A Study Of Quality Assurance System Of Higher Education In The Netherlands

Since the 1980s, terms as"quality"and"quality assurance"have appeared frequently in the policies and documents concerning higher education reform in a number of developed countries. Along with the emerging of knowledge society and information era in the 1990s, the role of higher education in promoting the social and economic development has been increasingly significant, and the social expectations for higher education have been stronger than before, and simultaneously, the quality assurance of higher education has become the focus of the public attention. Moreover, after years of expansion, quality assurance has grown to be one of the central issues of higher education in China.The purpose of this paper is, first, to examine the historical development of the quality assurance system of higher education in the Netherlands, and then, to explore its implementation process, and thirdly, to analyze its characteristics.The main part of this thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One"Historical development of quality assurance of higher education in the Netherlands", briefly reviews two major national policies relating to the quality assurance of higher education, one is"Higher education: Quality and autonomy"in 1985, and the other is"Higher education and research act"in 2002.Chapter Two"The current system of quality assurance of higher education in the Netherlands", first, sketches the Dutch higher education systems, and then examines the agencies of assessment and accreditation, and thirdly, reviews the quality assurance of the universities and the higher vocational institutions respectively and the meta-evaluation as well.Chapter Three"The implementation of quality assurance of higher education in the Netherlands"examines the complete process of the implementation of quality assurance, and provides a case study of Groningen University.Chapter Four"Conclusion and suggestions", analyzes the characteristics of the quality assurance system of higher education in the Netherlands from several aspects such as the relationship between internal and external quality assurance, the role of the government, and so on. Finally, it raises some suggestions for the reform and development of the quality assurance system of higher education in China.