Caribbean Quality Culture: Persistent Commitment to Improving Higher Education

Caribbean Quality Culture takes the Caribbean higher education community and its stakeholders beyond quality assurance of higher education to delve into an exploration and assessment of the application of continuous quality improvement principles and strategies that are essential elements of a mature and effective quality management system in higher education institutions.

The principles and strategies that can actually result in continuous quality improvement may not always be fully understood throughout higher education institutions. This collection seeks to bridge this gap to facilitate successful implementation of continuous quality improvement in such operational areas as governance and administration, student development and learning outcomes, and external quality assurance.

Experienced and respected Caribbean higher education stakeholders, including leaders and practitioners, explore a range of topics, such as leadership, stakeholder engagement, the online learning environment, curriculum development and curriculum renewal for sustainable development, the transformative development of students, and the continuous quality improvement implications for the Caribbean of international and regional developments in the higher education sector.

Contributors: Jonas I. Addae, Eduardo Raoul Ali, Hilary McD. Beckles, Compton Bourne, Ronald Brunton, Margo Burns, Beverly-Anne Carter, Alan Cobley, Kristen Cockburn, Celia Davidson Francis, Pamela C. Dottin, Jessica Dunn, Tennille Fanovich, Sandra Ingrid Gift, Stephan J.G. Gift, Carolyn Hayle, Sharine A. Isabella, Halima-Sa’adia Kassim, Patricia Mohammed, Fasil Muddeen, Anna Kasafi Perkins, Shilohna Phillanders, Kay Hinds Thompson, Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, June Wheatley-Holness, Raynata A. Wiggins

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of the West Indies Press
• Release date: Apr 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9789766408411

Book preview

1.

Contextualizing Caribbean Higher Education Quality Culture

SANDRA INGRID GIFT

The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and other institutions in the Caribbean higher education sector persist in their commitment to investing financial and human resources, as well as the resource of time, into the major project of assuring stakeholders of the quality of Caribbean higher education institutions’ (HEIs) products and services. At the same time, they are concerned that this considerable investment is yielding the desired benefits as they relate to improvement of quality, as opposed to assurance of quality only. The intention of this publication, therefore, is to focus on the deliberate strategies employed to achieve improvement of the quality of Caribbean higher education, as part of or in addition to quality assurance (QA) processes in institutions that have been investing in building a quality culture.

The QA system of The UWI has served as a regional benchmark for an internal QA system for some Caribbean institutions in the field of higher education. These include, for example, the National Accreditation Body of Suriname, the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago, and the University of Guyana. The UWI is ranked by Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020 among the world’s top 4 per cent universities and has risen to the top 2 per cent of universities in Latin America and the Caribbean, as indicated by Times Higher Education Latin America University Rankings 2020 (UWI 2019b). Further, The UWI is now on a list of the top one hundred universities of the Times Higher Education Golden Age University Rankings.¹ The UWI has also been ranked among the top 200 of 768 universities from 85 countries for its work on Goals 3, 5 and 13 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals respectively: Good Health and Wellbeing, Gender Equality, and Climate Action (UWI 2020). As Howe notes: Many of the trends, issues, problems and challenges facing tertiary education today are being dramatically played out at the UWI, an institution which the Caribbean governments have designated as the regional university, and given a specific developmental and leadership mandate within the region (Howe 2005, 14).

Established in 1948, The UWI’s enrolment across four of the then existing campuses for the five-year period 2013/14 to 2017/18 was 239,516, with a graduate output of 50,488 for the same period (UWI 2019a). The UWI is supported by seventeen countries and territories of the anglophone Caribbean, which comprises the independent countries that form part of the Commonwealth Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The anglophone Caribbean also comprises current British Overseas Territories that are also contributing members of The UWI: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos Islands. All of these countries are either full or associate members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), the secretariat for which is based in Guyana.

This publication seeks to focus on key higher education issues that are of importance to the Caribbean and for which continuous quality improvement (CQI) strategies could add significant value in terms of enhancing the efficient use of resources to produce desired results. These issues are indicated by the titles of the various parts and chapters of the book. While relating to current practice and developments at The UWI and in the higher education sector more broadly, these issues offer lessons and insights that can also be of value to other Caribbean institutions in the higher education sector in our efforts to avoid or overcome institutionalized inefficiency. These lessons and insights can also support the role of higher education as a primary force driving the sustainability of development (Nettleford 2002, v).

Employers and other stakeholders who interact with the output and outcomes of Caribbean HEIs are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of programmes and their graduates. In the case of The UWI, such feedback is routinely obtained in meetings with external stakeholders during QA programme reviews, as well as via external and internal stakeholder feedback surveys. It is generally recognized that there is always room for improvement at all levels of institutional life.

A focus on strategies for CQI is therefore warranted and this publication seeks to place a spotlight on this issue, given its critical importance to the development of Caribbean nations. It is the educated people of a nation, even of a poor nation, who will assert their nation’s interest in the increasingly complex web of global economic, cultural and political interactions. Without better higher education, it is hard to imagine how many poor countries will cope. Improving higher education is therefore in every country’s interest, and has legitimate claims on public funds (World Bank 2000, 43). While there continues to be much debate regarding the role of education generally in society, there has been increased recognition of the need to improve the quality of higher education. Contributing reasons for this include concerns about the impact of higher levels of enrolment on quality, reconfiguration and diversification of the higher education sector and growing attention to issues of accountability and relevance (Howe 2005).

