Quality in higher education: experiences and perspectives from Chile and Quebec, Canada

The book brings together the results of the project “Quality assurance experiences in higher education in Quebec and Chile”, funded by the Quebec Ministry of International Relations and La Francophonie and carried out jointly by the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education, IESED-Chile and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Research on Higher Education of the Université de Montréal, under the auspices of the Quebec Higher Education Council and CUECH. Its publication was made possible by project RED21995 of the State Universities Strengthening Plan.

The work does not set out to be a comparative study in the strict sense, but rather to highlight two models that differ in their foundations, structure and practices, reconstructed through the voices of their own actors. In Chile, representatives of thirty public and private universities took part, along with directors of bodies within the National Quality Assurance System and peer reviewers; in Quebec, representatives of higher education institutions.

It is organised in two parts. The first addresses the Chilean case: background to the accreditation system, the views of institutional and external actors, and six case studies of good practice in Chilean universities. The second examines Quebec: the features of its quality assurance systems, the perspective of institutional actors, good practice in programme evaluation and the challenges identified.

Among its conclusions, the book finds that the Chilean model is more centralised and carries direct consequences for institutions, whereas Quebec’s rests on institutional autonomy and the cyclical evaluation of programmes. In both cases, successful implementation demands committed leadership, the development of internal capacities and genuine cultural change at every level of the institution.