Towards a general model of quality assessment in higher education

In this article a number of elements of a general model of quality assessment in higher education are presented. On the one hand these elements are put in a historical context of quality assessment in Medieval universities and, on the other hand, deduced from the recent experiences with quality assessment in both North-American and Western European countries. With respect to the historical context a distinction is made between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education. Two types of quality assessment related to these values are also distinguished. Concerning the recent experiences with quality assessment systems, the practices in the U.S.A., Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are explored. In the final section the general mode of quality assessment is discussed in the context of the distinction between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education.