 |
 |
The following thoughts were prompted by a circular from the QAA's Peter Milton to heads of HEIs (20th April), which accompanied forms asking for further information about Subject Review visits in 2000-01. Dr Milton confirms that subjects will be reviewed under the existing Subject Review procedures 'albeit slightly modified', and adds that the development of subject benchmarks will 'provide a useful background' to this exercise. Furthermore, he acknowledges that these subject groups/departments will not have seen the draft benchmarks for their subject before preparing their self-assessments, but advises that the benchmarks will not be used to make judgements about standards. I would have thought that, however competent the Subject Specialist Reviewers are (and however well they are trained), they will find it difficult to ignore these benchmarks when making judgements about the quality of provision. This, effectively, departs from the principle of evaluation against the subject provider's own aims and objectives on which Subject Review is fundamentally based. Given this, I would contend that you cannot have a transition phase between Subject Review and Academic Review with published benchmark standards hovering in the background and that, in England and NI, there should be a clean switch from Subject Review to Academic Review in January 2002. At the very least, such a transition will be unfair to the subjects being reviewed in 2000-2001, in comparison with those covered in 1998-2000. I'd be interested if colleagues have any similar or different reactions. William %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%