Boon or bane: Too often, quality work becomes paperwork. – 123rf.com
Walk into any university today and you will hear talk about “quality assurance” (QA). On paper, it sounds noble, protecting standards and ensuring graduates are competent. No parent or student would argue against quality.
But we do need to ask a very honest question: Is all this QA really improving the quality of education or is it just creating more paperwork, slowing innovation, and costing students money?
Quality checks started with a good idea: to make sure students get a proper education. But over time, QA has become huge, almost like a separate industry inside and outside of universities.
Today, varsities spend huge sums producing documents, templates, forms, audit folders and reports for external bodies.
Staff spend hours preparing for reviews instead of improving classes. And all of this requires time, staff and money. Where does that money come from? Students pay for all of this through their fees.
Where’s the value?
Let’s be fair: QA authorities, including Malaysia’s, want high standards. Nobody disputes that. If you ask students what they want, they’ll say better teaching, more support and feedback, up-to-date programmes, industry skills, artificial intelligence (AI) and future-ready training.
But instead of seeing these improvements, students mostly see slow processes. Do we want to be the best at running audits or the best at producing world-class graduates?
QA supporters often claim it improves student outcomes. However, the international evidence is mixed.
Studies from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Higher Education Area point to better systems, clearer processes and greater transparency – all valuable outcomes. But there is little clear proof that more QA inspections produce better graduates.
In many professional fields, such as medicine and engineering, accreditation bodies have demonstrably protected standards, especially where external licensing exams provide objective benchmarks. Here, QA adds real value.
However, across the general university landscape, research frequently finds a different reality: QA improves paperwork more than it improves learning.
Too much standardisation
One big problem is standardisation. Many QA rules demand similarity between programmes and universities – same formats, reports, learning outcome styles, and assessment templates. This kills creativity.
Universities are asked to innovate, but innovation is hard when the first question is always: “Does this meet the requirements of the QA Authority?” New AI modules? New industry projects? New teaching methods? Often, they wait months or even years for approval.
Time for change
Too often, quality work becomes paperwork. Universities spend more energy proving they teach well than actually improving teaching. You can have the best compliance files in the country and still deliver average learning. We need to make QA work better for students. That means:
- Less paperwork, more teaching time
- Faster curriculum updates
- Trusting lecturers as professionals
- Allowing different programmes to do things differently
- Rewarding good ideas, not perfect forms
- Listening to students as partners, not ticking them in surveys
- Measuring real results such as student skills, jobs, confidence, success
And now, with AI, we can go further: using AI to monitor student feedback quickly; using data to see which teaching and courses help students most; and approving new learning ideas faster.
Malaysia can lead again
Malaysia built a strong higher education system. Many countries admire our national standards. Now, we can lead the next stage too not by making thicker audit files, but by creating quality systems that truly support learning and innovation. Instead of being the country with the most forms, we can be the country with the best ideas.
Instead of being known for checklists, we can be known for graduates who think, adapt, solve problems and use AI with confidence. We can reduce the cost of bureaucracy and invest the money in improved student learning.
Before we implement any quality requirement, we should ask: How does this help students learn better? If it does, keep it. If it does not, stop it. QA should not be about filling in forms. It should be about creating futures.
As AI reshapes learning and talent markets shift globally, the universities that thrive will be those that innovate boldly and put students at the centre of everything they do.
QA systems must empower, not restrain, that mission. If students are to continue funding QA, they deserve a system that clearly improves their education, not simply documents it. Students deserve quality learning, not just quality audits. And Malaysia has the chance and the responsibility to show the world how to do it right.
Prof Dr David Whitford is vice-chancellor and chief executive of University of Cyberjaya. He earned a doctorate from Cambridge University and has held leadership roles in medical education. With over 70 research publications on disadvantaged communities and quality healthcare delivery, his academic journey includes positions at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in Dublin and in Bahrain, where he established community-based teaching and led postgraduate studies.
The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