The thematic areas discussed in this publication as they relate to CQI bring focus to just a selection of current issues that Caribbean higher education communities are investing resources to improve. These efforts are consistent with the need for caution against complacency once organizations have achieved national standards and to persist in the commitment to continuous improvement (Dottin and Oakland 1992). Contributors to this publication explore the nature of this commitment in both the academic and administrative platforms of Caribbean higher education.

Higher education is also known as tertiary education in some countries (World Bank 2017) and refers to post-secondary education for which a prerequisite is a degree of mastery of basic and general education (Miller 2000), and that leads to the award of a degree. While, for the most part, contributions to this publication focus on the environment of The UWI in which research features prominently in the institutional mission, issues relating to CQI processes in core higher education operations should prove to be helpful to other institutions in the anglophone Caribbean higher education sector generally.

Quality Culture

Bendermacher et al. (2017) validate the view of Harvey and Stensaker (2008) that a quality culture is complex and socially constructed. It can be appreciated within its specific context and is not a phenomenon that can be merely transplanted from one organization to another. Harvey and Stensaker provide a useful framework for understanding the nature of quality culture in higher education, which may be described as being responsive, reactive, regenerative or reproductive. The field of quality in higher education in the Caribbean is significantly impacted by national and regional policies that seek to meet the needs of the local and regional environments. It is also impacted by international developments as well as the adaptation of international good practice. In the case of The UWI, this fact is frequently observed and commented on by external reviewers and accreditation evaluators. As a whole, the Caribbean higher education system has traditionally had a focus on integrating an international dimension in the areas of teaching and learning, as well as research and service, with an emphasis on adherence to international standards. This aspect of internationalization is critical for Caribbean HEIs, for which the ability of graduates to be internationally mobile for employment or further studies is a priority. Thus, to a large extent, internationalization in a Caribbean context might most appropriately be viewed as the extent to which the Caribbean provides access to tertiary education at international standards of scope, quality and relevance (Wint 2010, 262).

Taking such influences into consideration, one may surmise that, in general terms, the Caribbean higher education quality culture includes elements that, to some extent, are reflective of at least three of the four types of quality culture identified by Harvey and Stensaker (2008). The quality culture can be described as responsive to the need for accountability and compliance, as well as the need to learn from and adapt relevant good and wise practice. However, it is at times also characterized internally by a lack of buy-in to a quality culture as a way of life and lack of feeling of ownership or of any real control (Harvey and Stensaker 2008, 436). The quality culture can also be reactive, including elements such as, reservations about the potential outcomes … doubts about any improvement potential resulting from evaluation and driven by compliance and reluctant accountability. It can be perceived to be externally constructed, managed and imposed (Harvey and Stensaker 2008, 436).

To the extent that Caribbean higher education is focused on internal developments while remaining aware of the external environment and the associated expectations, it can also be described as exhibiting elements of a regenerative quality culture. The fourth type of quality culture, the reproductive quality culture, gives priority to maintaining the status quo. In the Caribbean context, which is open to the influences of globalization and increased competitiveness, maintaining the status quo is not likely to be embraced unless it relates to good practice that is recognized and rewarded.

Structures are not sufficient for quality enhancement, and quality culture is not the solution to challenges but rather "a concept for identifying potential challenges (Harvey and Stensaker 2008, 438). Quality culture is a mindset, not just checking outputs; it is an ideological question and must be owned by those who live it, as opposed to being viewed by them as a managerialist fad that is disempowering in any way. There is an important role for localized knowledge and practice in institutional QA strategies. It is only when including such localized knowledge that the structure and culture will merge into a specific ‘quality culture’ (437–38). Indeed, this perspective resonates with the concern that the Caribbean higher education system’s embrace of an international focus can render it less responsive to local realities" (Wint 2010, 260).

One of the challenges for Caribbean educational policymakers is indeed how to provide a quality education that is sensitive to the ‘local’ context while remaining responsive to the demands of the ‘global’ market (Louisy 2004, 285). Local in the Caribbean has been described as a context of accommodation, integration and even assimilation (289), alluding to the impact of the global environment on the local environment. Being grounded in the local context and informed by local knowledge as well as global imperatives require that regional education systems be open to the idea of change (Louisy 2004). In respect of higher education specifically, QA approaches are considered more likely to succeed if initiated internally than if imposed or simplistically based on alien institutional models. Further, this necessity for sensitivity to the local context requires motivating staff and students to become engaged in processes for enhancing teaching and learning as quality improvement will result from involvement, not inspection (Beckles, Perry and Whiteley 2002, ix).

The exploration of CQI or quality enhancement in a range of Caribbean higher education areas as discussed in this publication privileges the local or regional Caribbean context, while being informed by international developments reflected in the literature on quality in higher education. In essence, the commitment of HEIs to CQI is indicative of a receptivity to change in the interest of the region’s development but, of course, the question is what change will achieve the best and most sustainable improvement. It is in grappling with such questions that CQI strategies such as adopting best practices, benchmarking or application of the plan-do-check-act (P-D-C-A) CQI cycle, for example, can be helpful.

