Page 6 - UWI Quality Circle FlipBook

The UWI Quality Policy: What It Means For Me!
“Everyone has the right to expect good service from higher education” (DfE 1993).
T he UWI Quality Policy provides the platform upon which the CARICOM Human Resource Development 2030 Strategy can be deployed to transform the “operations of schools, community colleges, institutes, colleges, universities, workplaces and other learning
communities” (CARICOM 2017).
It also addresses the research
question posed to senior administrators, academics and students at the UWI Mona Campus in 2010: “Is there a framework in higher education that guides UWI administrators in their approach to quality?” (Stephens 2010; 2009). Each group described the Quality Management Framework in contrasting ways, with the senior administrators describing different standards-based practices, procedures and systems that lend support to the academic functioning of the campus while the academics and some students described regulatory systems that gave guidance.
The role-specific quality practices they described hold vestiges of “quality practices” even though they seem unrelated and incongruent with each other. In addition, the senior administrators and academics described the Quality Assurance System as the academic framework of quality which they stated was “clearly articulated and formalized”. They each called for a formal framework to guide the administrative approach to quality.
Some quality tenets shared by the three groups resulted in the design of an ‘Administrative Quality Intersection Framework: The UWI Way’ (Figure 1),
Dr. Angella Stephens , DBA Senior Programme Officer, Policy Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies
which takes into consideration the nature, purpose and culture upon which the architecture of higher education institutions is built. The two dominant spheres of influence are maintained by academics whose interests are centred on class-room issues relating to the core functions of universities and administrators who are concerned with university- wide issues in support of those core functions. At the intersection, negotiations often ensue which create a forum for greater quality debate.
Interactions and supporting relationships exist between these two decisional environments - the administrative versus the academic - whose interests differ yet are necessary for the purpose of the institution as a whole. The quality tenets serve to deepen the quality ethos aimed at transforming UWI’s administrative culture and processes and thereby complement the established quality assurance system for a holistic quality environment as envisioned by its stakeholders.
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