Lost in the Process: How Stakeholders View the Quality of Public Universities in Croatia?

Abstract

Outcome-based education is becoming relevant
discourse in evaluating the quality of study programmes
through the European Commission Policies. Using an
analysis of the evaluation indicators that point to the
desired concept of quality, this research provides a
deeper insight into the expectations that the major
stakeholders (government, academia and agencies) in
the Croatian higher education system have from public
universities and whether these institutions are output-
-oriented, which is stated as an objective in the European,
and also in the Croatian context. The perception of
quality that stakeholders imply by measuring the
academic performance of public universities for different
purposes is analysed by means of characteristics of
indicators in the input-process-output matrix. The results
show that the overall quality is largely based on
measuring the quality of processes at higher education
institutions, then on inputs and very little on outputs.
According to the importance of indicators, teacher
and student mobility are categories evaluated in the
documents of all stakeholders. Lastly, this study
contributes to the consideration and evaluation
of the quality of public universities at the national
level and their compatibility with international
perspectives.