Quality Assurance through Curriculum Development

According to the literature, quality, quality assurance and curriculum development are complex concepts that need to be addressed before stating what constitutes a quality assurance curriculum development process. Pond (2002) emphasised quality as a major priority that should be listed at the top of most institutions’ agendas. Improving quality is regarded as the most daunting task facing any institution, due to the dynamic nature of quality and the multidimensional concepts that are involved. The participation of various role players in curriculum development contributes to the fact that ‘quality’ is considered to be a controversial concept. Quality is not easily measured because of major discrepancies in people’s views of quality and because no two experts agree on what constitutes a good university or a good curriculum. The key purpose of quality assurance at institutions of learning is to ensure the improvement and effective performance of the participants involved in a programme. Gawe and Heyns (2004) state that quality processes must be built in from the outset in order for these processes to become the providers of a quality management system. Once this aim is reached, quality will become evident in the inputs, process and outputs of curriculum development. It is thus essential that each phase during the process of curriculum development be quality-driven from the outset. The aim of this paper is to reflect from a quality assurance perspective on my experience concerning the various challenges that were encountered in leading a curriculum development process involving various role players. This is a theoretical paper in which concept analyses as method was used with the aim to support rational communication of those involved in assuring quality in curriculum development.