Bearing in mind the caveats offered by Harvey and Stensaker (2008) and Louisy (2004) quality culture as defined by the European University Association provides a useful approach to the discussion of the culture of CQI in Caribbean higher education. According to the European University Association (EUA) quality culture is an organisational culture that intends to enhance quality permanently and is characterised by two distinct elements: on the one hand, a cultural/psychological element of shared values, beliefs, expectations and commitment towards quality and, on the other hand, a structural/managerial element with defined processes that enhance quality and aim at coordinating individual efforts (EUA 2006, 10).

Figure 1.1 presents an overview of the concept of higher education quality culture developed by the EUA.

Figure 1.1. Quality culture

Source: Adopted from Gover and Loukkola (2015)

This overview allows for a focus on both the soft cultural and psychological elements of shared values, beliefs, expectations and commitment to quality and the hard aspects of administrative and managerial structures and processes, facilitated by communication, participation and trust. The notion of a quality culture implies a collective responsibility, requiring commitment at the levels of management, academic and administrative staff, and students. The attempts of HEIs to regulate the structural and managerial component of their quality culture are evident in their focus on improvement strategies, evaluation systems, staff and student involvement, student centredness and attention to policies, procedures and responsibilities. At the same time, neglect of the cultural and psychological dimensions results in failure of efforts to cultivate a quality culture (Bendermacher et al. 2017, 52).

Continuous Quality Improvement in Higher Education

The literature on total quality management applied in the higher education sector tends to use the terminology continuous improvement in addition to CQI. CQI has been adopted for the purposes of this publication, while also embracing the concepts of continual improvement and quality enhancement.

Exploring institutional commitment to CQI of necessity requires acknowledging QA as a foundational process. The follow-up after evaluation is an important element to ensure suggested improvements take place (Williams 2016). However, the potential for improvement resulting from QA, as in the case of QA programme reviews, for example, may often be stymied owing to management approaches that are not sufficiently robust, which itself is a reflection of a quality culture that might be insufficiently pervasive or systemic. The value contributed by CQI is that it facilitates a process of putting the spotlight on the institution’s management system, with a view to improving the performance of the system (Dew and Nearing 2004, 1). CQI is concerned with learning processes as well as administrative processes that support stakeholders in the higher education environment (Dew and Nearing 2004).

Improvement encompasses such activities as the development of new academic programmes to respond to emerging needs and the fashioning of new teaching methods and use of new technology to improve learning, as well as initiatives that facilitate students, faculty and other stakeholders receiving the administrative support they require. The conduct of focus groups; surveys involving students, alumni and external stakeholders; and the development of new processes to make administrative tasks easier for staff and students are examples of the efforts at continuous improvement (Dew and Nearing 2004, 17).

The ISO 9001 standard employs the Deming terminology of continual improvement describing this process as a set of recurring activities that are carried out in order to enhance performance and that can be realized by means of self-assessments, management reviews and audits, inter alia (PRG 2017). Continual improvement is based on the P-D-C-A quality improvement cycle. It refers to initiatives taken to improve the efficiency of a set of characteristics or processes even though the customer or organization might be satisfied with the level of performance: This is [a] very important concept in management practices as it is a way to prevent an organization from becoming complacent when all outcomes are acceptable. Continual improvement drives the organization to continually address ways to reduce costs, improve organizational performance and customer satisfaction (PFITC 2011). Internationally, one specific approach to quality enhancement in higher education is practised by the Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee and managed by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Scotland. The aim is to improve students’ learning experience by identifying and working on specific themes. Institutions, academic staff, support staff and students are encouraged to collaborate and innovate with a view to enhancing the learning experience of students, with a focus on agreed themes and based on insights from national and international practice (QAA Scotland n.d.).

In this volume, however, the term quality enhancement is used more in the sense as described by Perkins (2015b) and discussed by Glasner (2006). Perkins (2015b, 2) notes: Institutions with internal quality assurance systems continue to strive for enhancement, including the creation of dedicated quality assurance offices, policies and strategies, and encourage a quality culture in which a larger quality management framework is embedded.

Quality enhancement is also described as the progressive development and improvement of what we do (Glasner 2006, 78). It involves actively seeking current and prospective student input to ensure the relevance, good design and good delivery of programmes; keeping students informed to motivate them to be active learners; developing new curriculum areas that cut across conventional disciplinary boundaries and facilitating good staff development, which enables networking and supports the shared understanding that is critical to quality enhancement (Glasner 2006, 77–78). Networking and communication outside the university are among the critical principles of quality enhancement in higher education (Glasner 2006). This involves engaging employers as well as our graduates in the world of work to keep our finger on the pulse of the environment in which current and prospective graduates will have to function and establish our relevance.

The Plan-Do-Check-Act CQI Cycle

The P-D-C-A quality cycle is associated with W. Edwards Deming and is used to bring about iterative quality improvements at various institutional levels. Although Deming eventually adopted The Shewart Cycle for Learning and Improvement, the [Plan-Do-Study-Act] P-D-S-A Cycle (Deming 2018, 91), there is ongoing association of Deming with the P-D-C-A quality cycle as well as reference to, and articulation of, the P-D-C-A quality cycle in higher education.

The four steps of the P-D-C-A cycle are indicated hereunder and in figure 1.2 and a graphic representation of The UWI’s quality management framework (QMF) is seen in figure 1.3.

The Four-Step P-D-C-A Cycle for Problem Solving

Plan: Define a problem and hypothesize possible causes and solutions.

Do: Implement a solution.

Check: Evaluate the results.

