Control or Empowerment: Quality in Higher Education in Australia. AIR 1994 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper clarifies the problems of meaning and translation into practice of concepts of "quality" in higher education by examining a quality improvement program at Griffith University (Queensland, Australia). The paper notes that Australian government agencies have advanced a quality assurance (QA) approach concerned with the imposition of externally defined versions of what universities stand for and of their contribution to the economic enhancement of the states, an approach which may not be in the best long term interests of the groups inside or outside the universities. The paper describes an alternative approach, the quality improvement (QI) model which emphasizes individual and corporate development and which satisfies the needs of various internal stakeholders and takes into account the external pressures of accountability inherent in QA. A description of the QI project at Griffith University shows how it is trying to bridge the gap between external accountability and internal transformation. By working within specific sites inside the University, the project aims at the internationalization of a culture that values quality in all of its variant forms and the development of a quality driven institutional culture across the University. Contains 12 references. (JB)