AUDIT Newsletter 1 Office of the DVC Academic: October 2021 The UWC CHE Institutional Audit On 8 September, the Rector and DVC: Academic sent out a joint communique (a letter) to all members of the campus community to inform them about the audit of UWC by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) that will take place in June 2022. This Institutional Audit is about assessing the quality of what we do as an institution by using a range of standards as our yardstick. In this manner, it presents us with an important opportunity to reflect on our Institutional Operating Plan and the various ways that we are working towards fulfilling our vision and mission. It also allows us to be self-critical about how we translate the vision and mission into notions of quality and assess whether our core activities of learning and teaching, the research that we undertake, and the projects and initiatives that we engage in with our communities are in fact fit for purpose, transformative and are executed effectively and efficiently to the benefit of our stakeholders to whom we are accountable. This Institutional Audit is conducted to determine the coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency of our internal quality assurance system. This includes plans, policies, procedures, processes, mechanisms, and both governance and operational structural arrangements, support and quality assure our core functions in enhancing students’ likelihood of success, and that they are in alignment with the national imperatives. Since the audit brings into focus how the institution as a whole takes forward its mission and pursues its purpose, it is a process that involves all members of the campus community – from those who are directly involved in academic activities to those who support these activities in different ways. The university’s process for preparing for the audit is well underway. This is the first of the DVC: Academic’s newsletters, the Institutional Audit Update and, in this edition, we discuss the background to the audit, describe the preparation thus far, the next steps in the process and provide necessary information on how members of the campus community can directly contribute to the process.
BACKGROUND TO THE AUDIT The Higher Education Act of 1997 assigns the responsibility for quality assurance in higher education in South Africa to the Council on Higher Education (CHE). The CHE exercises this authority through its permanent sub-committee, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). The HEQC has three important responsibilities to perform. These are to: i) promote quality assurance in higher education; ii) accredit programmes of higher education, and; iii) audit the quality assurance mechanisms of higher education institutions. Some faculties at UWC have already been involved in CHE processes with the accreditation of their programmes. However, the Institutional Audit 2021/22 focuses on auditing the university’s overall quality assurance system – with particular focus on learning and teaching. It is conducted to determine the coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency of our internal quality assurance system. This includes plans, policies, procedures, processes, mechanisms, and both governance and operational structural arrangements, support and quality assure our core functions in enhancing the students’ likelihood of success, and that they are in alignment with the national imperatives. Most importantly, it is a process that enables institutions to identify what they are doing well and to isolate important challenges for continuous improvement. The CHE expects institutions to prepare for the audit in a number of different ways. The most important task is for institutions to undertake a process of self-reflection and prepare a Self-Evaluation Report (SER) in terms of four focus areas identified for this audit.
The four areas are: Focus Area 1: Governance, strategic planning, management and leadership support the core academic functions Focus Area 2: The design and implementation of the institutional quality management system support the core academic functions Focus Area 3: The coherence and integration of the institutional quality management system supports the core academic functions Focus Area 4: Curriculum development, learning and teaching support the likelihood of student success Each of the four focus areas has four standards. The standards require of institutions to describe their internal quality management system and to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses in pursuing their purpose through their core academic activities. In doing this, they are required to provide evidence that validates the claims that are made. So, the SER is key to informing the external panel about the institution and its own reflections on its ‘fitness for purpose’.
PREPARING FOR THE AUDIT Structures have been put in place to manage and complete various tasks associated with the audit preparations. These structures and their responsibilities are: Rector’s Task Team: oversees the whole SER development process up until sign off by the Rector.
Steering Committee: under the leadership of the DVC: Academic and responsible for the coordination of the focus groups, consolidation and finalisation of the Self-Evaluation Report.
Focus Groups (FGs): development of resource documents on all of the standards for amalgamation into the Self-Evaluation Report, using the Manual as a guide; identify and reference sources of evidence referred to in their synthesis. Focus Groups to identify, reflect and expatiate on current practices and highlight areas that need improvement.
Project Management Team/ Office: coordination of the SER development process including interacting with the Focus Groups, evidence collation and monitoring of the implementation of the Project Plan as per milestones set to ensure the university submits the SER on time to the CHE. Steering Committee:
COMMITTEE MEMBER
DESIGNATION
Prof V Lawack
DVC: Academic
Dr A Makola, Institutional Liaison
Director: QA & IM
Dr A Lawton-Misra
Registrar
Prof J Frantz
DVC: Research and Innovation
Prof A Rhoda
Dean: Faculty of Community & Health Sciences
Focus Groups (FGs) FOCUS GROUP
CONVENERS
Institutional Profile
Mr L Pokpas
FOCUS AREA 1: Governance, strategic planning, management and leadership support the core academic functions
Prof M Esau
FOCUS AREA 2: The design and implementation of the institutional quality management system supports the core academic functions
Prof R Chetty
FOCUS AREA 3: The coherence and integration of the institutional quality management system supports the core academic functions
Prof R Swart
FOCUS AREA 4: Curriculum development, learning and teaching support the likelihood of student success
Prof M Ocran
Project Management Team/ Office COMMITTEE MEMBER
DESIGNATION
Dr A Makola, Institutional Liaison
Director: QA & IM – Institutional Planning
Dr L Craffert
Director: CoLab – Institutional Planning
As part of creating awareness and advocacy, the Project Team has conducted Faculty board presentations where faculties have been asked to prepare SWOT-analyses for each focus area as input to the work of the Focus Groups dealing with the respective focus areas. The FGs commenced their work in August on the different standards of each of the focus areas. Each focus group presented their initial report to the steering committee on the 29 September.
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS? 1.) A portal has been developed to collate and structure all the evidence in support of the evaluation process. The Project Team will upload evidence on a continuous basis for access and use by focus groups. This will ultimately serve as our PoE (proof of evidence) for the audit. 2.)Dr Britta Zawada of the CHE conducted a workshop on 18 October to address institutional-specific topics related to our SER development process. A further workshop will be arranged. 3.) Arrangements are underway for a benchmarking webinar where the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) will share their experiences and lessons learnt about the pilot audit process that was conducted at VUT. The date will be shortly confirmed
4.) The FGs will submit their second reports to the Steering Committee at the end of October 2021. 5.) A consolidated report, consisting of the four focus group submissions will be compiled and made available to the campus community. This will enable all stakeholders to provide input into the evaluation process. 6.) It is anticipated that the consolidated draft report will be ready for campus input by the middle of November. 7.)The four FGs will consider and integrate campus contributions and develop a consolidated third draft by the end of the academic year. 8.) A final edited report needs to be available by early January 2022 to give all the relevant committees (Steering Committee, Rector’s Task Team, SAP, etc.) sufficient time for consideration and finalisation before submission
to CHE on 28 February 2022. In addition to collating and considering the responses from the campus community to the draft report, the Project Team will also facilitate other activities to strengthen the final report and prepare for the audit. These will include: Scheduling of information sessions with members of the campus community; Engaging the input of ‘critical readers’ for improvement of the report and to identify areas of concern to consider in preparing for the audit; and More editions of Institutional Audit Update to inform the campus community about what has been happening and what is planned for the immediate future.