Act: Return to the plan step if the results are unsatisfactory, or standardize the solution if the results are satisfactory. (Moen and Norman 2010, 25–26)

In the case of The UWI, for example, particular processes administered by one or more of the entities constituting the institution’s quality management system (QMS), involve all four stages of the university’s cyclical QMF, planning, implementing, evaluating and improving. These four stages parallel the P-D-C-A approach:

Figure 1.2. Graphic representation of the plan-do-check-act quality cycle

Source: Moen and Norman (2010, 26).

Planning occurs at all levels of the Institution; implementing focuses on all activities undertaken with the intention of realizing objectives and producing relevant outcomes; and evaluating involves the two significant processes of monitoring and review. Monitoring is a short- and medium-term activity that is internally driven for continuing institutional development. A longer-term and formal formative and summative process is that of a review, undertaken by external peers. Improvement is the process of using the results of evaluation to effect change, either in terms of modifying an existing plan or developing a new one as a result of which the quality cycle recommences. (UWI St Augustine 2017, 202–3)

Figure 1.3. A graphic representation of The UWI’s QMF

Source: UWI, St Augustine (2017, 205).

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) advocated the application of the P-D-C-A quality cycle to all processes when developing, implementing and improving a QMS in educational institutions. ISO 21001:2018 identifies as a critical and continuous need educational organizations evaluating the extent to which they satisfy requirements of learners and other stakeholders and are able to improve their ability to continue to do so (ISO 2018). Useful features of the P-D-C-A model include a continuous improvement cycle, with the identification of areas for improvement using a strategic planning process, informed by the application of best practice. This latter component of P-D-C-A is particularly important, lending to the P-D-C-A model a transformative potential (Gift 2015, 234). Hammar (n.d.) underscores the potential value of the P-D-C-A method stating it can be applied not only for improvement of individual processes but also for improvement of the overall QMS. By looking at the separate processes as being linked in one large cycle for improvement, you can help focus the improvement of the individual processes toward one greater good for the [institution].

Increasingly, HEIs are using ISO 9001 as a workable option in implementing quality assurance practices (El Abbadi, Bouayad and Lamrini 2013, 18). The ISO 9000, 9001 and related quality management standards are founded on seven quality management principles, viewed as a basis for guiding organizational performance improvement. These seven principles are: (1) customer focus; (2) leadership; (3) engagement of people; (4) process approach; (5) improvement; (6) evidence-based decision making; and (7) relationship management. It is expected that the relative importance of each principle will both vary and change over time depending on the context of each organization (ISO 2015). These seven principles are also reflected in the various chapters of this volume, with some receiving greater emphasis in particular chapters.

Commitment to Improving Higher Education in the Caribbean

Human interaction and agency as well as the reasons for action are indispensable elements of an HEI’s quality culture. As a mechanism of a quality culture, commitment conveys a readiness for working assiduously, and with due attention to quality (Bendermacher et al. 2017).

Statements in policy documents of some external quality assurance agencies (EQAAs) of the anglophone Caribbean and HEIs are indicative of a spirit of shared values and commitment to CQI or quality enhancement. In the case of the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT), for example, Commitment to Continuous Improvement is one of its five institutional accreditation categories. The relevant criterion statement is: The institution monitors, reviews and improves its QMS through effective planning and evaluation, sustained effort and commitment to quality. There are four standards relating to this criterion, all of which seek to evaluate institutional compliance with this criterion statement:

Standard 5.1 The institution allocates sufficient time and material, human and financial resources to effectively plan, monitor and evaluate its efforts on a continuous basis.

Standard 5.2 The institution conducts environmental scanning and draws on the findings to enhance its effectiveness.

Standard 5.3 The institution carries out short-, medium- and long-term planning consistent with its mission and purpose.

Standard 5.4 The institution provides opportunities for its faculty, administrative and other staff to enhance their capabilities. (ACTT n.d.)

In respect of the Barbados Accreditation Council (BAC), while the parallel institutional accreditation criterion is quality enhancement, the wording of the criterion statement is the same as that used by ACTT. Barbados Accreditation Council also employs as its standards the first two standards indicated for ACTT in the context of commitment to continuous improvement (BAC n.d.).

Unlike the other two larger EQAAs in the anglophone Caribbean, the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ) does not have a specific institutional accreditation criterion focused on CQI, rather, the theme of CQI is incorporated as components of four standards: standard 1, mission and goals; standard 2, planning and evaluation; standard 4, academic programmes; and standard 9, financial resources.

Standard 1, mission and goals, communicates as a requirement that "the institution dedicates itself to achieving student learning, the generation and dissemination of knowledge, and commitment to continuous improvement". (UCJ 2010, 1; emphasis added).

Standard 2, planning and evaluation, is concerned with HEIs demonstrating "the institution’s capacity to fulfil its mission, [and] improve the quality of education" (UCJ 2010, 2; emphasis added).

Standard 4, academic programmes, assesses the extent to which the "institution works systematically and effectively to plan, provide, oversee, evaluate, improve, and assure academic quality" (UCJ 2010, 6; emphasis added).

Standard 9, financial resources, relates to the institution having "adequate financial resources necessary to achieve its mission and goals and to further institutional improvement now and in the foreseeable future" (UCJ 2010, 20; emphasis added).

