Quality assurance in Latin America: current situation and future challenges

  • María José Lemaitre CINDA, Chile
Keywords: higher education, quality, quality assurance, quality management, policy making

Abstract

Quality assurance processes have developed in Latin America since the beginning of the 1990s, trying to deal with the changes in higher education. This article is organized from two main perspectives: the first is mostly descriptive, and it focuses first on a brief outline of structural changes, that impact on the features of higher education in the region; the response from Latin America, in terms of national systems and subregional and regional arrangements; and then on the perceived effects of the implementation of quality assurance mechanisms on higher education institutions. Based on that information, the second part has a prospective approach: it identifies some of the main challenges, that have to do with the need not to do ‘more of the same’ but rather, to develop a second generation of quality assurance processes, and makes suggestions about possible actions for policy makers, higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies.


Published online
: 30 November 2017

 

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Author Biography

María José Lemaitre, CINDA, Chile

Sociologist, with graduate studies in education, is currently the Executive Director of CINDA, a network of universities in Latin America and Europe. She is former president of INQAAHE and of RIACES, the Iberoamerican Network for QA and is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the CHEA International Quality Group. María José Lemaitre was in charge of the design and implementation of quality assurance processes in Chile between 1990 and 2007 and has published many articles on the quality and management of higher education. She has served as a consultant on the development of quality assurance, higher education management and policy design and implementation in the field of higher education, for institutions, governments and bi and multilateral organizations in Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, East Europe, Central and Southeast Asia. Mail: mjlemaitre@cinda.cl

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Published
2017-11-30
How to Cite
Lemaitre, María José. 2017. “Quality Assurance in Latin America: Current Situation and Future Challenges”. Tuning Journal for Higher Education 5 (1), 21-40. https://doi.org/10.18543/tjhe-5(1)-2017pp21-40.