Defining Quality Assurance

The QAC¹ defines academic quality “in terms of the learning experiences of students including all aspects of teaching and learning delivery, academic support and guidance, and the conduct of assessment. Quality focuses on the processes that enable students to achieve the academic standards that have been set for their awards. Universities have an obligation to ensure that students have the opportunity to achieve defined outcomes and the academic standards set for academic awards.

Learning opportunities include the quality of teaching and academic instruction provided by staff, the learning resources required to complete defined tasks and to support individual study, the support and guidance provided by staff to enable students to progress their studies and the opportunities more generally to participate in a vibrant, cohesive and self- critical academic community.

The third cycle QAC quality audit will look for “evidence for the promotion of learning opportunities and in particular how universities assure themselves that their academic staff are competent to deliver academic programmes, that high quality of teaching and learning is being maintained and that students are provided with all necessary resources to complete their studies effectively.”

^{1 https://www.ugc.edu.hk/doc/eng/qac/manual/auditmanual3.pdf page 16}