Where HEIs are concerned, the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) communicates its commitment to CQI in its quality policy which states that UTT will "demonstrate its commitment to quality by maintaining a robust internal QMS that is aligned to internationally accepted standards of excellence and by conducting periodic reviews to improve the effectiveness of the QMS" (UTT n.d.; emphasis added).

The UTT’s approach to CQI is based on systematically collecting, interpreting and using feedback to enhance performance (UTT 2010).

The UWI, St Augustine (2017, 2), in articulating the purpose of its quality policy, states the policy explains how it enhances the quality of its academic and non-academic outputs and educational provision (quality enhancement). At the same time The UWI Quality Policy articulates the institution’s QMF, based on the concept of the CQI cycle and which comprises four stages: planning, implementation, evaluation and improvement. As stated in this policy, The UWI is committed to systematically planning its activities and establishing targets; monitoring and evaluating these activities, their outputs and outcomes; and using the results to improve its operations and outputs in relation to teaching, research, innovation, public service, intellectual leadership, outreach, governance and administration.

The Quality Assurance Unit of the University of Belize describes the University of Belize as an institution that, inter alia, encourages excellence, involves everyone in quality improvement, is committed to creating a culture of quality and encourages sustainable development (UB 2017).

The quality of higher education is a significant determinant for sustainable development, and it is indeed noteworthy that the Quality Assurance Unit of the University of Belize juxtaposes the university’s commitment to quality with its commitment to sustainable development. The relationship between the quality of higher education and sustainable development is recognized and discussed in the literature by scholars such as Desha and Hargroves (2014) and Koehn and Uitto (2017).

EQAAs’ inclusion of a focus on CQI improvement or quality enhancement in the institutional accreditation of Caribbean HEIs, as well as HEIs’ own inclusion of this focus as part of their QMS signal commitment to a culture of quality improvement, which mirrors what Harvey and Stensaker (2008) observe in the European context. Where HEIs are concerned, such commitment might be compliance driven, and therefore indicative of a reactive quality culture, but the potential exists nonetheless that the tone is set to shape a quality culture around CQI.

Historically, Caribbean higher education networks have been established in response to concerns regarding the scope of tertiary education in the region, that is, the need to increase levels of tertiary enrolment. Such networks include the Association of Universities and Research Institutions of the Caribbean, now rebranded as Universities Caribbean, with participating institutions from all the major linguistic groupings of the wider Caribbean region, formed in 1967; the Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institutions created in 1990; and the Association of Caribbean Higher Education Administrators launched in 2001. All three regional networks have a focus on sharing best practices across tertiary institutions and encouraging collaboration in relation to student exchanges and articulation and research activity (Wint 2010, 266).

Regional developments within CARICOM such as the CARICOM Human Resource Development Strategy 2030 and the CARICOM Quality Policy underscore the importance of CQI in the higher education sector in support of CARICOM human development initiatives. In respect of the human resource development strategy relating to quality, the priority is improved quality in delivery in all human resource development sectors (CARICOM Secretariat 2017). Within the Caribbean, therefore, at the level of all major higher education institutional stakeholders there is both sensitivity to the need to build a higher education quality culture and the commitment to persist in this endeavour.

Caribbean Quality Culture: Persistent Commitment to Improving Higher Education

It is indicative of facets of higher education quality culture proposed by the EUA (2006), that contributions to this publication reflect the cultural element of shared … commitment towards quality and the structural/managerial element with defined processes that enhance quality (EUA 2006, 10). The contributions address two dimensions of organizational level, either the more focused level of a programme, or the broader level of a unit, department or the institution as a whole. Several of the contributors to this volume approach the discussion of CQI empirically from the perspective of the planning, control and improvement model of CQI, as seen in the implementation of an institutional QMF, often informed by the P-D-C-A CQI cycle. In other cases, the approach to the discussion is conceptual – more along the lines of what Dew and Nearing (2004, 17) describe as the right-brain approach to continuous improvement in which problems are solved through seeing relationships or applying intuitive concepts.

The issues discussed in Caribbean Quality Culture: Persistent Commitment to Improving Higher Education focus on opportunities being taken to achieve CQI in selected core operations of Caribbean higher education, while also drawing attention to the challenges still to be addressed. Several issues are given a more regional treatment as opposed to an institution or campus-specific treatment, and therefore offer perspectives that can be of value to other Caribbean HEIs. At the heart of all the issues is a real desire to meet stakeholder needs. The issues discussed are presented in five parts.

Part 1 addresses the issue of governance which relates to HEIs’ formal and informal arrangements for decision making and taking action. There are internal and external dimensions of governance. Internal governance refers to lines of authority within institutions and external governance refers to individual institutions’ relations with their supervisors. Governance and management overlap, with the latter being viewed as policy implementation and execution (World Bank 2000). For HEIs, key principles of good governance include academic freedom; shared governance; mutually agreed and shared rights and responsibilities; financial stability to facilitate orderly institutional development; accountability that includes transparency; widely agreed upon standards, benchmarking and peer review; and the different levels of institutional administration being compatible and cooperating closely (World Bank 2000). The specific governance-related issues examined in part 1 concern the evolution of an institutional quality culture around the concepts of relevance and internationalism, leadership, financing, stakeholder engagement in strategic planning and alumni relations.

Caribbean HEIs are cognizant that, in order to be successful and remain relevant in the competitive global environment, they need to reconsider their relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including staff and students, alumni, industry and other local, regional and global tertiary-level institutions. They must also rethink how they operate financially and in terms of leadership styles (Howe 2005).

