After massification and response to internationalization: Quality assurance of higher education in Taiwan and Hong Kong

In the last two decades, higher education in Taiwan and Hong Kong has experienced significant transformations. The massification of higher education in these two Asian societies, together with the drive for internationalization, has resulted in the institutionalization of QA in their higher education systems. Overall, the introduction of QA mechanisms is becoming increasingly popular as higher education is getting more competitive, especially when universities are subject to various forms of international benchmarking and global ranking. In order to enhance their global competitiveness, both the Taiwan and Hong Kong governments have adopted different measures to assure the high quality of learning and teaching, research, and services delivered by their HEIs. This chapter sets out against the policy context outlined above to examine the changing landscape of QA regimes in Taiwan and Hong Kong, with particular reference to how the implementation of QA exercises has become part and parcel of university governance. This chapter focuses on three aspects of QA in these two cases. The first is the changing role of the various actors such as governments, QA agencies, and HEIs in relation to QA of higher education. The second is to examine how HEIs are being monitored and evaluated. And, the third aspect is to examine how evaluation results are being used indicating who, among the various actors, has the dominant power over how the universities should be run.