Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Focusing on What Truly Matters

My personal history with quality assurance and accreditation goes back over 30 years. My first formative experience was as a consultant with a multinational company that was a global leader in industrial quality at the time. A specific industrial plant was among the first to implement the ISO 9000 standard. They profited significantly from it, but stopped the external quality assurance after it had served its purpose. It started to hold back in improving quality. The production plant was the OEM; there was no external requirement for ISO 9000 certification. Since then, I have carefully examined the role accreditation or certification plays in the quality assurance process for a specific organization. Although quality assurance and accreditation, as a form of external quality assurance, should go hand in hand, they sometimes contradict each other.

THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

So my first question is always, what is the prime directive? If you're a Star Trek Enterprise fan, you know what I mean by the Prime Directive. And yes, even the prime directive can sometimes get in the way of meaningful action, at least in Star Trek. 😉

So what's the prime directive in higher education?  Allow me to define it as:

"Students, the clients of higher education, are supported to be successful in their lives and careers."

Do higher education institutions have this central to their quality assurance activities, or do external agencies accredit it as the core element of their standards?

Hopefully, yes, but honestly, the soup often ends up too thin!

Here are some examples. Measurement criteria for student success typically end six months after graduation. The key question is whether alumni found jobs after graduating. Yes, this question isn't wrong for full-time students graduating with a bachelor's or master's degree. For part-time students in continuing education, the question is already irrelevant because they already have a job. 

Asking graduates at the time of graduation how happy they were with a study program reveals only major flaws in the program's delivery. However, it has little relevance for assessing the program's value in terms of a student's future life and career. I'm speaking from personal experience. Years ago, I participated in a (quite expensive) Executive MBA program as a student. I completed the program quickly and without issues. At that time, I already held undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate degrees in different fields. However, the return on investment was not yet clear immediately after graduation. I merely felt the pain of the program and the impact on my finances. But the program's true effects were like a long-fused bomb with a big bang. It took more than three years, after the pain subsided, to integrate what I learned into my work as a consultant and provide higher-value services. As this began to take effect, my perspective changed. The Executive MBA program not only provided me with advanced business skills but also challenged and transformed my approach to business design issues. Yes, and it strengthened my ability to handle ethical issues across the micro, meso, and macro levels of change management. Without these complementary skills, I would have been unable to succeed as an academic director and dean at business schools later in my career. However, the remarkable impact of the Executive MBA on my life and career was neither evaluated by the institution that offered it nor included in any external accreditation process. Still, I am personally grateful to all the professors, the dean, and the administrative staff who made it a formative experience.

long fuse - big bang

VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS

Although you might have phrased it a little differently in your vision and mission statements, you are most likely not opposed to students being successful in their lives and careers, or at least finding a job that utilizes the knowledge and skills you provide them.

You may need to revisit your vision and mission statements to ensure their relevance in relation to the prime directive.

I challenge you, from a quality assurance and accreditation perspective, to evaluate your systems and assess how well they support the primary directive. Not just in lofty mission statements or the intent you express, but with hard data to measure and evaluate it.

CHALLENGES

Let's examine some of the challenges involved.

We are preparing students for a world that is changing rapidly and significantly. One challenge that appears in most discussions over the last three years is Artificial Intelligence (AI). From a technical perspective, the field of AI is evolving quickly. Its impact on society and businesses remains uncertain and is still developing. How will it alter work and the workplace? Some even fear that AI and robotic systems will replace most jobs. I don't believe that, but fear is a powerful force that must be acknowledged and addressed. So, what use is it for students to learn programming when AI may do it much better by the time they graduate? This skill set could soon become completely obsolete. This challenge touches the core of curriculum development and the so-called core professional components in accreditation.

RELEVANT KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS - SHORT AND LONG TERM - KPI

So what knowledge and skills might be more relevant for a successful life and career?

My professional opinion is that self-management, coping with change, learning speed, and interpersonal communication are crucial for success in a world of rapidly changing job requirements.

But what weight do these have in established quality assurance and accreditation systems? Under 10%, under 5%? You get the idea.

It will be necessary to radically change quality assurance and accreditation systems to make the prime directive effective! Key performance indicators (KPIs) must be redefined and weighted anew. In other words, is there enough prime directive in your KPIs?

Measuring and comparing programs over the years will have to be more adaptive, as they are today, due to rapidly changing environments.

Clearly distinguishing between short-term and long-term goals is necessary. Long-term goals must be carefully chosen and not altered for a long time.

WHAT IS THE ALTERNATIVE?

To put it bluntly, becoming irrelevant or squandering public and private money is the alternative!

From a global perspective, higher education systems differ widely in their requirements. The costs of studying also vary greatly. In some countries, study fees are either nonexistent or very low. You have a completely different situation in countries where students have to pay 40 to 80 thousand U.S. dollars for an undergraduate degree and few job opportunities afterward, but definitely a long payback period for the credits they took to pay the student fees. 

Why not pursue a set of micro-degrees that are relevant for getting a job and continue learning? They offer immediate payback on your investment and help you gather work experience. If current trends persist and even intensify—like in the USA, where even graduates from Ivy League universities are struggling to get their first job due to a lack of work experience—the micro-degree strategy might be more effective.

In countries where public funds mainly cover higher education, that challenge appears less urgent on the surface. If the cost of any degree is relatively low, why not pursue it? However, graduating with the wrong knowledge and skills for a successful life and career is problematic as well. From a public perspective, this could be critical given the current levels of public debt in most countries and the need for a well-qualified workforce.

UNEASY CATCH - SOCIAL IMPACT

Considering the prime directive, higher education institutions are caught between preparing students to get or keep a job and helping them succeed in life and in their careers long term. This should be reflected in quality assurance and accreditation systems.

The long-term social impact of higher education is critical. Potentially a long fuse with a big bang if approached the wrong way.

CHOOSING YOUR ACCREDITOR

Choosing an accreditor for an institution isn't always an option. In some countries, you have no option to choose the institutional accreditor. There is a monopoly on that. In the European Union, however, you can choose your institutional accreditor. This is part of the Bologna system. So, which accreditor should you choose if you have the option? Definitely one that supports your prime directive!

ALIGNING INTERNAL QUALITY ASSURANCE AND EXTERNAL ACCREDITATION

Aligning internal quality assurance and external accreditation is essential for efficient and effective higher education institutions. Focusing on the prime directive as proposed above might be a good starting point for a mutually beneficial communication process.

This article was adapted from a contribution to the 18th SEAA International Conference (New Delhi, India) hosted by the Indus Business Academy (IBA), Bangalore, in November 2025.