This paper looks at how accreditation and quality assurance are advantageous for higher education programmes and courses, and how accreditation and certification criteria from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) -related professional bodies or external agencies can be internalized for an internal academic audit, with the aim and objectives to develop a quality assurance and control (QAQC) framework. Such a QAQC framework can guide to tighten academic audit processes and ensure that the learning outcomes of the university’s programmes and courses are achieved through rigorous curricula and robust pedagogy. A review of an annual academic audit on the entire university, across five schools, encompassing 69 programmes and 902 courses was conducted, followed by an appraisal of a 10-year observational study of how the academic audit expectations and criteria have evolved throughout the years for STEM programmes and courses, and how these STEM programmes have managed to perform or keep up with the ever-changing requirements. This paper addresses the knowledge gap of which quality assurance mechanisms work well in STEM, and postulates that having an academic audit framework would be able to reap benefits such as an improvement in quality control and assurance; detection of malpractices, weaknesses and potential problems; support continuous improvement; retention of organization knowledge; and accountability to stakeholders. It focuses on STEM programmes but its principles can be applied across to other disciplines such as arts and social sciences, human development, business and law.

Authors: Luke Peh Lu Chang, Bheema Thiagarajan Lokesh

Published in: Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2023)

• Date of Conference: 24-26 October, 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/IICE.2023.10.0007
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-68-6
• Conference Location: Dún Laoghaire, Ireland