Quality assurance in vocational higher education: A case of Macau

Abstract

Higher education institutions in Macau have to adopt the new Macau Higher Education Law in relation to the QA requirements. This paper reports an investigation of perception on higher education students in Macau, in par- ticular, in vocational higher education. Adopting a quantitative research method, questionnaire was distributed in hard copy and students’ data were drawn from one higher education institution in Macauwhich offer the majority oftheir programmes career-related vocational basis. Participants are required to self-report his/her perception on QA and rate the importance of a set of questions about professional accreditation, programme curriculum. Major ??indings are: nearly half of the respondents never heard ofany QA or they heard of but they do not knowwhat it is about. More than70% ofthe respondents view it is important or very important to have the study programmes be- ing accredited by professional associations or by academic accrediting agencies. Over 70% of respondents study- ing at career-related vocational programmes perceive it is important or very important to have their programmes professional or academically accredited; while their counterpart studying at a less career-related programme, only 60% of them perceive important or very important. 95% of accounting and 89% of facility management students opined the curriculum should match the respective profession/ job needs. Based on the ??indings, some key recom- mendations are made. These include having more programmes accredited by respective professional associations and designed according to profession/job needs. In addition, the ??indings here do give insights for re-training di- rections for the outbreak of COVID-19 in adult education. This further help students adapting this ever changing world which is one of the aims of vocational higher education.