External quality assurance policy enactment in Samoa: a study in relational tension

ABSTRACT

External quality assurance of higher education is possibly the most significant emergent policy within the higher education sector in recent times. This paper examines policy enactment in Samoa, highlighted in the relational tension between the national university and the national external quality assurance body. Research findings indicate that EQA policy enactment was characterised by tensions attributed to mutual distrust, uneven and unnegotiated power relationships, personality clashes at the decision-making level, and disagreement on policy ideas. I suggest that the reason for the drawn-out tension was due predominantly to inattention to the ethics of relationality which underpins Samoan social relations and the need to negotiate the vā in the policy enactment space. Moreover, the disconnect between quality assurance policy expectations and the contextual realities of a developing university was not addressed, further heightening policy tensions. Suggestions for reframing of EQA policy are put forward to support sustainable development of quality higher education in Samoa.

KEYWORDS:

• External quality assurance
• higher education policy
• policy enactment

Acknowledgments

I thank Adjunct Professor Jeanette Baird for useful feedback provided on an early version of this manuscript. I am also grateful for a New Zealand Commonwealth Scholarship supporting the Ph.D research informing this paper. I am indebted to the patient research participants whose valuable talanoa is the basis of this paper, fa’afetai tele lava ma lau fa’asoa.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the New Zealand Aid Programme [Commonwealth Scholarship].