Dr Sandro Spiteri with Prof. Vera Ostreni, Rector of the Albanian University
Dr Sandro Spiteri, Senior Executive at the Quality Support Unit, recently presented a paper at the 14th International Conference in 'Standardization, Prototypes and Quality: a Means of Balkan Countries’ Collaboration' in Tirana, Albania.
The paper was entitled: ‘Standardizing Internal and External Quality Assurance in Vocational and Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges in Small States’. The literature on the impact of state ‘smallness’ on education policy has shifted over the decade from a predominantly deficit perspective to one of resilience and anamorphism.
This paper explored how the perceived limitations of size in one small state, Malta, have been reframed into opportunities for innovative approaches with respect to its national QA framework. It then went on to discuss the experience of the first three years of implementation of the Maltese National QA Framework.
This has been mixed, for reasons that relate mainly to the near-hegemonic positionality of state educational institutions and the ‘choreography’ this creates with the ‘monopolistic’ proximity of quasi-independent regulatory authorities.
