TAFE NSW, in its commitment to delivering exceptional educational experiences, has embarked on an innovative journey to redefine quality through the development of an integrated Educational Quality Framework (EQF) and Self-Assurance Model (SAM). This represents a shift in TAFE NSW’s approach, emphasising quality for innovation and growth. The Educational Quality Framework (EQF) is aligned to both the Draft Revised RTO Standards 2023 and the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021, and the Self-Assurance Model (SAM) aims to shift the focus to continuous improvement. The EQF defines quality in five critical educational areas and the SAM closely monitors the EQF quality areas, identifying good practice, gaps and associated risks. This monitoring and review provide TAFE NSW with measurable data and evidence to make informed decisions and quality improvements.
Key to these activities is robust governance, which ensures evidence-based self-assurance practices by setting clear objectives and KPIs, competent decision-making, oversight and defining accountability. To enable this, an Education Self-Assurance Committee (ESAC) was added to the broader organisation governance framework, further reinforcing self-assurance into daily operations. The goal of the ESAC is to deal with the detailed work of monitoring and reviewing activities to meet educational quality performance indicators and outcomes, escalating risks and reporting on activities that assure good practice, and that the organisation is meeting its regulatory requirements.
This workshop will outline the steps involved in establishing the ESAC, including Terms of Reference (ToR), mapping functions and reporting to members. It will include activities to engage participants in the reporting schedule and annual work plan of the committee, as an interactive case study of implementing self-assurance mechanisms in a large educational provider. Using these examples, participants will have the opportunity to create similar documents relevant to their organisational context, and discuss the opportunities and challenges with this approach.