An article titled “Transnational education in Hong Kong: the virtues of a two-pronged approach to quality assurance” written by Ms Dorte Kristoffersen, Deputy Executive Director (Academic), and Dr Clara Chong, Registrar, Academic Accreditation and Audit, HKCAAVQ, has been published on the website of The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE). The article is open access and is available for viewing. 

The INQAAHE Board informed HKCAAVQ on 9 October 2015 that it has accepted the External Review Panel’s (the Panel) conclusion that we are comprehensively aligned with the INQAAHE Guidelines of Good Practice (GGP) in our provision of accreditation services for the higher education sector. HKCAAVQ will therefore be included in the listing of organisations that meet the GGP. The alignment is valid for five years, from July 2015 to July 2020. Details about INQAAHE and the GGP can be found here: http://www.inqaahe.org/main/professional-development/guidelines-of-good-practice-51. Of the twelve individual Guidelines in the GGP, HKCAAVQ has demonstrated full alignment with eight and substantial alignment with four of them. The report prepared by the Panel explains the achievement of HKCAAVQ in each of the Guidelines. It also puts forth a number of commendations and recommendations, which are also supported by the INQAAHE Board. INQAAHE will share the results of the alignment review on its website. View the full report. The commendations made by the Panel in the report include the following: The Panel commends HKCAAVQ for the high level of commitment to the goals of the agency demonstrated by theCouncil members and the Secretariat as a whole.  The Panel commends HKCAAVQ for its commitment to, and success in, disseminating documentation for the policies, procedures and criteria it uses in accreditation activities. The Panel commends HKCAAVQ for the high quality and expertise of the Case Officers appointed to support the entire process of accreditation and work as members of Panels. The remaining commendations and the recommendations can be found in the Review Report. The HKCAAVQ Council received the external review report at its meeting in September 2015 and accepted all the recommendations In response to the recommendations, HKCAAVQ will be implementing various measures in the coming few years to enhance our services leading to the accomplishment of our mission – to be a nationally and globally recognised independent quality assurance body in education and training, dedicated to high quality accreditation, assessment and consultancy services.

As the Accreditation Authority under the Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications Ordinance (Cap 592), HKCAAVQ has the responsibility to “develop and implement the standards and mechanism for academic or vocational qualifications accreditation to underpin Qualifications Framework (QF)”. In 2008, HKCAAVQ developed a set of accreditation criteria and standards as part of the Four-stage Quality Assurance Process that has supported the introduction of the QF and the outcome-based teaching and learning approach.  Since then, various new developments have taken place. To ensure that the accreditation criteria and standards are fit for purpose for the wide diversity of operators and learning programmes operating under the QF, a review of the criteria and standards will be conducted over a two-year period starting in 2015.   The scope of the review will cover the accreditation criteria and standards used in the Four-stage Quality Assurance Process, Institutional Review for the purpose of seeking Cap 320 registration, and accreditation of Non-local Learning Programmes. The review will be monitored by a Task Force comprising Council Members and will involve feedback from and consultation with stakeholders.  Further information about the composition of the Task Force and the project plan and purpose will be published in due course.

The Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ) announced today (­8 October) its appointment of Ms Dorte Kristoffersen as the new Executive Director with effect from 2 November 2015.  Ms Kristoffersen succeeds Professor William Keng-Mun Lee, who left HKCAAVQ in July 2015. For more information, please refer to the Press Release. For media enquiries, please contact Mr Hevis Lam, Assistant Executive Manager (Corporate Communications) at +852 3658 0123.

In July 2015, the Education Bureau (EDB) promulgated the “Roadmap for Becoming a Private University” (Roadmap).  According to the Roadmap, institutions are required to commission HKCAAVQ to carry out an Institutional Review to evaluate whether the institution has the fundamental ability to meet the standards expected of a university in terms of governance and management, financial sustainability, academic environment, quality assurance and research capability, preceding an application for university title for consideration by the Chief Executive in Council.  HKCAAVQ will be accepting applications for Institutional Review from institutions planning to apply for university titles in the second quarter of 2016.  Further updates about the development of the Institutional Review Manual for Private University Title will be announced on this website.

