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Ancora Imparo

20 April 2005

Monash University is to undergo an academic audit in 2006 by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). AUQA is an independent national body established by the Ministerial Council on Education, Training and Youth Affairs in 2000. It operates independently under a board of directors and receives funding from the Commonwealth and states.

AUQA is charged, among other responsibilities, with conducting academic quality audits of self-accrediting higher education institutions on a five-year cycle and providing public reports on these audits. The auditors come from a panel of experts with substantial senior academic and administrative experience in higher education in Australia or overseas. The audit is based on the university's self-review and assesses the university against its own missions and objectives. AUQA seeks to support diversity in the higher education system rather than requiring all universities to conform to the same set of objectives.

Clearly, this audit will be an important event for Monash just as it has been for the 24 universities audited to date. The audit process is extensive and demanding, but it is essential that we use it as a constructive method of ensuring that we have our quality assurance and improvement processes in place in the way that we find most useful.

Everything we do to prepare for the audit should be directed towards ensuring we achieve our objectives in education and research. Monash has set itself an ambitious agenda in Monash Directions 2025, and if we are really to become one of the best universities in the world and if we are to thrive in a highly competitive environment as an international, research-led and campus-based university, we will have to ensure that our education and research is of the highest quality.

We must constantly seek to set meaningful processes in place to improve our performance and evaluate how we are progressing against international best practice. We do not want to do things just to satisfy an AUQA audit, nor do we want to become ritualistic and formulaic – we want to do things that will result in improvement and really make a difference.

I believe that we will be well-placed to receive the audit. Under the leadership of our pro vice-chancellor (Quality) Professor Graham Webb who, along with the senior deputy vice-chancellor, Professor Stephen Parker, has extensive experience in AUQA audits, we are making sure that we prepare ourselves meticulously for the audit. Ms Robyn Harris has recently been recruited from AUQA to the position of quality adviser in the Centre for Higher Education Quality and will have a primary role in preparing for the audit. Details of the audit are available at www.adm.monash.edu/cheq/audit/index.html and there will be opportunities for staff and students to be involved in preparing for the audit.

We regard the audit as a positive exercise and one we will use as an important staging post in ensuring that everything we do is of the highest quality.

-- Professor Richard Larkins AO vice-chancellor