Teaching Quality Assessments

This paper considers the implications of the introduction of mandatory assessment by the United Kingdom's Higher Education Funding Councils of the quality of education in higher education institutions. An examination of the assessment processes and the responses to them of academics in four universities suggests that a struggle between the government and the universities begun in the early 1980s has yet to be resolved. The data are drawn from a current international study of the impacts of higher education reforms in England, Sweden and Norway. The issues are whether public accountability and academic autonomy can be reconciled and if they can, on whose terms. While government declares its support for academic autonomy and universities for public accountability the contest between them about what these principles mean is still very much alive.