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meaning of quality
Helen Thomas
Searching for a In trying to grasp the concept of quality in education, one starting point
definition is to look for a definition. Theoreticians have struggled and come up with
a variety of definitions, including quality being determined by the degree
to which set objectives are achieved, fitness for purpose, added value, and
client satisfaction (Vroeijenstijn 1992). A straw poll among
practitioners—teachers and managers—at a seminar I ran elicited the
following definitions of quality: excellence, improvement, and—when
given the analogy of a Rolls Royce versus a Trabant car—fitness for
purpose. Improvement strikes immediately as a comfortable and
234 ELT Journal Volume 57/3 July 2003 © Oxford University Press
acceptable interpretation in the context of education which is, after all,
about developing and improving—improving knowledge, skills, and
opportunities in life. However acceptable it may be that improved
lessons, improved results, and improved resources, for instance, mean
better quality, interpreting quality as improvement also leaves
unanswered questions. What exactly is it that is being improved? If it is
lessons, how do we know they are improved? Is it really the teaching, or
is it the learning? How is improvement demonstrated? League tables for
schools are based on the assumption that better exam results mean
higher quality, but the validity of such league tables, and the
comparisons they invite, are easily questioned. The British league tables
for performance of secondary schools look at exam results, and assume
that the schools with the highest number of high grade GCSE s are the
best. From the teacher’s perspective the criteria may be rather di¤erent,
and school pupils are unlikely to list examinations statistics as their
criteria for improvement or quality. For the headteacher, exam
performance statistics not only inform a view of improvement, but may
have a direct bearing on budget. To take improvement as a definition
for quality leaves many unanswered questions. As with other definitions,
it fails to capture some of the important whys of quality. By looking at
what lies behind quality, we can reach a better understanding and
definition.
Economic arguments Within the world of English language teaching there are a number of
bodies which play a role in quality. These include ACELS , EAQUALS ,
NYESZE , and IALC in Europe, NEAS in Australia; AAIEP and UCIEP in
the United States, while in Britain there are ABLS , BALEAP , and the
largest such body—EiBAS ¡. These acronyms are those of associations or
schemes that accredit language teaching organizations and award a
quality seal of approval. It is worth asking the rather crude question: why
do language teaching organizations want to be accredited and carry a
quality seal? As educators, we are likely to believe that it is because they
want to improve for the good of the students and teachers, and because
of a belief that education is always about improvement. This may indeed
play a part, but perhaps more important for the individual schools is the
desire to improve their share of the market. Language teaching
organizations have to assure their business and generate income. This is
not to suggest that private language schools are cut-throat businesses,
there simply to make money: they are not. None the less, all private
language schools are businesses, and can only carry out their business if
they have suªcient income to enable them to do their job well. Students’
fees provide the income, and by being accredited, schools believe they
will be more attractive to students. Being able to
demonstrate quality is an imperative for keeping business going. Thus
the development of accreditation and recognition schemes, I would
claim, has an economic rationale. If we look at the mission statement of
EiBAS , as a large and well-established accreditation scheme, however,
there is no suggestion that it has anything to do with economics.
Political arguments This statement focuses on protecting students, and assuring their access
to language education that meets agreed quality standards. One of the
concerns behind the development of some accreditation schemes was
the presence in the market of ‘cowboy’ language schools, which paid
poor wages to unqualified teachers, and made money from unsuspecting
students without due regard to the value of the language learning
experience o¤ered. This was clearly wrong. Schemes were needed which
would enable students to select institutions, knowing they would o¤er a
good learning experience; at the same time such schemes operated to
exclude the ‘cowboys’, thus increasing the market share for respectable
schools. The EiBAS scheme was set up and run by the British Council
who, it could be argued, did not seek a share of the market. This
undermines the economic argument. If we consider the cultural
diplomacy role of the British Council, however, we can see how the
accreditation scheme can be interpreted as one way of achieving friends
for—and promoting—Britain, in a political (with a small ‘p’) aim, which
arguably may also have financial spin-o¤s.
