Auditing as a Tool of Public Policy
The Misuse of Quality Assurance Techniques in the UK University Expansion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12869540 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bruce G Charlton (corresponding author), Péter András (0000-0002-9321-3296) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 24-35 |
| Publication date | 2002-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1680-4333 • E-ISSN: 1682-0983 |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1057/eps.2002.42 |
| OpenAlex | W1965376319 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 5 |
Over recent years, UK universities have undergone a government-driven expansion of their student intake, with a target of fifty per cent of each age cohort graduating with a degree. The aim was to increase the average educational standard of the UK educational system as a whole - albeit at the cost of reducing the average academic standard within the university sector (Smith and Webster, 1997; Charlton, 2002). The combination of necessarily reduced student selectivity (both in admissions and examinations) and substantially reduced funding per student created the problem of how to manage the decline in academic standards and inflation of the degree qualification. After some years of trying more informal methods (Williams, 1997), the government set-up the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education; QAA, 1998), which would use the managerial tool of quality assurance auditing. Yet the QAA is now regarded as a failed experiment - expensive, damaging to efficiency, and probably ineffective (THES, 2001; Baty, 2001)
Audit · Business · Comparative politics · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Quality assurance · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Public Administration · Accounting
| Citations per year | 0.14 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2005 - 2007 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |