Proposalsfor Incentives and Sanctions

Tim Fowler NZQA August 2010

Improving performance

• NZQA wishes to assist in improving performance through incentives and sanctions.

• Based on high-trust, high-accountability.

• Incentives and sanctions would be driven by EER outcomes.

Incentives and sanctions and the QA Framework

INCENTIVES AND SANCTIONS

Driving improvement

INITIAL ENTRY PROCESSES

SELF ASSESSMENT

REGULATORY CONSEQUENCES

EXTERNAL EVALUATION AND REVIEW

Implications for providers

• High performance and capability would bring rewards while unsatisfactory performance would lead to sanctions.

• A level playing field for all non-university tertiary education providers.

• Applies to ITPs, PTEs, GTES, wānanga - not ITOs (yet).

Initial mechanisms for incentives and sanctions

1. The level of external scrutiny for programme approval, accreditation and consent to assess against unit standards.

2. Processing time for programme (course) applications.

3. Tenure of accreditations.

4. Frequency of external evaluation and review (EER).

A “status” for providers on the basis of EER

EER ratings Highly Confident Confident Not yet confident

Not Confident

Highly Confident

High Confidence Status

Confidence Status

 

 

Confident Confidence Status

Business-as- usual Status  

Not yet confident Suspended status (1)  

Not Confident Suspended status (2)

“High confidence” status

Two “Highly Confident” EER judgements:

• reduced external scrutiny for new programme approval/accreditation, and consents to assess against standards

• faster turnaround times for applications - 30 working days

• accreditations renewed• EER every four years provided no interim quality

concerns.

“Confidence” Status

One “Highly Confident”, one “Confident” EER judgement:

• consent to assess against standards granted without a site visit where the provider already has field accreditation

• faster turnaround times for applications - 30 working days

• accreditations renewed• EER every four years provided no interim quality

concerns.

“Business as usual” status

Two “Confident” EER judgements:

• full documentation for programme approval/accreditation and consent applications

• standard turnaround time – 55 working days• accreditation renewed• EER every four years provided no interim quality

concerns.

“Suspended” status (1)

At least one ‘Not yet Confident’ EER judgement:

• consider suspending applications for programmes and consents

• TEO would need to provide further evidence to maintain accreditation and consents, post-EER actions considered

• EER would generally take place within 12-24 months.

“Suspended” status (2)

At least one “Not Confident” EER judgement:

• programme and consent applications suspended• provider needs to provide further evidence to maintain

accreditations, post-EER actions considered.• individual accreditation may be withdrawn if a grade of

Poor was obtained in a specific qualification, discipline or industry focus area

• EER would generally be within 6 -12 months, although this may need to vary if concerns are serious.

Implementation

• Final policy to be implemented by January 2011.

• Progressive roll-out, until every provider has had its first EER, by the end of 2012.

• Until then, current quality assurance arrangements continue.

Consultation questions

1. How robust is it to assign a quality assurance status to a TEO based on the results of external evaluation and review? What, if any, other measures could be used?

2. How well do you think the proposals to use incentives and sanctions based on the quality assurance status of a TEO will drive improvements in educational quality?

3. Which of the four mechanisms would encourage your organisation most to improve its performance? What will be the effect of the mechanism?

Consultation questions

4. What other mechanisms or processes could be included in this policy?

5. Taken overall, what impact will the proposed incentives and sanctions have on your organisation?

6. How well will the proposals outlined create a consistent and equitable approach to improving quality across the non-university tertiary education provider sector?

Consultation questions

7. The paper proposes assigning a TEO to one of five levels of quality assurance status. How many levels do you think are needed to differentiate between TEOs? Please explain your reasoning.

8. How effectively do the criteria proposed for each quality assured status differentiate between the levels of performance of TEOs?

9. What suggestions do you have to improve the criteria to distinguish between each quality assured status? For instance could “high confidence status” be expanded and still represent “high quality”.

10. What suggestions do you have on how to improve the proposals?

Consultation submissions

• Please send submissions to: improvingperformance@nzqa.govt.nz

• Final date for submissions - 8 September 2010.