How to measure quality?

In 2015 the Board of the University, together with the University Council, wrote the Strategic Plan 2015-2020. In this plan, the University has set goals which it wants to achieve in 2020. In order to achieve these goals, the University is dependent on its faculties. So the Board of the University has several Administrative Meetings. In order for these meetings to be productive, the Boards wants the faculties to fill in a set of statistics to see how they are performing: the so-called Quality Indicators.

How can you measure quality?

This list was initially called Key Performance Indicators, but was later renamed to Quality Indicators. Because this list is an attachment to the Strategic Plan, the University Council has to consent on this list.

This list exists primarily out of numbers. Think of number of students, percentage of international students, percentage of teachers with a teaching qualification, percentage of female professors, etc. You can find the complete list here (unfortunately in Dutch).

Looking at the broader picture, not just raw figures

What matters most to us, is that these numbers are a means to an end, and not an end goal themselves. Faculties should have the freedom to organise the education for their students as they see fit. They shouldn’t be punished for not achieving goals that the Board of the University has set for them. Thankfully, the Chairman of the Board has promised us that that will absolutely not happen. These numbers will be merely the start of a conversation: What is going on at this faculty?

Take for example the indicator student numbers: If a program suddenly has twice as much first year students as the year before, the student/staff ratio will increase, which will decrease the quality of education. But if that amount is suddenly half of previous year’s, this will decrease the funding, which will also lead to a decrease in the quality of education. And this is how we want to see how these indicators are used: as benchmarks, not as goals. Thankfully, the Board promised not to use these indicators as goals.

On our request, the name Quality Indicators got changed to Indicators Strategic Plan, which we think is more fitting. On top of the promises by the Board, two indicators got added on the initiative on DAG, supported by Lijst Calimero and SOG: Student/Staff ratio and workload of teachers. This will give an even better picture of the quality of education at faculty level. With these additions, the University Council consented on all the indicators.