The Strategic Plan for the Caribbean Community 2015–2019 articulates good governance as one of CARICOM’s core values (CARICOM Secretariat 2014). The plan further acknowledges the importance of leadership to the region in building social resilience, social cohesion and the moral fabric of the Community (25). Good leadership and good governance must certainly extend to all institutions involved in the development of the region’s human capital, including HEIs.

The issue of leadership may be considered to be value laden. Leadership is critically important in quality enhancement, given that the higher education sector is generally reputed to be change resistant (Kottmann et al. 2016).

Leadership is also identified as an overall driving factor for quality culture development (Bendermacher et al. 2017, 50). In HEIs leaders impact resource allocation, management of people and processes, rationalization of roles and responsibilities, and forging of partnerships (ibid.).

In chapter 2, Sir Hilary Beckles provides a panoramic perspective of the various factors that have contributed to the development of The UWI quality culture and to the institution’s evolution to become a university system. He explains that, from its inception in 1948, relevance and internationalism were two shared values of The UWI’s quality culture. The determinants of relevance are reflective of the particular priority needs of the region over time. Excellence and ethics were also key values espoused by The UWI on assuming its independence from the University of London in 1962, and continue to be important elements of its quality culture today in both its regional and global operations.

During the 1990s and into the early twenty-first century, strategic planning, and the creation of The UWI’s regional Quality Assurance Unit to improve and modernize The UWI’s quality procedures and processes, as well as to manage a system of academic QA programme reviews emerged as key structural and managerial elements of its institutional quality culture. By 2015, when Beckles assumed the vice-chancellorship of the university, the issues of external stakeholder partnership and engagement; improved efficiency of resource management; use of the imagination for development; and embrace of an innovation culture in support of sustainable development were identified as necessary steps in the ongoing development of the institutional quality culture, grounded in the quality concept of relevance. The foundational principle informing this perspective was the reality that good universities distinguish themselves through service to communities. Beckles explains that the framework for this became manifest in The University of the West Indies Triple A Strategy [Access, Alignment, Agility] 2017–2022: Revitalizing Caribbean Development (hereafter referred to as The UWI Triple A Strategy 2017–2022), built on three quality keys to the future – access, alignment and agility – to take advantage of opportunities generated by globalism.

The UWI Triple A Strategy 2017–2022 employs the balanced scorecard (BSC) approach as a CQI mechanism for measurement, monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the plan. Building quality for open access nationally and regionally and promoting quality in global engagements are also key features of The UWI Triple A Strategy 2017–2022 that serve as bases for high institutional performance.

Beckles identifies as an important aspect of The UWI’s quality agenda, the institution’s work to protect the sustainability of its communities and physical ecosystems, which has been commended within stakeholder groups.

He argues that, in its quest for enhanced quality and increased relevance, the twentieth century UWI has become – in the twenty-first century – The UWI system, comprising five landed campuses, five global centres in three continents, an Open Campus on the threshold of becoming global and a small network of affiliated teacher training colleges and community colleges. Currently, The UWI Open Campus offers online and blended programmes to UWI students in the Caribbean. Plans are now in progress to have The UWI Open Campus offer programmes based on Caribbean content globally to persons interested in the Caribbean, or who are part of the Caribbean diaspora abroad. Central to this evolution has been the location of the institutional quality strategy within the management and leadership agenda.

Anna Kasafi Perkins makes the point that there is a reciprocal relationship between ethics and quality in higher education. The major accreditation bodies in the anglophone Caribbean reflect a commitment to ethics in their core values and mission (Perkins 2015a). More specifically, the value of integrity is common to the three major national accreditation bodies: UCJ, ACTT and BAC. Integrity is a key value as it speaks to the commitment to living out the values espoused. It also appears to be a cipher for the word ethics (Perkins 2015a, 104–5). Perkins proposes an ethical framework for QA agencies to put values into action for quality (112). The framework is intended to support the infusion of ethics into these agencies’ core values, processes and practice, a necessary development given the leadership role these agencies play in quality improvement of Caribbean higher education. In chapter 3 of this volume, Perkins continues her study of the role of ethics in higher education by seeking to flesh out the interconnection between quality improvement, leadership and ethics in order to enhance understanding of what she refers to as the triad for quality improvement. She discusses the findings of a survey of tertiary-level institutions in Jamaica which indicate that QA officers and other higher education administrators in Jamaica have important understandings of ethics, quality improvement and leadership as stand-alone concepts. Perkins identifies this disconnected understanding as a gap to be closed and concludes that there is need to make explicit the ethical dimensions of the quality function as part of deepening the ethical culture in HEIs in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. She argues that the creation of such an institutional quality culture provides a pervasive value system conducive to CQI.

There is a political dimension to the concept of quality culture (Harvey and Stensaker 2008, 434). In the Caribbean, in response to ongoing economic challenges and the resulting dwindling financial resources, this political dimension is seen in regional governments reducing their quantum of funding for HEIs, thus calling for greater financial independence and resourcefulness on the part of HEIs. This, at the same time, holds implications for institutions developing stronger internal management structures. Institutional quality cultures can, therefore, serve as a tool for HEIs to be able to respond effectively to such growing expectations for their financial independence and sustainability.

