QUALITY ASSURANCE DEPARTMENT

Meaning


Quality Assurance in education can be taken to be concerned with ensuring that standards are specified and met consistently in the provision of services and products.

According to the British Standards Institute (BSI) 'Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs' .

Quality refers therefore to the standards that must be met to achieve specified purposes to the satisfaction of customers. .

We can argue that the quality of teaching would be determined by its fitness to achieve stated purposes, presumably with regard to learning.

The purpose of teaching is of course learning. So quality of teaching is its fitness for the purpose of promoting learning.

The word, assure isa transitive verb: the assuring is done by someone who wishes to assure someone else. For example, a box of matches carrying the message quality assured is a message from the manufacturer to the customer. It is intended to reassure the customer that the standards they expect from a match will be met consistently by each match in the box.

Thus quality assurance is a process whereby a manufacturer or producer guarantees to a customer or client that the goods or services concerned will meet standards consistently.

Quality Assurance in education will thus involve a radical re-orientation of the university's or college's approach to its work.

Universities or colleges must establish systems and approaches for quality assurance that are distinctive and match the special characteristics of academic work.

PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN YANBU INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE (YIC)

There are six main principles that embody the YIC Quality Assurance Program:

1. The specification of standards for whatever is conceived of as the service product.
2. The identification of critical functions and procedures that will be necessary achieve these standards.
3. Constant recourse to the customer to set and monitor the accomplishment standards.
4. Documented clarity with regard to both the standards to be achieved and procedures that must be followed to achieve these standards.
5. A cybernetic approach to standard and procedure setting which involves monitoring that standards are being met and procedures followed, taking action I remedy or rectify shortfalls coupled with a regular review of the appropriateness of standards and procedures.
6. The total involvement of all personnel and a commitment to development al1 training.

MAIN FEATURES OF THE QUALITY ASSURANCE, ACTION PLAN

Quality assessment will be carried out in relation to the Quality Assurance Policy Statement of Yanbu Industrial College.

It will measure the extent to which YIC is successful in achieving its aims and objectives by taking action within a core set of five aspects of the college's activities as follows:

1. Curriculum Design, Content and Organization.
2. Teaching, Learning and Assessment.
3. Student Progression and Achievement.
4. Student Support and Guidance.
5. Learning Resources.