attained. They reveal how the education system is performing in terms of subject knowledge, competencies, repetition, progression and completion rates, and employer satisfaction. Output indicators may be obtained through national examinations, international assessments, surveys, and systematic field observations. Output indicators typically involve measurement of learning outcomes based on national examinations or international assessments. Output indicators provide the most important data for understanding whether educational quality and learning outcomes are improving as intended. (Adapted from: Scheerens, Luyten, and van Ravens, 2011).

Indicators should be based on context and on the specific learning goals of the education system. They should be designed to allow for measurement of change over time and be disaggregated by gender, geography, socio-economic situation, and other equity issues.

The importance of measuring equality

The importance of equality in education is emphasized in the SDGs and Education 2030 Framework, with Target 4.5 aiming to “eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations”. To achieve this, education systems must monitor and address inequalities in access, participation and outcomes for all population groups. In more equitable education systems, learners’ access to education and their learning outcomes are relatively independent of individual socio-economic and cultural circumstances.

To measure equality, planners need to be able to disaggregate assessment data by different population groups in order to track their progress. Learner characteristics that are known to have predictive effects on education outcomes and can serve as key indicators for equality measurement include:

• disability,
• forced displacement,
• immigration / migration status,
• cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity,

Collecting data on these indicators enables the aggregation of data by key equity dimensions, such as gender or poverty, and the comparison of the degree of inequality between different subgroups. To measure progress towards equity targets accurately, it is important that learning assessments be administered to disadvantaged children who do not attend school. One means of achieving this is through sample-based household surveys. Household and administrative school data can also be linked to explore the effect of variables such as facilities and teaching methods on disadvantaged learners.

Plans and policies

Pakistan.  Minimum standards for quality education in Pakistan: attaining standards for improved learning outcomes and school effectiveness  (2016)

• Sauvageot, C. 1997. Indicators for educational planning: a practical guide . Paris: IIEP.
• UNESCO-UIS. 2019. SDG 4 data digest: How to produce and use the global and thematic education indicators . Montreal: UIS

Barrett, A. M.; Sorensen, T. B. 2015. Indicators for all? Monitoring quality and equity for a broad and bold post-2015 global education agenda . New York: Open Society Foundations.

Kaagan, S.; Smith, M. S. 1985. ‘Indicators of educational quality’ . In: Educational Leadership. 43(2), 21–24.

OECD. 2013. Synergies for better learning: An international perspective on evaluation and assessment . Paris: OECD.

Scheerens, J.; Luyten, H.; van Ravens, J. 2011. ‘ Measuring educational quality by means of indicators’ . In: J. Scheerens; H. Luyten; J. van Ravens (Eds) Perspectives on educational quality: Illustrative outcomes on primary and secondary schooling in the Netherlands (pp. 35–50). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

UNESCO. 2004. ‘Understanding education quality’ . In: UNESCO, Education for all: The quality imperative (pp. 27–37). Paris: UNESCO.

UNESCO-UIS. 2018. Handbook on measuring equity in education . Montreal: UIS.

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• Inter-Agency Group on Education Inequality Indicators (IAG-EII)
• Quality of education

The Background of Quality Assurance in Higher Education and Engineering Education

• First Online: 01 January 2009

Cite this chapter

• Peter J. Gray 3 ,
• Arun Patil &
• Gary Codner  

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This chapter presents a review of the historical, philosophical, political, and social background of Quality Assurance of higher education, in general, and engineering education, in particular. Such a review can help us appreciate how the Quality Assurance movement got to where it is today and the tensions that are inherent in it, as well as provide guidance for its future development. Suggestions for advancing Quality Assurance in Engineering Education are provided at the end of the chapter.

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The terms evaluation and assessment (lower-case e and a ) can refer to a set of techniques, procedures, instruments, and methods for measurement and analysis. These are used in formal Evaluation, Assessment, Accreditation, and Quality Assurance schemes (upper-case E , A , and QA ) to monitor performance and to ensure achievement of quality outputs or improved quality . In this sense, Evaluation or Assessment are synonymous with Quality Assurance as proper nouns denoting a movement, process, approach, or even a profession (such as is embodied in the American Evaluation Associate professional standards or International Network Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education certificate program).

