Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education - Where Do We Strand? Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, OECD, France, Sebastian Pfotenhauer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States. The Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education were developed and adopted to support and encourage international cooperation and enhance the understanding of the importance of quality provision in cross-border higher education. The purposes of the Guidelines are to protect students and other stakeholders from low-quality provision and disreputable providers (that is, degree and accreditation mills) as well as to encourage the development of quality cross-border higher education that meets human, social, economic and cultural needs. Based on a survey about the main recommendations of the Guidelines, this report monitors the extent to which OECD countries and a few non-member partners complied with its recommendations in 2011. Twenty-three responses were obtained from 22 Members.
SUMMARY
The Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education were developed and adopted to support and encourage international cooperation and enhance the understanding of the importance of quality provision in cross-border higher education. The purposes of the Guidelines are to protect students and other stakeholders from low-quality provision and disreputable providers (that is, degree and accreditation mills) as well as to encourage the development of quality cross-border higher education that meets human, social, economic and cultural needs. The Guidelines are not legally binding and member countries are expected to implement them as appropriate in their national context.
Based on a survey about the main recommendations of the Guidelines, this report monitors the extent to which OECD countries and a few non-member countries comply with its recommendations. The Survey was sent out in June 2010 to all OECD countries. The Secretariat has also collaborated with the UNESCO Secretariat to have the questionnaire sent to all UNESCO non-OECD country delegations. Twenty-three responses were obtained from 22 Members: Australia, Austria, Belgium (Flemish and French communities), Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States; and 9 non-Members: Bulgaria, Colombia, Fiji, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Oman, Rwanda. Government representatives were asked to co-ordinate with the other stakeholders covered to answer the survey.
The main conclusion of the survey is that (responding) countries report a high level of compliance with the Guidelines recommendations. On average, responding OECD countries conform to 72% of the main recommendations made to governments, tertiary education institutions, and quality assurance and accreditation agencies. The level of compliance decreases to 67% when recommendations to student bodies are included, but the level of missing information, and thus uncertainty about actual compliance, increases significantly.
Tertiary education institutions are the group of stakeholders that follow the most the recommendations of the Guidelines, with an average compliance index of 0.80 (80%). Governments and quality assurance and accreditation bodies comply on average with 76% and 61% of the guidelines, respectively. Student bodies only conform to 51% of the recommendations – with the caveat that information about their activities was generally scant in the survey answers.
The objectives or desirable practices emphasised by the Guidelines are: 1) the inclusion of crossborder higher education in countries’ regulatory framework, 2) the comprehensive coverage of all forms of cross-border higher education, 3) student and customer protection, 4) transparency in procedures (for providers), 5) information access and dissemination (for potential international students), 6) collaboration.
Four of these objectives are largely met on average: countries have regulatory frameworks or arrangements in place, cover different forms of cross-border higher education comprehensively, are transparent in their procedures, and are engaged in national and international collaboration. The current main weaknesses in compliance lie in easy access to information and the level of student and customer protection.
While there is probably no need for a revision of the Guidelines, countries should continue to disseminate and implement their recommendations. The main areas of improvement lie in measures to improve student and customer protection as well as the transparency in procedures of assessment, registration, and licensing for providers. Further progress in the ease of access of information for students would also be welcome. Paradoxically, quality assurance and accreditation bodies comply less with the Guidelines than governments and tertiary education institutions.
Conclusion: no need for revision, but need for further compliance
The internationalisation of higher education and growth of cross-border higher education, in its different forms, has largely continued since the publication of the Guidelines. There are good reasons to believe that this will continue over the next decades (OECD, 2009). People mobility will likely continue to represent the bulk of cross-border higher education, followed by programme mobility, and institution mobility. This third form of cross-border higher education has increased less than first anticipated, probably because of the associated business risks.
