University Actors Responding to the National Quality Assurance Regime for Higher Education in Malawi: A Case of Instrumentality, Pragmatism and Symbolic Compliance

ABSTRACT The literature shows that the question of how to integrate quality assurance into higher education institutions is associated with several obstacles including non‐support from university actors. This study explored the university actors' response to the recently implemented external quality assurance and accreditation regime for higher education in Malawi. The findings showed that university actors respond to external quality assurance in divergent ways, mainly characterised by formal instrumentality, professional pragmatism and symbolic compliance. This meant that it would be naïve for external quality assurance agencies to assume that when university actors participate in external accreditation processes, it means that they embrace external quality assurance as a mechanism for enhancing quality. The implication was that national policy makers and quality assurance agencies should not consider university actors as ‘passive recipients’ that mutely accept quality assurance reforms, but rather seriously attend to them as both ‘makers’ and ‘shapers’ of policy in order to develop quality assurance systems that can be genuinely embraced. The study contributes to research that take a critical perspective in interpreting university personnel response to quality assurance.