Education Quality Assurance Policy in Georgia: The Case of Cluster Accreditation

Abstract

Contemporary higher education policies are becoming increasingly complex and multidimensional (Gibbs et al., 2023). Nevertheless, it is still possible to distinguish some key components: governance, funding, academic influence, and quality assurance. The latter has recently become increasingly relevant even in the non-education, but policy-oriented scientific literature (Tabatadze, 2019). Indeed, the education quality assurance system and mechanism have become integral to higher education policy (JARIĆ, 2019). Higher education is considered the key not only to the country's economic development but also to its survival and integration into the global economy. Without quality higher education, developed countries will find it increasingly difficult to reap global knowledge-based economic benefits (Kherigi, 2020). It is natural that, depending on the states, the mechanisms for ensuring the quality of education differ. In some places, it is a part of university autonomy, in some - peer review; and in some - it is the discretion of the state (ANGIOLA, 2019). From this point of view, external quality assurance mechanisms are fascinating. Georgia joined the Bologna process in 2005, after which European standards were gradually introduced into the Georgian higher education system. The National Center for the Development of Education Quality is a legal entity of public law under the governance of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, which, in order to ensure external quality, carries out authorization of educational institutions and accreditation of educational programs throughout the country, as well as monitors the fulfillment of authorization and accreditation standards. It works on the development, implementation, and development of external and internal mechanisms for education quality assurance. In this regard, it should be noted that the National Center for Education Quality Development in Georgia is the only actor that has the legal right to grant authorization to higher educational institutions and accreditation to educational programs, and the state does not delegate this right to non-state actors, public or private agencies. In 2004-2010, the development of the quality assurance system of higher education in Georgia was followed by a wave of large-scale reforms, which was caused by large-scale criticism of external quality assurance mechanisms (both institutional authorization and program accreditation), as it was assessed as ineffective and not necessarily aimed at raising the quality of higher education. (Amashukeli, Lezhava, & Chitashvili, 2020). However, various studies in scientific circles show that the policy related to quality assurance in Georgia only caused a facade effect and locked the system in its initiation phase, where it constantly redefines itself rather than ensuring ongoing quality improvement (Jibladze, 2013). In this regard, it should be noted that from 2022, the policy of Georgian higher education underwent a change, and the program accreditation process was replaced by the so-called With "cluster accreditation" under the conditions of the cluster accreditation system, the accreditation regulation determined that one accreditation application may combine no more than eight educational programs. In this case, the accreditation standards were slightly changed by switching to cluster accreditation, the form/methodology of the accreditation process administration was changed, not the content and foreign experts were involved in the accreditation process of the Georgian higher education program. This study aims to explain the institutional rationality factor of changes made in higher education policy based on the rational choice theory. Cluster accreditation of humanities programs was carried out during the 1-year research period. Therefore, the study aims to explain the extent to which the change in the form of policy implementation contributed to the development of the quality of education. In order to study this, qualitative research methods are used in the work, namely content analysis of documents, which implies a content study of the conclusions of accreditation experts and the decisions of the Council of Accreditation of Higher Education Programs, as well as another method of qualitative research is used in the research process, in-depth interviews with education experts and through non-probability sampling, purposefully selected with the representatives of the higher educational institutions that have passed the cluster accreditation. In the work, the changes implemented in the policy of quality assurance of higher education are studied in 4 directions: • Content changes implemented in the standards for cluster accreditation.• Changes implemented in accreditation procedures and involvement of international experts in the process.• Impact of the changes implemented in the external level management mechanisms on the content changes in the educational programs.• Accreditation granting/non-granting practice under cluster accreditation conditions.