Page 88 - Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century

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Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching and Learning 2021
Introduction
There are many reasons for reviewing academic programmes, among which is that programme reviews play a central role in ensuring the quality of curricula and their delivery, as well as the academic integrity of undergraduate and postgraduate offerings. They form a critical part of the university’s commitment to establishing a strong internal quality assurance system. South African institutions are required to establish
a schedule of academic programme reviews, preferably in a stipulated, regular cycle. Programme reviews ordinarily have a clear-cut purpose and focus – ostensibly to provide an external perspective on the quality and design of a programme as implemented. However, programme reviews run the risk of becoming self-serving exercises, which do not facilitate programme development.
Subsequent to the Institutional Audit in 2009, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) embarked on internal programme reviews across all faculties and programmes. Reviews are a valued element of UJ’s quality system, providing opportunities for reflection on each stakeholder’s contribution to the process of delivering a programme. UJ programme managers were required to respond to the 19 Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) Programme Accreditation Criteria incorporating the minimum standards and several additional UJ- defined criteria. In 2018, however, in-depth consultations with Deputy Deans: Teaching and Learning and with participants in previous reviews indicated a number of concerns with
the review process. These included the cost of reviews, the volume of work involved, the limitations on involvement in the development of the Self-Evaluation Report, the need for more qualitative review reports from panels, delays in the release of the final report, and the lag between the report and improvement plans, which results in the fact that improvements made to the programme are not taken into account.
The process was modelled in many ways on an HEQC site visit and was unnecessarily heavily focused on administrative processes and practices. The complexity of the process and
the format it took meant that programme teams saw the exercise as a punitive policing exercise, which was received with trepidation on the one hand and resignation on the other. Furthermore, the process resulted in exactly the kind of ‘tick box’ approach that
a self-evaluation process should seek to avoid. Rather than providing a well constructed description and evaluation of the programme, self-evaluation reports tended to assert that programmes were coherent and efficient for fear of ‘not meeting’ a criterion.
From 2018, the process was designed to address several aspects central to critical self-reflection at the programme level: the focus shifted to successful outcomes, the identification of opportunities and priorities for development and enhancement of the programme, and to curriculum renewal and delivery. Students and graduates are engaged on their learning and teaching experiences, and student success rates, retention and throughput, academic performance, and other identified aspects form part of the overall self-reflection and interrogation. The process is outlined in more detail later.