Quality on the Portuguese Public Institutions and the CAF model: empiric study on the University of Évora

Abstract

More and more Quality is seen as a competitive and distinguish factor between institutions. Institutions from Public Sector like Universities are no exception. It’s urgent to evaluate their quality. But we wonder how to evaluate them? Why is it important? The degrees, the courses, the services that support all the University,…What? To evaluate the quality of degrees/courses taught on a Higher Superior Institution it was approved legislation to make compulsory its evaluation. What about the structures that support all the life of a Higher Superior Institution? Shouldn’t their quality also be evaluated? What happens if, for instance, the Academic Services doesn’t work properly or collapse? This service is considered as essential and fundamental on Higher Education Institutions. The society is more and more demanding on professional terms. Therefore it is necessary to measure and evaluate that parameter in order to achieve Excellency throughout continuous improvement. Evaluation is part of managing since the creation of the world (Kardec, Arcuri e Cabral, 2002) and leads to the continuous search for Excellency. According to Vught e Westerheijden (1995), the motives for the necessity of evaluating the Higher Education Systems are the increase of public expenses, the expansion of higher superior systems, more transparency of processes, the increase of students’, teachers’ and researchers mobility. But evaluate is not enough it’s necessary to control the evaluated quality. The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a quality self-assessment tool developed in the European Union for public institutions. In Portugal, this model is named “Estrutura Comum de Avaliação” and is faced as a starting point for continuous improvement. The present Proposition to Apply the Model CAF is based on methodological instruments that “Direcção Geral da Administração e Emprego Público” (DGAEP) presents. The documents available consider a group of practical orientations already perfected and improved, regarding to experiences of public organizations to lead along Portuguese services and institutions that have already used CAF and benchmarking from other European countries, under the cooperation on European Union. The use of CAF will lead to a gradual improvement of the quality of the services and courses offered by the University of Évora, its administrative organisation, institutions’ image, the increase of collaborators and clients’ satisfaction and the capacity of intervention of the Executive and Top Managers. On this paper, is presented a brief description of the CAF, their evaluation criteria’s and its framing on national and European context. Following, an explanation of the CAF application process and the support tools for self-assessment. Finally it will be presented some final results obtained through the enquiries made to the undergraduate students and other type of clients of Academic Services. For each institution to know the weak and strong points, the threats and opportunities of a service, a degree, a course, etc. is a matter of survival. But to survive it’s not enough we must innovate and that is equal to quality. Quality must be evaluated and guaranteed by the parts involved in the process. With this research we would like to stimulate the use of a costless and easily manageable tool for selfassessment on public organizations like a University is.