Eleven universities are refusing to be inspected by a team including students 
as part of a new higher education auditing process.
Although 50 institutions accepted the changes to the auditing process, the fact that 20 per cent refused could be due to the level of opposition to student inclusion voiced by academics when the scheme was first introduced.
Some claimed it would devalue the auditing process as students were not ‘peers’. This was despite the introduction of student reviewers in Scotland nine years ago and a QAA report last summer of the pilot scheme which demonstrated it as a success.
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) made a commitment to students earlier this year to include them more in the assurance of higher education by getting students to work alongside senior academics and administrators in assessing institutions.
Out of 100 applications, 58 students were recruited and trained to begin auditing in January 2010. However, as the change comes halfway through the current auditing cycle, universities do not have to accept them until the next cycle begins in 2011.
QAA believed that the refusal was more about qualms with “changing the audit arrangements midway through a cycle” than “objections to student involvement.”
A spokeswoman from QAA commented: “Institutions were given a choice as to whether they agreed to have students as members of their audit teams during the current cycle of audit. For those that did opt out, QAA did not ask for an explanation of reasons.”
However, from 2011 all audit teams will have students; a change QAA believes “puts students at the heart of the quality assurance process.”
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