ABSTRACT
Quality is the level of excellence in performances that enables the objectives of teaching, research and direct community service and thus the mission to be achieved. The experience of developed countries in running quality assurance programmes and external quality audits for higher education is that there will be no lasting benefits unless certain conditions are met. Quality assurance also works best in an environment where the emphasis is on the positive rather than the negative. It is better to reward success rather than penalise failure because nothing succeeds like success and nothing damns like failure. The way that the Open University in England and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) work together in the latter's subject assessment exercise is a good example of co-operation between entrepreneurial and traditional universities. A very significant percentage of the HEFCE's assessors come from traditional universities, with initially not much understanding of the Open University's flexible learning programmes.