To increase transparency about the outcome of accreditation processes to stakeholders, HKCAAVQ began publishing summary accreditation reports in 2013.  The first phase of implementation was to publish summary reports for accreditation exercises of Initial Evaluation (IE), Learning Programme Accreditation (LPA) and Learning Programme Re-accreditation (re-LPA) of local programmes on the HKCAAVQ website. Since then, the summary reports have attracted much interest from stakeholders with almost 20,000 online users having accessed the summary reports published on the HKCAAVQ website.  A survey was conducted to collect feedback from operators and a majority of the respondents support the publication of summary reports.  Given the positive feedback, HKCAAVQ has decided to expand the scope of publication of summary reports to accreditation of Programme Area Accreditation and Periodic Review. With the extension taking effect from January 2016, the publication of summary reports will cover accreditation exercises in all the stages of the Four-stage Quality Assurance Process.  HKCAAVQ will continue to review the effectiveness of the publication of summary accreditation reports after two years with the goal of commencing the publication of full accreditation reports in line with international good practice.  

The year 2015 marks the 25th Anniversary of HKCAAVQ.  To celebrate this special occasion, we have published a publication titled Future Directions of QA – Perspectives from 10 agencies with an aim to take stock of the international quality assurance developments over the past 25 years and to set the course for the future.  The publication is a special collection of observations and analysis of the current situation, future direction and challenges of quality assurance in Hong Kong and eight countries around the world, namely Australia, Dubai, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The online version of the publication is now available on this website.

For Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Programmes of the Insurance Intermediaries Quality Assurance Scheme (IIQAS), a new mechanism has been launched to recognise Insurance Learning Programmes and Insurance-Related Learning Programmes accredited under the Qualifications Framework (QF) as qualified CPD activities. To facilitate the identification of these programmes on the QR, a new qualification type, namely “Continuing Professional Development Programmes”, has been incorporated in the QR system. CPD programmes are now also easily and readily distinguishable through the inclusion of a “CPD” icon in the Qualification Search, Search Result, Shortlisted Result and QR Record Details pages of the QR. To search for these programmes, please visit the QR website at http://www.hkqr.gov.hk.

The Education Bureau has promulgated a roadmap to becoming a private university. Self-financing post-secondary education institutions will need to meet a refined set of criteria before applying for university title. For more details, please refer to the Legislative Council Briefing. One of the criteria is that the institution has obtained the Institutional Review status from HKCAAVQ to demonstrate its fundamental ability to meet the standards expected of a university in terms of governance and management, financial sustainability, academic environment, quality assurance and research capability. HKCAAVQ has been commissioned by the Education Bureau to develop a manual on Institutional Review for the purpose of applying for university title for the reference of relevant institutions.

To evaluate the effectiveness of HKCAAVQ’s accreditation work and benchmark against international standards, we have taken the initiative to undergo an external review against the Good Practice Guidelines (GGP) of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE). Following a critical self-review, we invited a panel consisting of local and international experts in higher education and quality assurance to conduct an external review.  Recently, we have received the report from the external review panel and subsequently submitted it to the INQAAHE Board with a request for their endorsement of our alignment with GGP.  In the report the panel commends HKCAAVQ for the high level of commitment and the consistency in its higher education accreditation activities as well as the quality and expertise of HKCAAVQ staff appointed to support accreditation exercises.  The report also contains constructive recommendations that will help us further strengthen our operations.  This external review enhances the position of HKCAAVQ as an internationally recognised quality assurance agency, increases our accountability to the community and will help to foster public understanding of the value of our work.  The report will be published on our website when the INQAAHE Board has made its determination.

The Secretary for Education has appointed Mr Robert Fearnside, Deputy Executive Director (Vocational), as the acting Executive Director of HKCAAVQ from 28 July 2015 until the new Executive Director’s assumption of duty.

The Education Bureau announced today (24 July) the appointment of a new Chair, Deputy Chair and local and non-local members to the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ). Please refer to the Education Bureau’s press release to see the new membership list of the HKCAAVQ with effect from 1 October 2015.