» Quality Assurance Agency

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The main function of the quality assurance agency for education is to assess the quality of education offered by schools, universities, or any other educational institutes. These agencies can be government, private or funded organizations. They help the educational institutes to know their weak and strong points which helps them to improve, so that they can provide better standards of education to the students.

These quality-monitoring agencies have set standards, guidelines, and procedures for assessing the quality of the education. All these standards, guidelines and procedures are developed by a team comprising of members of a quality assurance agency , academic personalities, and representatives from schools and universities. Just like QA services in manufacturing and service industry are meant to protect the employees and customers, these agencies are meant to assess the quality of education and are accountable to parents, students, teachers, and other stakeholders of the educational institutes.

Steps In Assessing The Quality And Standards Of Education

Development Of Standards

The first step is the development of the standards against which the performance of the institution will be measured. This step requires participation of people from all walks of the life to incorporate different ideas and perspectives. Various personalities from the field of education, representatives from educational institutes and government etc are invited to contribute to this process.

Developing Procedures

This step includes developing procedures for assessing the quality of education. It includes written sets of instruction for performing each and every task in the process of assuring quality of the education. It includes procedures for processes like how and when the quality assurance agency will intimate the institutes for audits, who should be a part of an audit team, how to conduct audits, how to make performance reports etc. These are also disseminated to the educational institutes and government.

Conducting An Audit

The institute where the audit has to be conducted is informed about the date of the audit. An audit team is formed according to the set procedures. First of all, there is an opening meeting with the head of the institution. Then, the audit team visits different departments of the institute. All the facilities provided by the institution are inspected and there are discussions with teachers and students.

A quality assurance agency may also prefer the involvement of parents in the process of audit. They may invite the parents for the interactions and discussions. Once the audit team has inspected the institute and interacted with teachers, parents and students, a draft report is prepared. At the closing meeting, there are discussions about the various findings by the audit team during the inspection process. The head of the institute and the staff can clarify the reasons for various non-conformities at this meeting.

Final Report

Based on the draft report submitted by the audit team, a final report is prepared by the quality assurance agency . This report contains the facts observed during the visit to the institute and based on the report, various suggestions for improvement are given so as to improve both the quality and standards of the institute. Sometime, the institutes also assist in suggesting the improvements.

In short, quality-monitoring agency for education helps the institutes in maintaining the proper standards of education. Once the institute receives the audit report, it is their responsibility to sustain their positive points and improve upon the identified areas of improvement.

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The purpose of institutional quality assurance agency is to provide information to the public on the quality and standard of educational program offered by the institution. This audit is performed in collaboration with partner organizations along with the institution. The committee is responsible to evaluate the courses and related certifications awarded by the institution and the affiliated ones, if any. As a part of this process, the institution will be able to correct the negative aspects and strengthen the positive aspects more. This way, the institution can improve its service to the students and the students can benefit more from such an institution, which is totally devoted in man making.

To start the process of quality assurance agency for the institutional organizations, the audit team is developed by taking staffs from the institution and its affiliations. Now this team is supposed to go through a wide range of documents related to the way the institution manages the academic responsibilities. To collect this information, the team has to visit the institution and the affiliated institutions to meet their staff and students. Also, they might arrange telephonic interview or video conferencing, for the affiliations which are placed distantly. While interviewing the information on academic standards and academic quality are gathered from the staff and students. They may also review documents in file storage with past records.

The quality assurance agency ensures the institutions to achieve educational standard so that a student can efficiently reach to the level to receive an award or certification. It also evaluates the opportunities, which are available to the students to help them to reach their highest level. That includes appropriate teaching, support to the students, proper assessment and adequate learning materials are made available to the students. All this information are gathered together and reviewed by the audit team. Finally, they reach to the conclusion and develop the recommendations for the institution to follow.

The outcome of the quality assurance agency identifies the positive and negative aspects of the particular institution. The good practices of the institution are categorized, so that the institution body can understand the effects of their previous quality assuring procedures. The agency might appreciate the structures, processes, procedures and initiatives of the institution to realize the ambition of the students in receiving higher education. It can also recognize the inter personnel relation between the staff and the students, which helps each and every individual to transform into an intelligent, knowledgeable and esteemed human character. These recognitions by the audit committee add more enthusiasm to the overall operation of the institution.

The quality assurance agency finally suggests the recommendations for the institution, to correct the negative points. These recommendations will ask the institution to consider further action in the weak areas to ensure academic quality of educational courses and the standards of certifications it offers. The committee might recommend arranging external examiners for inspecting the modules or it might suggest the institution to provide a unique database system, which will contain all sorts of information and it will be available to each departmental seniors. If required, the committee can also compare the institution with the other reputed institutions of the country and it can judge the institution with respect to the national reference. Whatever be the recommendation, the ultimate objective of this team will look forward to better understanding of progression for the institution, by effectively monitoring the strategic parameters.

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