How Policy Makers Employ the Term Quality in Higher Education Policymaking

Today’s article by Philipp Pechmann and Sanne Haase shows how quality assurance mechanisms and quality systems seem to have found somewhat mechanistic, unanimous and internationally transferrable formats, i.e., as accreditation criteria. However, these may conflict with the institutional quality practices as findings of academic resistance to quality assurance systems indicate. Policy makers employ the term quality when trying to legitimize both overall policy reforms as well as concrete policy design choices that represent politically contested goals and strategies. This study contributes to existing knowledge with a new understanding of the role and function of quality referral in HE policymaking.