Four new trends are noteworthy in this area. First, foreign campuses are increasingly part of regional clusters, as part of a regional innovation or knowledge economy development strategy. An example of this model is the Knowledge Village (Dubai), the Education City (Qatar) as well as other educational areas currently being developed such as the Kuala Lumpur Education City supported by the Malaysian government (and due to open in 2011). Second, the financing models of campuses abroad have changed. While most of the initial foreign campuses self-financed their move abroad, they are currently increasingly funded by local partners (government or industrial companies) who provide them with a campus or even subsidise them. Third, research objectives become increasingly an objective of cross-border higher education, as part of capacity development strategies. Fourth, cross-border higher education activities between non-OECD countries are growing, especially as emerging countries develop proactive strategies to “export” their education services (that is, attract international students and send their educational programmes and institutions abroad).
None of these new developments makes the challenges addressed by the Guidelines less relevant.
In December 2008, a workshop organised by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) examined whether the Guidelines needed some rewording or revision (ENQA, 2010). The main conclusion was that the recommendations of the Guidelines need no revision yet and are largely in line with most codes of good practice used by networks and associations of quality assurance agencies in Latin America, in the Asia-Pacific region, in North America, and in Europe including the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area adopted by the Ministers of the Bologna Process in Bergen in May 2005. It was also argued that revising the Guidelines too soon would hinder rather than further their implementation and impact. While they are not always explicitly mentioned in countries, they are largely reflected in the main documents that are used to set standards and guidelines in the different regions of the world, for example in international or regional associations of quality assurance agencies.
The main recommendation of the workshop participants was to make it explicit in other existing standards and guidelines for quality assurance that cross-border higher education should be subject to the same guidelines as are applied to any other educational programme.
In Europe, this materialised in a statement in the Communiqué of the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education (2009) saying: “transnational education should be governed by the European Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance as applicable within the European Higher Education Area and be in line with the UNESCO/OECD Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education.”
While there is probably no need for a revision of the Guidelines, countries should continue to disseminate and implement their recommendations. The main areas of improvement lie in measures to improve student and customer protection as well as the transparency in procedures of assessment, registration, and licensing for providers. Further progress in the ease of access of information for students would also be welcome. Paradoxically, quality assurance and accreditation bodies comply less with the Guidelines than governments and tertiary education institutions.
The report did not manage to get a clear picture of compliance in non-OECD countries, as the number of non-OECD respondents was too small and not really representative of any group of countries.
After discussion of these conclusions by the OECD Education Policy Committee, the OECD Council has recommended to continue current efforts:
• to promote quality provision in cross-border higher education, notably a) by improving measures for student and customer protection, b) by enhancing their transparency in procedures of assessment, registration, and licensing for providers, and c) to provide easy access of information for students;
• to encourage quality assurance and accreditation bodies to comply with the Guidelines and be more explicit about their coverage of cross-border higher education;
• to raise awareness of the Guidelines nationally and internationally.
Download Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education. See also Structure et tendances du paysage universitaire dans les pays de l’OCDE. Voir aussi Structure et tendances du paysage universitaire dans les pays de l’OCDE.
Lignes directrices pour des prestations de qualité dans l'enseignement supérieur transfrontalier - État des lieux. Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, OECD, France, Sebastian Pfotenhauer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States. Les Lignes directrices pour des prestations de qualité dans l’enseignement supérieur transfrontalier ont été élaborées et adoptées pour promouvoir et encourager la coopération internationale et améliorer la compréhension de l’importance des enjeux lies à la qualité de l’enseignement supérieur transfrontalier. L’objectif des Lignes directrices est de protéger les étudiants et les autres parties prenantes des programmes d’enseignement de médiocre qualité et des prestataires peu scrupuleux (usines à diplômes et à accréditation) et de favoriser le développement d’un enseignement supérieur transfrontalier de qualité qui réponde aux besoins de développement humain, social, économique et culturel. S’appuyant sur une enquête auprès des pays, ce rapport examine dans quelle mesure les pays de l’OCDE et quelques pays non-membres se conformaient aux recommandations des Lignes directrices en 2011. Vingt-trois réponses ont été obtenues de 22 Membres. Télécharger Lignes directrices pour des prestations de qualité dans l'enseignement supérieur transfrontalier. Voir aussi Structure et tendances du paysage universitaire dans les pays de l’OCDE. Voir aussi Structure et tendances du paysage universitaire dans les pays de l’OCDE.