Editorial

Student choice of university and programme has steadily grown in interest to institutions. The reason for this, as Anderson observed long ago (1999), is the growing international competition for students and the fees that they bring with them. In this issue of Quality in Higher Education, Soujata Rughoobur Seetah uses social exchange theory to explore the factors affecting student choice of university in Mauritius. Her study identifies factors such as physical environment, transitional support and word of mouth as being particularly important, whereas educational quality and support facilities do not have a significant effect on student choice in the country. In their study of Ukrainian higher education, Myroslava Hladchenko and Hans Vossensteyn explore the impact of means-ends decoupling on student choice of institution and argue that both university and state sustain means-ends decoupling and that this hinders Ukrainian students from achieving their goals of personal and professional development.

The link between quality in higher education and graduate employability has long been established (Harvey and Williams, 2010). In this issue, Juan Francisco Canal Domínguez and César Rodríguez Gutiérrez highlight the continuing influence that higher education institutions can have in developing the employability skills of their students. Their study of graduates of Spanish institutions analysed the time it took graduates to find their first job during the worst period of the recession following the 2008 financial crisis and found that the type of degree (bachelor or master) and the field of knowledge were key factors in this process. Other factors included studying at a private university, taking a master’s degree, studying abroad, speaking other languages and having been awarded any grant. Although these findings are interesting in themselves, the authors highlight the importance of institutional engagement with graduate employability and the failure thus far of Spanish universities to take the issue seriously.

The nature of staff perceptions of accreditation processes raises important questions about quality and the engagement of individuals and institutions with quality processes. In this issue, Donald Staub asks whether staff see accreditation as being of value and whether institutions have a clear strategy for seeking accreditation for the first time. In his case study of a Turkish university, Staub argues that institutional approaches are not always planned and that staff are not always convinced of the value of accreditation. Staub goes on to propose a strategic approach to analysing the institutional context for seeking accreditation and for laying the foundation of successful applications for accreditation.

Evaluating quality depends, in part, on the effectiveness of the organisations that monitor quality. In this issue, Wondwosen Tamrat explores the effectiveness of one such organisation, the Ethiopian Higher Education Relevance and Quality Agency. Tamrat argues that the agency has been effective in formalising and popularising a nationally designed quality assurance régime but that representatives of private institutions feel that it is deficient in areas of capacity, autonomy, transparency and communication, double standard and lack of systems of quality assurance at internal and external levels.

Similarly, in the European context, Goran Dakovic and Anna Gover evaluate a quality assurance agency, the Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP). Using a survey of institutional representatives, Dakovic and Gover find that the IEP is valuable and useful. They also highlight the importance of honesty and objectivity amongst the evaluators and their willingness to offer advice and support. However, the article reports that whilst the impact is thought to be high, the presence of other factors makes it difficult to prove causality. This, sadly, is a perennial challenge confronted by researchers exploring the impact of quality assurance.