Coordinating quality assurance in higher education

The Office of the Executive Director: Quality Assurance is responsible for:
1. Coordination of quality assurance and local stakeholder management
Education White Paper 3 (reference: Education White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education) assigns responsibility for coordinating quality assurance in higher education to the HEQC. The organisation is therefore required to facilitate a common approach to quality assurance in collaboration with the other bodies concerned, such as professional councils and sector education and training authorities (SETAs); and to ensure that duplication of quality assurance activities in higher education is avoided. This can involve sharing information and quality assurance systems, and in some instances entering into formal agreements or memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with other bodies whose scope of practice in quality assurance in higher education overlaps with that of the HEQC. The Executive Director's office also manages relations with local stakeholders including higher education institutions and their associations, government departments and the business and student fraternity.
2. International relations
The HEQC recognises that its work must be informed by international debates on developments in quality assurance in higher education, and that the organisation can contribute significantly to such debates. Relationships with quality assurance agencies in the African continent and internationally are key to the HEQC's achieving this objective. For this reason, the organisation has over the past five years established Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in the UK, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in India, the Namibian Qualifications Authority (NQA) and the Tertiary Education Council (TEC) in Botswana. The HEQC will continue to establish relationships with quality agencies internationally, sharing information with countries entering the discourse of quality assurance for the first time, and participating in a coordinated fashion in international debates on higher education.
3. Delegation of stipulated quality assurance functions to higher education institutions
The HEQC is responsible for evaluating and reporting on the effectiveness of the quality management systems of higher education institutions in relation to assessment, short courses, certification arrangements, and recognition of prior learning (RPL). Rather than evaluate each of these areas on an ongoing basis at each institution, the HEQC has developed a framework and criteria on the basis of which quality assurance responsibility for these areas can be delegated to those higher education institutions which can demonstrate that they have in place effective quality management systems. Previously, evaluating these areas was part of the HEQC's institutional audit system. In the case of all institutions that have been audited, and those that are being audited in 2008, decisions about which areas can be delegated will be based on their audit reports and improvement plans. To determine the extent to which it can delegate these areas to the remaining institutions, the HEQC will draw on information in its possession and/or will request further information.
4. The Higher Education Quality Committee Information System (HEQCIS)
One of the responsibilities of the HEQC is to collect from its accredited providers data on student enrolment and achievement, in the format prescribed by the HEQC in consultation with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). The HEQC then submits this data to SAQA for inclusion in the National Learners' Records Database (NLRD). The HEQCIS is the system developed by the HEQC to enable this data to be collected. Data from public providers does not form part of the HEQCIS as this is sent directly by these institutions to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). After being processed by the Department's Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS), it is submitted to SAQA. HEQCIS can be accessed at: www.che.ac.za/heqcisinfo.