Proposals for Incentives and Sanctions Tim Fowler NZQA August 2010

Improving performance NZQA wishes to assist in improving performance through incentives and sanctions. Based on high-trust, high-accountability. Incentives and sanctions would be driven by EER outcomes.

Incentives and sanctions and the QA Framework

Implications for providers High performance and capability would bring rewards while unsatisfactory performance would lead to sanctions. A level playing field for all non-university tertiary education providers. Applies to ITPs, PTEs, GTES, wānanga - not ITOs (yet).

Initial mechanisms for incentives and sanctions 1.The level of external scrutiny for programme approval, accreditation and consent to assess against unit standards. 2.Processing time for programme (course) applications. 3.Tenure of accreditations. 4.Frequency of external evaluation and review (EER).

A “status” for providers on the basis of EER EER ratingsHighly ConfidentConfident Not yet confident Not Confident Highly Confident High Confidence Status Confidence Status Confident Confidence Status Business-as- usual Status Not yet confident Suspended status (1) Not ConfidentSuspended status (2)

“High confidence” status Two “Highly Confident” EER judgements: reduced external scrutiny for new programme approval/accreditation, and consents to assess against standards faster turnaround times for applications - 30 working days accreditations renewed EER every four years provided no interim quality concerns.

“Confidence” Status One “Highly Confident”, one “Confident” EER judgement: consent to assess against standards granted without a site visit where the provider already has field accreditation faster turnaround times for applications - 30 working days accreditations renewed EER every four years provided no interim quality concerns.

“Business as usual” status Two “Confident” EER judgements: full documentation for programme approval/accreditation and consent applications standard turnaround time – 55 working days accreditation renewed EER every four years provided no interim quality concerns.

“Suspended” status (1) At least one ‘Not yet Confident’ EER judgement: consider suspending applications for programmes and consents TEO would need to provide further evidence to maintain accreditation and consents, post-EER actions considered EER would generally take place within months.

“Suspended” status (2) At least one “Not Confident” EER judgement: programme and consent applications suspended provider needs to provide further evidence to maintain accreditations, post-EER actions considered. individual accreditation may be withdrawn if a grade of Poor was obtained in a specific qualification, discipline or industry focus area EER would generally be within months, although this may need to vary if concerns are serious.

Implementation Final policy to be implemented by January Progressive roll-out, until every provider has had its first EER, by the end of Until then, current quality assurance arrangements continue.

Consultation questions 1.How robust is it to assign a quality assurance status to a TEO based on the results of external evaluation and review? What, if any, other measures could be used? 2.How well do you think the proposals to use incentives and sanctions based on the quality assurance status of a TEO will drive improvements in educational quality? 3.Which of the four mechanisms would encourage your organisation most to improve its performance? What will be the effect of the mechanism?

Consultation questions 4.What other mechanisms or processes could be included in this policy? 5.Taken overall, what impact will the proposed incentives and sanctions have on your organisation? 6.How well will the proposals outlined create a consistent and equitable approach to improving quality across the non-university tertiary education provider sector?

Consultation questions 7.The paper proposes assigning a TEO to one of five levels of quality assurance status. How many levels do you think are needed to differentiate between TEOs? Please explain your reasoning. 8.How effectively do the criteria proposed for each quality assured status differentiate between the levels of performance of TEOs? 9.What suggestions do you have to improve the criteria to distinguish between each quality assured status? For instance could “high confidence status” be expanded and still represent “high quality”. 10.What suggestions do you have on how to improve the proposals?

Consultation submissions Please send submissions to: Final date for submissions - 8 September 2010.