The academic quality audit of an Asian postgraduate university
| Pages | 40-45 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09684889710156576 |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| Author | Michael Connelly |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Introduction
How can a university introduce effective
academic quality measures when it is: in a
location far away from possible peer organiza-
tions; a fully international postgraduate insti-
tute with faculty from over 30 different coun-
tries with the very different academic cultural
contexts implied by this fact; and fairly confi-
dent that the academic context and culture of
the institution is unique anyway?
The Asian Institute of Technology was
founded in 1959 as the SEATO Graduate
Engineering School, located in Bangkok but
intended to serve the Asian region as a whole.
It began as a cold war institution that was
meant to fight communism by accelerating
regional development through the provision
of postgraduate engineers and technologists.
The political element, once so important, has
fallen away over the years. Vietnamese stu-
dents, for example, make up one of the largest
student contingents nowadays and students
are drawn from a region that stretches from
Pakistan in the West to the People’s Republic
of China in the East.
But the development mission is stronger
than ever, and the institute has supplied the
region with more than 4,000 master’s level
graduates and many hundreds of doctoral
graduates. Almost 90 per cent of these have
returned to key development posts in their
countries, mainly because they have not been
induced to remain in their countries of post-
graduate study by the higher salaries and
standard of living they found there.
The need for an academic quality audit
The need to carry out some form of institu-
tional academic quality assessment arose
initially from requests from donors, particu-
larly from Japan and Sweden, for evidence
that their money was being spent effectively.
Most students come to AIT on donor-funded
scholarships which are currently worth
approximately US$22,000 each, so large
amounts of money are involved, many mil-
lions of dollars in the case of most donors.
The Institute receives substantial amounts
as capital grants from time to time as well, and
also the benefit of faculty seconded to particu-
lar programmes. In fact, the author was
recently seconded under such a scheme by the
British Overseas Development Administra-
tion. Clearly the donors are entitled to ask for
40
Quality Assurance in Education
Volume 5 · Number 1 · 1997 · pp. 40–45
© MCB University Press · ISSN 0968-4883
The academic quality
audit of an Asian
postgraduate
university
Michael Connelly
The author
Michael Connelly was until recently Chair of the Center
for Language and Educational Technology at the Asian
Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. He is now at St
Mary’s University College, Twickenham, UK.
Abstract
Considers the question of how an Asian postgraduate
institution sets up an academic quality assurance process
when it is geographically remote from universities that are
similar and has a cultural context that is unique in some
respects. Presents a short case study of the development of
a combined vertical and horizontal internal quality audit
which combines both an institutional and individual
survey into an ongoing process of quality enhancement.
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