A Research On Quality Assurance System Of Higher Engineering Education In UK

The United Kingdom is an industrialized country traditionally with the engineering and technological level as a leading role worldwide,which attributes to the quality of higher engineering education.In the era of knowledge economy and innovation economy,the engineering science and technology talents with high quality serve the role as the main force to accelerate the core competitiveness of the nation.What's more,the quality of higher engineering education has been taken as the driving engine of significance to promote the transformation and upgrading of economy and maintain the financial sustainable growth.As one of the six member states of Washington Accord,the quality of higher engineering education in UK has been recognized with global reputation.Thus,it is worthwhile to study the ingredients,processes and methods of the quality assurance of higher engineering education for global countries will reap the benefits in the process of reform at this field from the experiences of UK as reference.This study proposes "Three Dimensional" Agent Model for quality assurance of higher engineering education in UK based on the coordinated schema theory of higher educational systems which have been put forward by Burton Clark and Gareth L.Williams.From the perspective of government,university and the Engineering Council on behalf of market oriented,it is expected to explore the responsibilities they take and the power they possess during the process of propelling quality assurance of the higher engineering education.The roles that government,university and market have played can be more exactly analyzed via clarifying the background and motivation at the aspects of politics,economy and education on which the higher engineering education have been attached great importance in UK.For government,it has reserved limited rights and given full autonomy to higher educational institutes.Government has fulfilled the duties at the fields of fund insurance,policy formulation,quality assurance platform creation and the assessment service for purchase quality.In a word,government takes the initiatives for securing the higher engineering education by standing on the overall interests of the country.For university,it enjoys the rights of autonomy and academic freedom as an independent practitioner in terms of quality assurance for higher engineering education.However,instead of closing itself to cultivate talents,university has taken effective measures to adjust itself according to market change and industry demands.It works for monitoring the internal quality of engineering education from the aspects of candidates,curriculums,teaching,professional faculty and assessment for teaching quality.For the Engineering Council on behalf of market oriented,it plays the role as the judge in an objective manner.As the third party organization between the government and university,the Engineering Council will evaluate the educational quality based on the quality criterion of market.The Council is responsible for the program accreditation of British higher engineering education and the program of register for engineers.It further serves to strengthen the cooperation and communication with the international engineering professional groups on behalf of British engineering society within the framework of negotiation in order to achieve the mutual recognition of professional qualification.In conclusion,the role that government,university and market play in the system of higher engineering education in UK has changed greatly compared with that since 1980.In the higher education institutions of Burton Clark,the academic authority(university)has got close to market,that is,the quality assurance of college engineering education started to adopt the market criterion as the "wind indicator" and pay attention to the evaluation from industry,which resulted in attracting more enterprise entities to participate in the process of quality assurance;Meanwhile,government has taken further measures to strengthen the control of the quality assurance by means of enhancing the elements of government while ensuring the autonomy for university.For example,to establish the platform associating university with industry,to enforce the macro policy making and to carry out the funding system for university based on the quality evaluation;Market correspondingly has taken more important role for that the quality standard of engineering education driven by market has been approved by government and university.In addition,market increasingly relies on the engineering and science&technology talents with high quality and the technology-enabled innovation to realize the economic sustainable growth.