John Randall
Chief Executive, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education
"The Quality Assurance Agency and national standards: developing quality outcomes, developing students"

Clarifying the outcomes of degree-level study

John Randall outlined ways in which the new QAA framework takes forward the recommendations of the Dearing report, including those relating to transcripts and progress files. The new framework will bring a focus on standards and outcomes, in response to Dearing's concern to see effective clarification of what degrees stand for. Following the rise in the rate of participation in Higher Education, the sector is now providing one third of the new entrants to the labour market. People outside Higher Education need useful information about the end results of degree-level study.

The conference was invited to consider three important audiences:

• students who are the first in their families to go into Higher Education, perhaps via access routes -- we must explain to them what Higher Education has to offer, in accessible language
• employers who did not go to university themselves or have never employed graduates before -- what do we need to do in order to explain to these people what the value of a university education is?
  
• the Government. HE is competing for public funds and must therefore justify the expenditure and demonstrate standards.

The new QAA framework will enhance information about HE:

• subject benchmarks will establish the minimum expectation
  
• quality assessment will ensure that individual programmes meet the minimum standard set
  
• programme specifications will set out the intended outcomes for students, employers, etc.

Benchmarking in disciplines provides a tremendous opportunity to articulate the link between subject-specific study and employability for students. Many benchmarking statements focus on high-level problem-solving, a most important skill in the world of work.

Benchmarking is also bringing us back to a more synoptic approach to assessing students. Too much concentration upon modular assessment can encourage a learn-it-and-forget-it culture. We should allow more time for reflection upon learning, encourage synoptic analysis and design assessment to look at performance as a whole. HE must demonstrate the benefits and the potential coherence of study available within apparently diverse modular programmes.

Transcripts themselves will raise the issue of coherence. Employers may well be interested to refer student applicants to their transcripts and to ask why they chose the particular combination of modules that they did -- and it will be a useful interview question, because the quality of the answer will be revealing about the applicant's capacities for synoptic thinking and self-management.

The existing array of university qualifications now on offer causes huge confusion in the world outside HE. HE needs to talk confidently about what we do, set standards and build useful description into our qualifications framework. What has been achieved in getting a degree qualification? To the employer who asks, 'Is a 2:1 the same at every university?', many academics would probably answer, 'Yes it is, but probably no it isn't!' The time has come to break away from this. Clarity in defining the outcomes of Higher Education is what is needed by most people outside HE if they are to understand the value of degree-level study.