This political dimension to higher education quality culture is echoed by Nkrumah-Young (2015, 63) who notes the implications of government policy for quality. In the context of Jamaica, the salary stratification element of the education system raises concerns about the quality trap as the institutions that are higher on the stratum would end up attracting the better staff thereby reducing the chances for improvement for those at the lower end.

Nearly one-third of global expenditure on higher education is in developing countries. Higher education systems in developing countries are dominated by public universities with low tuition fees and the costs fall mainly to the state. Attempts to improve the quality of higher education will, therefore, add to the sector’s perturbing financial requirements (World Bank 2000). The availability of funding can affect the quality of the output of HEIs (Hosein, Tewarie and Conrad 2017).

The financing of higher education however does not have to be restricted to the state, and hybrid systems involving the public and private sectors are being increasingly considered and explored in the Caribbean.

Focusing specifically on The UWI’s growing financial crisis and discussing proposals for funding The UWI in the long term, based on a study carried out by the West Indies Group of University Teachers, Jamaica, Devonish (2018, 83–85) also alludes to the political dimension of higher education quality culture. He comments that The UWI, a publicly funded HEI, cannot continue doing more with less, whatever savings might accrue from this in the short term and yet maintain and even improve the quality of the final product … to do more requires more. In order that The UWI expand quantitatively, enhance the quality of its educational services, and sell them globally, the institution must find new ways of funding and also be seen by contributing countries as a critical engine of growth and generator of wealth for Caribbean economies (88).

An editorial in the Gleaner (UWI in a Time of Fiscal Crisis, 4 July 2019) also draws attention to the political and economic factors impacting The UWI and other tertiary-level institutions in Jamaica. It is noted that, in the face of fiscal crises and slow recovery from the economic depression ten years ago, whereas some of the seventeen Caribbean governments that fund The UWI used to either cover fully or pay 85 per cent of their students’ economic cost to attend The UWI, they have had to significantly reduce their contributions. Regional governments now provide about 45 per cent of The UWI’s income, causing the university to scramble for new sources of funding. The editorial identifies the urgency of the need for debate regarding how to lower the cost of university education in the context of the economic realities of Jamaica and the Caribbean, and, in that regard what sort of university UWI should become, how it should be funded, and who it should be for.

In chapter 4, Compton Bourne provides an overview of resource costs and the challenge of financing them. He discusses the cost structure of Caribbean higher education and reasons for the trend towards rising resource costs; methods of financing resource costs, determinants of costs of the principal inputs in the higher education production process; and the financial challenges faced by Caribbean HEIs. Bourne concludes that the efforts of HEIs to foster a quality improvement culture are challenged by wider pressures that impinge upon the overall costs of their operations and their financial mobilization efforts.

He notes that building a QA system and actualizing the consensual quality culture essential for continuous improvement can themselves be significant cost drivers, especially in small HEIs, given the required commitment of human and financial resources. Bearing in mind the financial resource constraints of Caribbean HEIs, Bourne believes it necessary that they carefully plan expenditures, aim for cost-efficient complementarities and scheduling, and make certain of the sustainability of their quality improvement initiatives and institution-wide propagation of the quality culture so that CQI becomes a natural part of institutional life, as opposed to being a series of disconnected project initiatives.

CQI progresses in phases: the formative phase, the growth phase and the mature phase. The quest for quality is an ongoing one, and the pace of transitioning from one phase to another depends on the commitment of leaders to make available the required resources to promote and teach the relevant CQI concepts. It is also dependent upon the leadership’s constancy of purpose. In the mature phase of CQI, stakeholder data continues to be collected using surveys and focus groups and analysed over time to identify feedback trends (Dew and Nearing 2004). A concern for the viewpoints of stakeholders is often seen in the literature on quality, quality management or total quality management. Deming attributed great importance to stakeholders as seen in his value proposition of expanding an organization’s system to include customers and suppliers as part of their team (Allan 2018, 160). Stakeholder consultation is recognized as being particularly important for the higher education sector as the range of stakeholders for HEIs is wider than for business organizations. Stakeholder needs should therefore be analysed in order to define improvement actions (Tarí and Dick 2016, 289).

In chapter 5, Halima-Sa’adia Kassim takes us through an examination of stakeholder engagement in strategic planning at The UWI. A comprehensive grouping of internal and external stakeholders is consulted in The UWI strategic planning process. This grouping includes academic and administrative staff, students, alumni, governments, the business community, non-governmental organizations, private sector organizations, professional bodies, community-based organizations, international partners and donors, and other national and regional tertiary-level institutions. In examining the process of stakeholder input into The UWI’s strategic planning process, Kassim employs an inductive case-study approach, informed by content analysis of strategic planning documents to generate insights into the importance of stakeholders and stakeholder engagement at The UWI. The discussion considers the ways in which stakeholders are regarded and engaged in strategy development and achievement by the institution, their contribution to CQI, the expectations of the stakeholders and how they can contribute to performance improvements as captured in the plans.

