YOGYAKARTA - Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) continues to make efforts to guarantee the quality of academic activities for each study program. The process of internal and external quality assurance is carried out in synergy in the realm of Quality Assurance System of Higher Education of UGM. External quality assurance is carried out through Study Program Accreditation by the National Accreditation Board of Higher Education (BAN-PT), which are mostly awarded A's, and Accreditation of Institution, which overall is also awarded an A.
But that is not enough, quality assurance is also required for regional universities in ASEAN joining the ASEAN University Network (AUN). UGM together with UI and ITB is an active member of the AUN on Quality Assurance (AUN-QA), which is preparing AUN-Quality-Label for Internal Quality Assurance (IQA), Institutional Assessment, and Assessment Program.
Previously, three study programs at UGM, namely the Pharmaceutical Sciences (Faculty of Pharmacy), Chemistry (Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences) and Medical Education (Faculty of Medicine) conducted AUN Actual Quality Assessment with fairly good results. From 19-22 June 2011, AUN also conducted Actual Quality Assessment for three Study Programs, namely Biology (Faculty of Biology), Geology Engineering and Civil Engineering (Faculty of Engineering).
Six AUN assessors who came from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam carried out the assessment, accompanied by seven observers. "Assessors of the AUN examined self-assessment reports from each Study Program. Furthermore, Actual Quality Assessment was implemented on the field for two days," Head of Quality Assurance Office, Prof. Dr. Kirbani Sri Brotopuspito said in the closing of the 11th AUN Actual Quality Assessment at UGM Senate Hall on Tuesday evening (21/6).
Kirbani mentioned a few things that were examined by the assessors of AUN in the process of quality assessment, such as goals, objectives and expectations of the impact of learning, program content, program specification, program organization, and the concept of didactic teaching strategies. In addition, students assessment, quality of faculties, quality of staff, student profiles, student guidance/assistance, facilities, quality assurance, student evaluation, curriculum design, staff development activities, stakeholder feedback, outcomes, and satisfaction of stakeholders were also assessed.
UGM Rector, Prof. Ir. Sudjarwadi, M. Eng., Ph.D., expressed appreciation and respect for the hard work of the assessors who had conducted the assessment. Actual Quality Assessment is expected to encourage quality improvement of study programs at UGM for the better. "We expect the combination of various formulas appear to improve the quality of study programs with a variety of experiences between universities, both at national and international environment," he said.
AUN Executive Director, Prof. Dr. Nantana Gajaseni, said that Actual Quality Assessment more improves the commitment of study program’s managers to do quality improvement, especially in terms of academic culture. "Improvement process of academic quality cannot be done statically but dynamically to share and grow together," she concluded.