Quality culture of a faculty in a Vietnamese university

Abstract

Building a quality culture in each institution has been encouraged by the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) along with the introduction of new approach to higher education, quality assurance and accreditation nearly 15 years ago. This article attempts to report one case of a multiple case study research that examines quality culture in Vietnamese higher education. Data collection methods include documentation and in-depth interviews with three groups of participants: academic leaders, academics, and quality assurance (QA) staff. Data were analysed for patterns and themes. Fourteen participants from a university volunteered to take part in this research. The findings show that the faculty under investigation traditionally assured higher education quality under a centralist mechanism. As a result, it has limited autonomy and compliant accountability of limited bottom-up engagement with decision-making processes. The faculty was found to have characteristics of a reactive quality culture.