No time for improvement? The chronopolitics of quality assurance

Abstract

Time is an omnipresent key dimension in everyone’s life, yet academic time has only recently found scholarly attention. The temporal aspects of quality assurance, in particular, are basically unchartered territory. Taking a chronopolitical perspective, this article aims to close the gap, by critically examining how temporalities are firmly embedded in many quality assurance schemes and routines. Using various examples from internal and external quality assurance, the author demonstrates and discusses how such mechanisms are not only binding time but regulating and governing it, imposing temporal norms regarding tempo, rhythm, time-spans, time-scales and time ownership on higher education institutions and the people working and learning there. Concludingly, the article advocates a more reflective approach towards the notion of time in quality assurance, as latent temporalities appear to be far more consequential for the effectiveness of quality assurance than methodological micro-differences.