International Staff Exchange among TWAEA, JUAA and ONESQA to Present the Value of Quality Assurance Agencies

Since 2017, the Taiwan Assessment and Evaluation Association (TWAEA), the Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA) and the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (ONESQA) from Thailand have taken turns holding an interagency staff training workshop annually. Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic since 2020, the events were organized through online meetings. On March 28th, 2023, the fifth online international staff exchange program was successfully completed.

The theme of this year’s discussion was “Creating Value for QA Agency and Increasing Public Awareness,” in which the three organizations shared the discovery on internal researches. TWAEA stressed that, regarding enhancing the public awareness on evaluation, first they need to spur the public understanding to ensure education quality. Secondly, evaluation must be linked to social vibration, meaning that not only the context of indicators evolve through time, but the reviewers and process also include representatives from industries to support mutual exchanges. Finally, for promoting information transparency, effective practical measures include holding variety of activities, publishing books or publications, and presenting honoring awards.

On the other hand, regarding the creation of QA agency’s value, TWAEA stated that by constantly improving institution management and gaining quality certificates, including practices to enhance public recognition, obtain international recognition, as well as take part in versatile international events and projects. TWAEA has dedicated efforts in promoting the international visibility and establishing partnerships with higher education institutions, and becoming an effective support partner for schools.

During the online workshop, the three parties exchanged opinions and thoughts on the difficulties and problems occurred when evoking public awareness towards quality assurance. We also further shared experiences on how to ensure students’ learning outcomes, improve education quality and use the social media actively. In the three-year-span of pandemic, TWAEA, JUAA and ONESQA constantly have exchanges through online workshops to maintain motivation on mutual improvement. Now that the pandemic has been ebbing, we expect that physical exchanges and visits among three regions could be restored. The interagency collaboration is significant as this enables us to further understand our key collaborators and is conducive in making TWAEA a more outstanding and credible professional QA agency.