By Tom Yates, Executive Director of Corporate Affairs, QAA, and Andy Smith, Quality & Standards Manager, QAA

Last summer QAA published the new edition of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, the first new iteration of the Code since 2018.

This month, we've published the first three collections of Advice and Guidance to accompany the 2024 Code. Like the Code itself, these documents were written in collaboration with experts from across our sector.

In the second of a series of brief guides exclusive to HE Professional, we highlight some takeaways from the new Advice and Guidance chapter focusing on 'Operating partnerships with other organisations'.

Quality Assurance

It's vital that all partners agree, understand, communicate and take responsibility for the maintenance of academic standards and the enhancement of quality. It's therefore essential for partners to establish a mutual understanding of what academic standards, quality assurance and enhancement mean in the context of their partnership.

This supports the development of frameworks underpinning confidence in QA arrangements and compliance with regulatory obligations. It can also promote a collaborative culture for students and staff.

If partners' expectations of quality and standards differ, an approach needs to be agreed to ensure all parties are confident that the arrangements meet their requirements and expectations.

Partners should agree mechanisms for the monitoring of quality assurance and enhancement that are proportionate to the size and type of partnership arrangement and reflect the size and experience of the partners involved. The partner with ultimate responsibility for the quality and standards of the award offered should be explicit in their definition of what a proportionate approach entails for its different types of partnerships.

Regular communication with the staff and students is crucial. Successful partnerships have clear processes for communication, underpinned by mechanisms for relationship-building across different roles, including student representation.

Partners need clarity regarding their roles and responsibilities in assuring standards and quality. New staff should be onboarded to gain a thorough understanding of how the partnership operates. These training and communication mechanisms should be regularly reviewed to ensure they remain effective.

Providers should maintain a repository of key information about their partnerships. This helps to facilitate the management and quality assurance of partnerships. Providers may wish to maintain an internal record of partnerships and publish a separate public record. It's helpful for prospective students, partners, regulatory agencies, employers and other providers to be able to see lists of collaborative partnerships.

Due Diligence

Due diligence needs to be embedded within partnership approval processes to enable the early detection of risk or factors which may require mitigation.

This process should be carried out as a formal step in developing relationships with other organisations and should continue as part of regular monitoring and evaluation activity.

Enhanced due diligence checks may be needed for international partners or for partners with little delivery experience. Additional checks for organisations providing work-based placements may include ongoing checks on insurance and other compliance requirements. Additional checks may also be required where there are multiple student entry points across the year or where a non-UK academic calendar has been adopted.

Due diligence processes will depend on the type of arrangement and the perceived level of risk, possibly necessitating phased approaches in the cases of higher-risk partners.

Agreements

Written agreements provide partners with legal certainty in terms of their rights and obligations.

Agreements should clearly outline the steps required to close a partnership and protect students in the event that a partnership is terminated early.

These agreements ensure that partners understand their respective academic, regulatory and workplace requirements, and agree to fulfil their responsibilities in securing academic standards and delivering, assuring and enhancing the student experience.

When designing written agreements, it's crucial to consider the specific needs and characteristics of different provider types and partnership arrangements to ensure the success of the partnership.

Partners should agree their responsibilities, ensure staff are aware of these, and communicate them effectively to students.

Partners need to agree approaches to learning, teaching and assessment that enable students and staff to be comfortable in studying, delivering and supporting provision. Partners will encounter approaches and practices that are unfamiliar to cultural norms and therefore time and effort need to be applied to embed agreed approaches.

International Compliance

Partnerships need to comply with the laws and regulations of the countries in which they operate. The regulatory requirements between the four nations of the UK can differ –so partnerships between providers in different UK nations may have to take into account similar considerations to those which concern transnational partnerships.

Providers may need to approve exceptions to their own academic regulations to manage any conflicts between those regulations and in-country requirements, and to consider include cultural and language differences, as well as differences in academic practices. 