See the CHEA Web site for an overview of US accreditation, http://www.chea.org/pdf/overview_US_accred_8-03.pdf and for a directory of CHEA Recognized Organizations http://www.chea.org/Directories/index.asp

See the chapter “Quality Assurance in the Preparation of Technical Professionals: The ABET Perspective” by Peterson for a discussion of ABET, Inc. and the chapter “Quality Assurance in Engineering Education in the United States” by Schachterle for an overview of higher education and engineering education accreditation in USA.

Augusti describes the history, current status, and future development of EUR-ACE in the chapter “EUR-ACE: The European Accreditation system of Engineering Education and its Global Context.”

See the general discussions by Augusti (“EUR-ACE: the European Accreditation system of Engineering Education and its Global Context”) and Cowan (“Quality Assurance in European Engineering Education: Present and Future Challenges”) and the specific descriptions for Sweden by Malmqvist and Sadurskis (“Quality Assurance of Engineering Education in Sweden”), Lithuania by Valiulis and Valiulis (“Engineering Education Quality Assurance: The Essential Pillar of Higher Education Reform in Lithuania”), and Russia by Chuchalin et al. (“Quality Assurance in Engineering Education and Modernization of Higher Education in Russia”).

See specific discussions on India by Natarajan (“Assessment of Engineering Education Quality: An Indian Perspective”), Vietnam by Le and Nguyen (“Quality Assurance in Vietnam’s Engineering Education”), Malaysia by Puteh et al. (“Quality Issues Facing Malaysian Higher Learning Institutions: A Case Study of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia”), Thailand by Jitgarun et al. (“Quality Assurance for the Engineering Para-Professional in Thailand”), Hong Kong by Siu (“Quality Assurance in Engineering Education: An All-round Perspective”), and Chile and Latin America by Letelier et al. (“Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Chile: National and Engineering Dimensions”).

For example, The New York State Office of College and University Evaluation (OCUE), oversees all degree-granting colleges and universities in New York State, and assures that the programs they offer for credit meet or exceed minimum quality standards. The Office’s computerized database contains information on nearly 25,000 separate college programs. The Board of Regents Authority for Quality Assurance in Higher Education is based on various state laws and Regents Rules. See the New York State Education Department Office of Higher Education Web sites: http://www.highered.nysed.gov/ocue/ and http://www.highered.nysed.gov/ocue/board_of_regents_authority_for_q.htm

See the Web site of the American Evaluation Association: http://www.eval.org/

See Building a scholarship of assessment by Banta and Associates ( 2002 ).

Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education (Code of practice) for the guidance of organizations subscribing to the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and other bodies offering UK higher education (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2006 ).

Hoecht ( 2006 , p. 548) characterizes TQM in higher education as “a clash of principal assumptions and the difference between quality management for learning and quality management for control.” This again brings up issues of language and power.

Schwarz and Westerheijden ( 2007 ) quotations included with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without written permission from the Publisher.

An appendix to College and University Ranking Systems by Usher and Savino ( 2007 ) includes The Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions .

A more detailed description of such a system is beyond the scope of this chapter and will be left to the chapter “Internal and External Quality Assurance Approaches for Improvement and Accountability: A Conceptual Framework” and other venues intended to provide practical advice and direction for the development and implementation of a comprehensive Quality Assurance system.

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Acknowledgement

Peter J. Gray wishes to express appreciation to USNA Academic Dean and Provost William Miller for granting him the sabbatical leave that provided the opportunity to complete this book.

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Gray, P.J., Patil, A., Codner, G. (2009). The Background of Quality Assurance in Higher Education and Engineering Education. In: Patil, A., Gray, P. (eds) Engineering Education Quality Assurance. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0555-0_1

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