The EiBAS mission statement also includes the phrase agreed quality
standards, a concept shared with other accreditation schemes. Whose,
however, are the agreed standards? One interpretation is that the
standards are those of a self-selected group, which may include teachers,
directors of studies, directors of schools, and members of professional
bodies, who together believe they know what the standards should be, and
who then develop the schemes with their standards in mind. One
perspective is that they set themselves up as a superior constituency,
putting themselves in the position to assure their business. This
statement of agreed standards thus has a professional political undertone.
The state sector I have argued so far that financial and political aims have underpinned
the development of quality assurance schemes within the private
language school sector. What parallels are there, if any, in the state
sector? Until relatively recently, British schools and higher education
institutions enjoyed a high degree of institutional autonomy—much
higher than in many European states. The ‘what’ and ‘when’ of the
curriculum was decided primarily by the individual school and the
teachers, the main external influence coming from exams such as the
11+, the grading exam, and ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels. With the advent of the
national curriculum, and its associated tests, the pendulum has swung
from autonomy to a significant degree of centralized control. In 1992
OFSTED (the British Oªce for Standards in Education) was set up by the
government, with the aim of Improving standards of achievement and
quality in education. The national curriculum limits dramatically the
traditional autonomy in the system, and OFSTED is there to monitor
what is happening in each school across the country. These changes
originated in government.
Quality goals The same question can be asked in respect of standards as could be asked
in the discussion of quality. What are these standards? I suggested that
the groups setting up accreditation schemes decided upon the standards
themselves. This, however, is an inadequate account of standards. By
looking at the process of accreditation run by these schemes, I think we
are o¤ered some insight into possible interpretations of standards. To
become recognized by EiBAS , for example, institutions have to provide a
great deal of documentation covering all aspects of the school or
institution. The inspectors look at management, including the
recruitment, employment, and training of sta¤; they interrogate financial
management and marketing materials. They examine the pedagogic
side, the qualifications of sta¤, the teaching resources, the teaching in
action, and the size of classes; they look at the teaching space, library
facilities, social space, and so on. It is a comprehensive inspection of
everything involved in the teaching of English within the institution. To
be accredited, the institution has to demonstrate that it carries out the
processes to the standards set out: a defined percentage of teaching sta¤
must be TEFL qualified; all sta¤ must have a contract; teaching
observations must be part of the school’s regular activities; publicity
The time frame A common characteristic of accreditation and inspection schemes is that
the processes operate within a defined period. Documents have to be
submitted to deadlines, visits are planned for given dates, and the
outcome of these visits informs the ‘verdict’. The visits are demanding
and stressful. Part of the work is the collection of all the relevant
documents. It is not only collecting them, however, since there is the
writing of them, too—the retrospective minutes of meetings, policy
statements, and so on. This is part of the wet paint syndrome. Inspection
visits can be—and often are—carefully stage-managed events at which
institutions become successful. What the inspection visits provide is a
snapshot of the institution at a given time; there is nothing to say,
however, that this given time is truly representative of the institution
during the rest of the time. The dynamics of change in any educational
setting will not be incorporated into the picture gained during the visit; in
Fitness of purpose There is another angle to quality that teachers, lecturers, and managers
need to be aware of, however. I noted in relation to the QAA Subject
Review process that what is being taught in the university is not
determined by external reference points. The department decides what it
is going to teach and how. What is evaluated is the extent to which the
institution does what it says it is doing. In a fictional department
somewhere in the heart of England, the aims of the course are to teach
the history of English as a foreign language, to inculcate a thorough
knowledge of English descriptive linguistics, and of the di¤erent
Englishes to be found globally; to familiarize students with the great
works of literature, and enable them to transpose between
Shakespearean English and American English. The department excels in
this, and in the review scores top marks. Were the students to be invited
to have a conversation about British politics, conduct business, or watch a
film, however, they would be thrown into diªculties. In theory, a QAA
subject review takes no account of this. The fictional English language
department does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it very well.
There is fitness for purpose because the curricula and their delivery
enable the students to achieve the intended aims. There is something
uneasy about this, however, which suggests there is yet something more
to quality than fitness for purpose. Surely there is no point in the
language programme being excellent in the way defined by the subject
review, if what it o¤ers is inappropriate or irrelevant to the needs of the
students and to society? The relevance or appropriateness of what we
teach is also part of the quality. In other words, it is not just fitness for