AQF Must Support a Baseline for Quality

 

It is vital that the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) is able to effectively sustain the national and international reputation of Australian degrees.  As the current cycle of consultation on the revised AQF framework draws to a conclusion, CAPA has released a brief statement in support of the quality of Australian postgraduate degrees.

The importance of teaching and assessment practices

Students often rely on an estimation of the teaching and assessment practices associated with a course to judge the relative merits of undertaking a particular degree.  While degree programs are usefully described in terms of learning outcomes at levels 1 through 7 in the revised AQF framework, justifying distinctions between courses at level 8 and above become more difficult without reference to the teaching and assessment practices associated with each degree.

Bachelor Degrees

Quality bachelor degrees provide a vital foundation for further study, but should also be challenging and rewarding in their own right.  Bachelor degrees should be deemed so regardless of the means or requirements for entry or on their expected graduate outcomes.  This means that graduate entry bachelors degrees, where their teaching and assessment are substantially the same as undergraduate degrees, should remain as a bachelor degree (described as level 7 in the proposed AQF framework).

Honours, Graduate Certificate and Graduate Diploma

The identification of honours degrees alongside graduate certificates and graduate diplomas as distinct qualifications at level 8 is a positive step.  There are many high quality graduate certificate and diploma courses in Australia, and honours degrees in particular perform an important role in supporting research training and the development of disciplinary expertise through advanced coursework.

Masters Degrees

Graduate outcomes for masters degrees include both research training and professional specialisation.  Their place in the framework should be determined by the teaching and assessment practices in support of those outcomes.  Importantly, masters students are entitled to something substantially different in addition to that available at bachelor level degrees.  A bachelor degree that is simply repackaged and rebadged should not qualify as a level 9 qualification under the proposed framework.

Doctoral Degrees

CAPA is unequivocal in affirming that a significant, original contribution to knowledge through research is the fundamental defining characteristic of a doctorate.  The requirements for a research doctorate in Australia are clearly described in the Framework for Best Practice in Doctoral Research Education in Australia, provided by the Council of Australian Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies.[a]  The high standing of Australian doctoral degrees internationally should not be compromised by significant variation on these requirements, or by the misuse of terms.

The need for reform of Coursework Doctorates

Currently coursework doctorate students are disadvantaged by the increasingly ambiguous status of these degrees, and by the lack of support they receive in attempting to complete what are usually very challenging and demanding programs.

Where they meet or exceed the independent research criteria required of research doctorates[b], professional doctorates should also be deemed as a level 10 degree.  To this extent students enrolled in these programs should also be entitled to the same resources and support available to research doctoral candidates, including minimum resources for study, access to scholarships and access to an RTS funded place.

Where coursework doctorates do not meet the independent research criteria typical of research doctorates, they should simply be deemed equivalent to a masters degree, and classified as a level 9 qualification accordingly.  Students enrolled in these courses should also in turn be given the same access to student income support as those enrolled in coursework masters degrees.

Titling and professional accreditation

It must be emphasised that the role of a qualifications framework like the AQF is to support comparability and to sustain the reputation of Australian degrees nationally and internationally.  It should exist primarily for academic purposes, and vocational purposes to the extent that students, employers and professional groups benefit from some assurance as to what’s actually on offer in a degree program.

A framework like the AQF should not, however, simply serve a descriptive function in terms of market trends for degrees, nor for the accreditation requirements or nomenclature of professional bodies.  It should be noted however that the liberal use of the “Doctor of..” honorific to any degree outside of that meeting or exceeding the assessment requirements of a research doctorate poses a serious risk to the international reputation of Australian degrees.


“It is important to sustain the quality of Australian degree programs, and the reputation of Australian qualifications internationally.  If there is to be, in effect, a typology of degrees in the form of a qualifications framework, then it should at least in general terms describe the various types of degree.  We believe that bachelors, masters and doctorates are clearly different types of degree.  Blurring the boundaries between these degree levels will only erode the international reputation of Australian degrees” CAPA President, Tammi Jonas concluded.


[a] Available at www.ddogs.edu.au/download/207271667.

[b] As outlined in the Framework for Best Practice in Doctoral Research Education in Australia, Council of Australian Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (2008) available at www.ddogs.edu.au/download/207271667