Quality Processes in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Countries According to Human Development Index Reports

Abstract

Higher education institutions play an important role in promoting research, innovation, social unity, economic growth and global competition, and seek new ways of responding to the increasing demands for skills and competences. Through their quality processes, higher education institutions implement a number of practices to meet current demands, and to address the problems faced by various institutions in their education and training activities. This study aims to perform a comparative analysis of the quality processes of five different countries in the field of education, which are ranked as the top countries based on the Human Development Index data, by comparing and contrasting them with Turkey. For this purpose, comparing the quality processes implemented by Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland and Germany, with those of Turkey, the key points in the quality processes of higher education are pinpointed and highlighted. The official web sites of the university units in charge of accreditation and quality of processes were individually analyzed, and a keyword search was conducted to identify the studies on the subject published between 1999 and 2018 by searching for the keywords quality framework, quality assurance, national quality framework for universities, learning outcomes, European quality framework, quality management, quality guarantee, and quality control, which were then comparatively analyzed by applying the epistemological document analysis method. The findings reveal the following reasons for these five countries' implementation of the quality processes: identifying the shortcomings, accounting for the relationship between the instructional process and the program outcomes, ensuring continuous improvements, being transparent and accountable, achieving national consistency, ensuring European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) compliance and providing equivalence, and proper budgeting. In addition, our findings include the quality indicators of higher education institutions and the institutional advantages of such quality processes. Based on the findings, this study makes some suggestions towards improving the quality processes of the higher education institutions in Turkey.