QAA CEO speaks at TNE event

The Quality Assurance Agency's Chief Executive Vicki Stott has spoken at an event focusing on transnational education organised by the British Council in partnership with QAA and Education Insight.

This major international conference offered a deeper insight into the regulatory and policy environments of TNE – and took place in Manchester over three days this week as part of the British Council's series of Deep Dialogues events.

Other participants included the British Council's Global Head Higher Education Martin Hope, Education Insight's Dr Janet Ilieva, Advance HE Chief Executive Alison Johns, NCUK Chief Executive Stuart Smith, the Office for Students Head of Quality Gemma Long, Secretary General of Saudia Arabia's Council of Universities HE Dr Bassam Al-Bassam and QAA's Piers Wall, Shannon Stowers, Tullio Lobetti and Eduardo Ramos.

They were joined by speakers from Universities Scotland, Universities UK International, the Department for Business and Trade, Jisc, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, Oxford University, the University of Salford and Ulster University, as well as higher education organisations and institutions in Armenia, Ghana, Greece, Iraq, Malaysia, Myanmar, the UAE, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

'Among TNE’s proven benefits is the potential for improving the quality of the education provided to students,' Vicki said. 'TNE students often get access to two or more educational traditions, academics and mentors from diverse cultural backgrounds, and they develop friendships and business networks across borders.

'But TNE providers also operate in very complex policy environments, sometimes volatile and rapidly changing. They have to comply with a multiplicity of regulatory and quality assurance regimes, from the home and the host country and from professional accreditation bodies. As they do this, there is a risk that they develop a culture of compliance, instead of a culture of quality. There is also a risk that the requirements of the different bodies are not aligned. Sometimes they may even be contradictory.

'It is here that QAA plays a crucial supportive role for universities, partner agencies and policymakers in the UK and abroad. Through our work we strive to build bridges of understanding between the UK and its partners worldwide.'

Vicki also spoke this week at Wonkhe's Festival of Higher Education, where she took part in a panel discussion of student engagement, quality, teaching excellence and education gain – and was one of the panellists in the live recording of this week's Wonkhe podcast.