Education Quality Audit as Applied in Hong Kong

Abstract

Academic audit emerged in the UK circa 1990 and is being applied in a growing number of venues across the world. This paper describes the variant, called Education Quality Audit, applied by Hong Kong 's University Grants Committee (UGC) in the mid 1990s and again 2002. The UGC's policy problem was how to discharge its obligation to Government and the public to assure the quality of teaching and learning without disempowering the institutions, infringing their autonomy, or spending too much in relation to the results achieved. Its solution was to evaluate the maturity of the universities' education quality work (EQW): that is, the organized activities dedicated to improving and assuring educational quality. EQW includes the assessment of student learning, and also educational goals, curricula, teaching methods, and quality assurance. Audit differs from external assessment in that it does not directly evaluate the quality of educational provision. Such evaluations are important, but they are difficult for external bodies to achieve in university education. Audit asks whether the entity itself makes the requisite measurements and what it does with the results. It assumes a delegation of responsibility to the institution and verifies that the delegation is being discharged effectively. The audit mantra is, Trust but check.