Alumni of HEIs are an important group of stakeholders that have the potential to contribute to CQI of higher education. In respect of private financing of tertiary education, development of networks of alumni is recognized as a means of enhancing philanthropy. However, in order to create and maintain such networks, dedicated institutional capacity must be put in place (Wint 2010). The increasingly important issue of alumni relations (AR) is examined in chapter 6 by Celia Davidson Francis. Davidson Francis discusses initiatives undertaken at The UWI with the aim of integrating QA and AR. She also launches a discussion regarding the concept outlined in The UWI’s Quality Policy for goals being specific, measurable, action-driven, realistic and time-bound (SMART), and the necessity for engaging professional, academic and administrative staff, as well as AR professionals, in expanding the ways alumni can contribute to QA in tertiary education in a SMART way.² Using The UWI as a case study, Davidson Francis highlights selected ways graduates contribute their expertise, time and money to their alma mater, and contemplates approaches for expanding their involvement through integrating the goals of AR into the institution’s CQI cycle with a view to improving and sustaining organizational dynamics for continuous transformative development.

Part 2 focuses on curriculum and teaching and learning. Issues addressed include curriculum development and review processes; the online learning environment; graduate studies: research innovation and entrepreneurship; foreign language education, community service and service-learning; and graduate employability.

A clear focus on improvement can help to overcome negative perceptions of quality management as control. Quality management is seen as leading improvement when an HEI establishes performance improvement measures framed around educational aims and values that are seen as relevant criteria for assessing learning processes and outcomes. Further, there must be caution about applying quality concepts in administrative areas only, as this will work against a real culture of continuous improvement as the changes will be decoupled from the core educational objective of HEIs (Tarí and Dick 2016, 289–90). While there are other factors that contribute to the success of HEIs, and satisfying all higher education stakeholders through quality management cannot be guaranteed, quality management is a framework that strengthens the chances of success as it allows for more effective and systematic management to achieve the aims of HEIs (Tarí and Dick 2016).

Academic staff can lead changes of specific processes, such as curricular improvements. Curriculum and instruction are the areas most likely to be impacted by changes brought about by CQI processes (Hogg and Hogg 1995).

The late Margo Burns³ emphasizes in chapter 7 the need to have an institutional definition of curriculum that is linked with an HEI’s curriculum design cycle and CQI process and that supports curriculum development and review. She advocates for the use of curriculum design models, given their utility in systematically guiding curriculum design specialists and educators in the development of programmes and courses. The application of systematic processes ensures the identification of strengths and weaknesses across a programme. The linkage of a definition of curriculum with the curriculum design cycle and CQI processes, she argues, facilitates the overall quality of a programme and the associated course design. She advocates for a strong curriculum development process that includes a robust method for capturing trends in teaching strategies, multimedia integration and assessment methods to feed into decision making in respect of curriculum improvement. This, she asserts, will feed into and ultimately strengthen The UWI’s QA programme review process.

Commenting on the need to understand learners’ multiple intelligences, Edwards-Henry (2015, 22–23) draws attention to the limitations of Gardner’s (1993) intelligences that do not take account of today’s learners’ technology-related intelligence that may be played to in the classroom or context of a course, which she refers to as digital intelligence. This is an issue that is certainly most relevant, given the increase in online learning and integration of technology in teaching and learning generally, and of critical importance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on analysing quality in distance online education, Dottin (2015, 190) acknowledges that the needs of online learners differ from those of face-to-face learners and that the planning, development and evaluation of [online] programmes should therefore reflect those varying needs.

Severin (2009, 50–51) comments that if the aim of education is to accomplish learning, there must be a shift of the pedagogical paradigm from the teacher to the learner, such a shift representing an active form of learning. In this regard, the online learning environment is considered to have a hidden benefit, facilitating the reversal of the "teacher as authority posture on the part of the lecturer. Features of the online environment, such as discussion boards, chat rooms or exchange of email, provide opportunities for thoughtful and reflective student feedback. While such opportunities can also be provided in the face-to-face model, online learning might provide some lessons that the traditional methods can benefit from, in so far as producing bold and confident graduates".

Pamela Clovine Dottin focuses in chapter 8 on CQI of The UWI Open Campus online learning environment. Dottin discusses the changes in the internal QA practices of the university for improved quality of online programme delivery and review. As a framework for the analysis of continuous improvement in online education at The UWI, she refers to best practices in online learning, such as specific online policies to govern the strategic and operational levels and faculty training. The importance of training online facilitators for improved faculty and student performance is underscored. Dottin concludes her discussion with a summary of lessons learned for CQI of the online learning environment as these relate to policy, facilitator training and the creation of an online space for connecting the community of professionals in the online learning environment.

In the area of research, challenges that have been anticipated in the region include the need for: more endogenous research; ongoing evaluation to assess relevance and quality of research; providing a cadre of quality researchers by expanding graduate programmes; more staff involved in research and more assistance in creating a high-quality research environment; more research funding that is better directed; and more basic but also more applied research in order to increase relevance with respect to the link between education and industry, as well as mitigating or solving the other key development challenges and issues of the region (Howe 2005, 165–66).

Over at least the past two decades, The UWI has been able to improve access to postgraduate studies. The observation made by Howe (2005) remains true, that The UWI remains today, despite postgraduate offerings by other institutions, the main provider of the largest numbers and types of high-quality programmes at the postgraduate level (Howe 2005, 76). In the context of The UWI Triple A Strategy 2017–2022, in addition to fulfilling its traditional missions of teaching and learning and research, The UWI is now pursuing a third mission relating to innovation and entrepreneurship as part of the institution’s overall developmental agenda. Innovation is a key driver of economic growth and the university must perform a leadership role in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship across the region in order to realise this growth (Gift 2019). This focus on innovation and entrepreneurship is intended to positively impact: revenue streams for The UWI; the provision of skilled and passionate graduates to start businesses;