AUDIT Newsletter 1 Office of the DVC Academic: October 2021 The UWC CHE Institutional Audit On 8 September, the Rector and DVC: Academic sent out a joint communique (a letter) to all members of the campus community to inform them about the audit of UWC by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) that will take place in June 2022. This Institutional Audit is about assessing the quality of what we do as an institution by using a range of standards as our yardstick. In this manner, it presents us with an important opportunity to reflect on our Institutional Operating Plan and the various ways that we are working towards fulfilling our vision and mission. It also allows us to be self-critical about how we translate the vision and mission into notions of quality and assess whether our core activities of learning and teaching, the research that we undertake, and the projects and initiatives that we engage in with our communities are in fact fit for purpose, transformative and are executed effectively and efficiently to the benefit of our stakeholders to whom we are accountable. This Institutional Audit is conducted to determine the coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency of our internal quality assurance system. This includes plans, policies, procedures, processes, mechanisms, and both governance and operational structural arrangements, support and quality assure our core functions in enhancing students’ likelihood of success, and that they are in alignment with the national imperatives. Since the audit brings into focus how the institution as a whole takes forward its mission and pursues its purpose, it is a process that involves all members of the campus community – from those who are directly involved in academic activities to those who support these activities in different ways. The university’s process for preparing for the audit is well underway. This is the first of the DVC: Academic’s newsletters, the Institutional Audit Update and, in this edition, we discuss the background to the audit, describe the preparation thus far, the next steps in the process and provide necessary information on how members of the campus community can directly contribute to the process.
BACKGROUND TO THE AUDIT The Higher Education Act of 1997 assigns the responsibility for quality assurance in higher education in South Africa to the Council on Higher Education (CHE). The CHE exercises this authority through its permanent sub-committee, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). The HEQC has three important responsibilities to perform. These are to: i) promote quality assurance in higher education; ii) accredit programmes of higher education, and; iii) audit the quality assurance mechanisms of higher education institutions. Some faculties at UWC have already been involved in CHE processes with the accreditation of their programmes. However, the Institutional Audit 2021/22 focuses on auditing the university’s overall quality assurance system – with particular focus on learning and teaching. It is conducted to determine the coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency of our internal quality assurance system. This includes plans, policies, procedures, processes, mechanisms, and both governance and operational structural arrangements, support and quality assure our core functions in enhancing the students’ likelihood of success, and that they are in alignment with the national imperatives. Most importantly, it is a process that enables institutions to identify what they are doing well and to isolate important challenges for continuous improvement. The CHE expects institutions to prepare for the audit in a number of different ways. The most important task is for institutions to undertake a process of self-reflection and prepare a Self-Evaluation Report (SER) in terms of four focus areas identified for this audit.