QUALITY ASSURANCE AND BEST PRACTICES IN EDUCATION

There is shortage in academics with increased numbers of students. This may lead to employment of staff who may not have had previous experience in teaching or have formal education in teaching and in curriculum development. Therefore, this paper aims to shed some light on best practices related to teaching and learning, emphasising the importance of quality assurance and accountability. This includes quality of teaching, quality of content and process of delivery. Of equal importance to a well developed program, is educators' teaching style, strategies, and attitudes towards learners and teaching. The role of teacher as facilitator of learning in adult education (Andragogy), which differs from the teacher's role in teaching children (Pedagogy) will be addressed with other adult learning principles. Effective teaching goes hand in hand with well developed assessments that reflect deep, meaningful learning, which covers the three domains of learning: knowledge, skills and attitudes. Principles underpinning good assessment practice such as fairness, reliability, validity, efficacy, sufficiency and authenticity of evidence, and the importance of feedback will be discussed. Since there is no single assessment method that can adequately assess all domains of learning, different assessment methods need to be used. This paper will examine the advantages and disadvantages of various assessment methods and implementation issues. Furthermore, recommendations for best practice and quality assurance such as the use of students' evaluation of teaching and unit, teachers' self-evaluation will conclude this paper.