The Quest for Quality

During the last two decades, universities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have been under unprecedented pressure to deliver value for money. The word 'Quality' has become political shorthand for what is required. Yet, although a large bureaucratic apparatus has been built up in the quest for quality, there seems to be very little agreement about what quality actually is. This book seeks to fill this gap.

Sinclair Goodlad asks: why is it so difficult to define quality; what are the key issues that should be addressed; and what action can and should be taken in the absence of any agreed definition of quality? In so doing, he examines a number of issues concerning the basic stuff of higher education - curriculum, teaching methods, research, college organization - that go deeper than the administrative shell that is the usual focus of the Quality debate. At the same time he offers examples and case studies in which broad issues regarding good practice are earthed in particularities. Throughout, his provocative notion of 'heresies' offers grist for discussion wherever the aims, purposes and practices of higher education are being examined.

The Quest for Quality sets out the basis for a systematic approach to higher education, and is an important book for anyone who has a serious interest in what modern universities should be and do.