Professor John C Y Leong
Chairman, HKCAA

1. Introducing the HKCAA

   The Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation was established as a statutory body in 1990 with a role to advise Government on the quality of educational programmes through accreditation and related activities and to provide advice on education and qualifications in general. Over the years the HKCAA has conducted institutional reviews and programme validations at many UGC-funded and also non-UGC institutions. In recent years, the HKCAA's remit has expanded to include other quality assurance activities such as the assessment of non-local courses offered in Hong Kong and the assessment of individual qualifications.

   Much of the HKCAA's advisory services have focussed on teaching and learning processes, in particular institutional reviews and programme validations which, among other things, have examined teaching and learning processes in the institutions and the impact on the quality of programmes.

   The HKCAA is familiar with many of the UGC institutions through working with them in the past. It also has international experience with teaching and learning in other parts of the world and it draws upon international experts in its reviews. In 1990 the Council initiated the formation of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (which is also referred to in the CHEPS report).

2. Approach towards Quality Assurance

   The HKCAA believes that there should be system-wide quality assurance for all institutions involved in the delivery of higher education. Institutions should have their own internal quality assurance mechanisms, but there should also be some form of external process to ascertain the existence or effectiveness of these internal processes.

   Reviews of institutions can be primarily focused upon process, or upon outcome. We believe that it will be beneficial for younger institutions to go through the experience of detailed examination of their programmes through the validation process, thus focusing on both processes and outcome, while the mature institutions will benefit from a review of their quality assurance processes in relation to teaching and learning.

3. Approach to TLQPR

   The HKCAA is of the view that the first round of TLQPR conducted by UGC, which examines processes in the institution, has served the purpose of focusing attention on the importance of teaching and learning. The second round of TLQPR should not be treated as an entire new process but should build upon findings in the first round.

   The HKCAA is fully aware that whilst reviews such as the TLQPR are necessary and useful, they do have a high demand on teachers' and administrators' time. A second round of TLQPR should therefore be more focused.

   The focus could be in the following three areas:

   1. The effectiveness of processes which have been identified in the first round, especially those which have been identified as "good practice". Questions such as how far the institutions have tested the effectiveness of their own systems and how far the stakeholders such as students and teachers have found them to be effective should be asked.

   2. The review should also pay attention to areas of weakness identified in the first round, for instance, where units in the institutions exhibit uneven commitment or awareness of the quality processes.

   3. For institutions which have not yet created some of these mechanisms, and which have started planning to do so, focus should be on whether they have established these mechanisms and processes.

   This will lessen the burden of both the self appraisal and the review, and the exercise can be tailored to fit better the characteristics of the particular institution.

   Institutions should also be invited to suggest special themes or foci for the review as befitting their own characteristics.

4. Ownership of the TLQPR

   We believe the process should be led by the funding body, i.e. the University Grants Committee, to be implemented by an external agency with the appropriate experts and professionalism, involving consultation with the institutions through either a consultative committee or other forum formed of representatives from the institutions.

   The use of independent organisations for external reviews is a common practice in other parts of the world, e.g. UK QAA conducting reviews on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Councils. The concept of independent audit is also in line with good commercial practice. The reviews conducted by the UGC e.g. the management reviews, the CHEPS review of the TLQPR, are examples of the use of external agencies.

Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation