Abstract
The current interest in governmental assessment and accountability practices appears to result from:(1) an emerging view of higher education as an “industry”; (2) concerns about efficient resource allocation; (3) a lack of trust ade between governmend institutional officials; (4) a desire to reduce uncertainty in government/higher education relationships; (5) lack of confidence in institutional governance. Based on these concerns, governments increasingly are engaging in data-based quality assessment processes. These processes appear to assume that: (1) faculty and administrators know how to improve quality but fail to do so; (2) government officials can assure the public interest in quality; (3) measures of quality can be identified and agreed upon; (4) improving quality requires strong bureaucratic coordination and control; (5) information systems can provide the evidence government officials need to address quality concerns. An examination of literature on organisation decision processes suggest these assumptions are inaccurate.
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Schmidtlein, F.A. Assumptions Commonly Underlying Government Quality Assessment Practices. Tertiary Education and Management 10, 263–285 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11233-004-6065-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11233-004-6065-1