Abstract:

The academic disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to dynamic changes in programme offerings in the Higher Education sector in South Africa, with most universities opting for some form of distance learning programmes or a limited number of distance education courses. Universities (both public and private) were compelled by the regulatory body, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) of South Africa, to make immediate provisions for distance, online and remote teaching and learning during the pandemic. Consequentially, there is a need, therefore, to develop quality standards guiding teaching and learning in this new context post the COVID-19 changes. This is a challenging task given the varying disciplines and nature of the many faculties and their academic offerings in both resident and distance education tertiary institutions. Furthermore, the quality standards developed need to be evaluated and aligned with the latest CHE quality criteria for accreditation, audits and reviews. This study used focus group discussions with individual colleges of a comprehensive, open distance e-learning (CODeL) institution in South Africa. Methodologies also included published document and literature reviews to solicit information for the standards that have been developed by the study. The quality standards are then used to develop a Quality Evaluation Instrument for the university to assess quality in teaching and learning against international norms and standards in higher education. Three hundred and thirty-eight (338) academic and student specific standards developed in 2018 were socialised amongst stakeholders within the colleges and one hundred and twenty-four (124) standards were agreed upon, which were directly linked to the students’ lived experience. Thirty-five standards were selected by all colleges and were agreed upon as a university-wide base whilst further customised discipline specific standards by each college was endorsed. The standards were checked for aligned to the CHE regulatory frameworks and there was a good reflection on the stated requirements for programme accreditation. The standards were further aligned to the students’ lived experience that is reflected on the student walk of the institution. An assessment of the newly developed standards against the eight general standards of the rubric in the Quality Matters Higher Education Course Design Rubric (7th Edition) was analysed and there was a fair match with possible areas for consideration in the next iteration of reviewing the standards. This paper presents the outcome of the study and the standards developed due to the post COVID-19 changes in the quality provisioning in the high education landscape of South Africa for a CODEL institution.

Keywords:

Quality Standards, Online learning, Quality evaluation instrument, higher education, quality assurance, distance education, CODEL.