Institutional Assessment Quality Assurance (ITK): Positive advice to NVAO!

Last Friday, our institutional quality assurance was assessed positively via the ITK. After a very successful visitation, a panel of the NVAO issued a positive advice. As a result, we meet the additional conditions from the 2020 assessment.

The panel visit consisted of interviews with the Executive Board, faculty directors, programme managers, team leaders, lecturers, students, the representative body and the central services. The HBO-V and ORM study programmes were specifically questioned.

According to the chairman of the panel, the interviews were inspiring and enriching. COVID did not throw THUAS off balance and good progress was made. Both in the file and in the interviews, the quality culture became noticeably visible and the panel saw a learning organisation, which led to a positive advice.

Elisabeth Minnemann: ''Every day, faculty and staff work together with and for students on the quality of our education and research. We learn from each other and from our experiences. We are pleased that the panel has recognised the good work and that we have made considerable progress together. Good quality assurance is self-evident within our organisation. We can now take the next steps in the continuous improvement of quality''. 

Institutional Quality Assurance Assesment: how does it work again?

The Institutional Quality Assurance Assesment (ITK) is an external assesment used to demonstrate, assess and, where necessary, improve quality assurance and, therefore, the culture of quality within THUAS. Are we doing what we say we are, are we learning from each other, from our successes and our mistakes? And how do we anchor all this in our PDCA cycle? This is a confirmation that we are on the right track and continue to work on our quality assurance. This is necessary to realise our vision on education and research.

Focus and preparation

After the first visit of the ITK panel, we received the decision of the NVAO on 10 June 2020: 'Positive under conditions'. We set to work with these two conditions.  The Executive Board noted that the focus for the ITK is on the implementation of the education framework. The responsibility for the follow-up of the ITK lay with the faculties and services, which were responsible for building up and documenting a convincing track record for standard 2 (policy implementation) and standard 3 (monitoring and evaluation) of the ITK. The result is included in the NVAO file of which the self-evaluation is also a part. 

Reflection

We are especially proud of the steps we have taken together in realising the education framework, despite the limitations imposed by the coronation measures. Looking back, we have learned that we can still anchor a number of points more strongly within the PDCA with regard to our quality assurance. But it is and remains an instructive process that makes our education stronger and better. We have shown this to the NVAO panel. By looking back and reflecting together, we can take the lessons learned with us into the future.

We would like to thank everyone who has made an effort to bring the ITK to a success, in particular the students, lecturers and management of the participating programmes, services and participation councils and project leader Anita Premchand.

The Executive Board