Goal 4 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals outlines an ambition for ‘quality education’. But what is meant by quality? How do we define quality? Who defines quality? How do we demonstrate and measure quality? 

In the European Higher Education Area, the Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance (ESG) published by The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) provide the framework for internal and external quality assurance. ESG are used by quality agencies across Europe, including QAA, to demonstrate high-quality provision. If institutions are deemed to meet the standards outlined in ESG they can be awarded international accreditation. 

This session will consider whether using ESG in contexts outside of Europe is appropriate and fit-for-purpose, or could be considered to be imposing Western-centric values and practices in Global South contexts. It will interrogate whether use of ESG internationally stifles innovation, promotes normativity, and perpetuates power imbalances between the Global North and Global South, where the North’s mode of education is maintained as the paradigm. It will also consider the effect and challenge of taking ESG into areas with a substantially different cultural background. 

Session Aims 

• Encourage participants to consider quality in their own contexts 

• Provide participants with an understanding of ESG and how this is used beyond the European Higher Education Area 

• Explore the relationship between quality and neo-colonialism and develop a shared understanding of the ethical issues with international quality practices 

• Develop an understanding of good practice in quality and international accreditation, including a focus on how we might make current approaches bidirectional, and how institutions and governments can positively engage with this 

Session structure 

Participants will work in small groups to interrogate quality in their own contexts, discuss challenges and solutions, and engage in debate regarding the relationship between quality and Western-centric approaches and how we might make international quality practices bidirectional. 

The session will be broadly structured in three parts: 

• Facilitator presentation 

• Group work 

• Feedback, discussion and conclusion