What is quality assurance and why do we need it?
Quality assurance is an essential part of the assessment process. Any institution offering qualifications should regularly sample and evaluate its assessment practices and decisions, and act on the findings to ensure those practices are consistent and reliable. This process helps guarantee the quality assurance of regulated qualifications and customised awards, ensuring the validity of certificates.
Internal quality assurers (IQAs) are individuals appointed by a qualification centre to make sure the quality assurance process runs smoothly, ensuring accurate and consistent standards of assessment over time.
Centres are responsible for ensuring that their assessor and internal quality assurance staff:
- Are occupationally competent and/or knowledgeable as appropriate to the assessor or IQA role they are carrying out
- Have current experience of assessing/internal quality assuring as appropriate to the assessor or IQA role they are carrying out
- Have access to appropriate training and support
SFJ Awards and quality assurance
External quality assurance is an integral part of the SFJ Awards service. We appoint external quality assurers who regularly monitor centre compliance and report on the progress of any agreed actions for quality improvement.
Our external quality assurers (EQAs) act as our front-line staff in approved centres. We rely on the EQA team to maintain our stringent quality standards so that centres, learners and employers can feel confident that SFJ Awards qualifications are valued and credible.
Standardisation activities ensure that the assessment criteria for a qualification, unit or part of a unit are applied consistently. Standardisation is carried out internally within centres and externally across different centres. More information can be found in SFJ Awards’ Standardisation Policy.
For more information, guidance and supporting documents, please contact us.