When UK qualifications are delivered outside the UK, the degree awarded may be treated as a foreign qualification in that country. Partners need to understand the rules for the recognition of qualifications delivered through such arrangements.

Providers also need to understand the types of partnerships permitted in the countries in which they plan to work – including stipulations around modes of delivery, staff qualifications or the proportion of teaching provided by the non-local partner. 

Recognition of qualifications for professional registration may differ between countries. Professional registration requirements in the country of delivery need to be understood by all partners and included in formal agreements. If UK accreditation is desired, advice can be sought from professional or regulatory bodies before establishing an equivalent programme internationally. 

Employment law in the countries of all partners needs be taken into account, as well as the need for visas or work permits for UK staff and students travelling to the UK. 

There are varied expectations of the length and structure of awards in different countries.  Four-year undergraduate degrees are normal in many countries, as are two-year postgraduate master's qualifications. Some differentiate between academic and professional qualifications. Arrangements involving joint degrees should take account of any such differences to meet the requirements of both awarding bodies.

It's important that partners consider the time needed for programme approvals and modifications. There may be restrictions on the number of times a programme can be modified or lengthy processes that affect a provider's ability to synchronise changes where a programme is run with several partners.

In some countries it is a requirement that awards must have the same title as those for programmes delivered at the awarding organisation; in other cases, they must be aligned with a national register in the country of delivery.

Where recruitment and admissions are delegated to delivery partners, the awarding body should retain appropriate oversight of these processes and may conduct checks on admissions processes to ensure they're transparent and fair.

It may also be appropriate for the awarding body to check applications for recognition of prior learning. In some jurisdictions, RPL is uncommon and may not be accepted. This is an important consideration when planning articulation arrangements.

 Student Support

Student support arrangements should take account of the characteristics of a partnership and its students. Cultural differences may require careful navigation. It's also important that students know who to contact for support and how to raise any issues affecting the quality of their experience.

It's common to delegate or share responsibility for student support to the delivery partner. In such cases, the awarding body should maintain oversight of student support. Partners should agree whether delivery partners should replicate awarding bodies' support mechanisms or use their own to provide equivalent levels of support.

For apprenticeships or other employer-based provision, it's important to be clear about the boundaries between the employer's policies for discipline, fitness to practise and grievances, and those of the education provider. Expectations of student support from employers and providers should be clearly communicated to students. 

For programmes delivered outside the UK, cultural and legal differences may affect expectations of support services. Partners must be satisfied that students can access support to underpin a high-quality student experience. Clear information should be provided to students about how to access support services and how to raise concerns, complaints or appeals.

Awarding providers retain ultimate responsibility for the quality of the student experience. Partnership agreements should make clear who will handle different categories of concern, complaint or appeal. For apprenticeships and placements, the academic provider will usually be responsible for academic issues and the employer for those related to the workplace.

Expectations regarding grounds for appeal may vary and, in some countries, there may be separate regulations that cover certain kinds of complaint. Partners need to understand these and be able to communicate them to students.

Monitoring

Partnership arrangements should be regularly monitored and reviewed to ensure their effective management, assure quality, and encourage enhancement and sharing good practice. Effective monitoring facilitates a shared understanding of quality, standards and the student experience between staff, students and providers. It enables the development of a culture of accountability, transparency and mutual learning.

A mutually agreed approach to such processes ensures regular communication between partners and facilitates open dialogue about any changes that may impact arrangements – such as changes to organisational structures, policies and curricula.

Benchmarks and key performance indicators enable providers to understand where the performance of their provision sits in relation to similar providers across the sector.

Partners may agree an additional external review process to add further credibility to the evaluation of the partnership. Engaging external peer reviewers to assess partnership arrangements from an objective standpoint offers added assurance regarding the effectiveness of the arrangement and areas for enhancement.

Effective monitoring may thus help to mitigate the risks and develop the benefits of partnership provision.

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Engaging Students as Partners