As these words are typed, an official from the National University of Lesotho is carrying piles of examination scripts into my study. They have been ferried here so that a third party can cast an eye over them. This is thankless work — tedious, and poorly paid. Nevertheless, academics do this work, known as external examining, because it is in our long-term interest to build and maintain standards, which are pretty good in Lesotho by the way. In business talk, external examining is a form of “quality control”; in academic language, it is known as quality assurance — QA for short.

Evolved way beyond the external examination, which is still regarded as essential but a bit primitive, QA nowadays is thought to be essential in strengthening the quality of higher education and bringing universities to account for public expenditure. Recognising its value, some universities have established units dedicated to perfecting QA. As a result, quality assurance has a decidedly professional look, which is enhanced by the number of academics who increasingly devote themselves to fulfilling its purpose.

National responsibility for QA falls to the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC), a statutory body mandated to probe the university sector and seek ways in which the quality of teaching, research and community outreach — the three traditional university functions — can be improved.

The HEQC is also responsible for the accreditation of higher education programmes.

But, and this is crucial in SA, the HEQC also pays attention to transformation. Without equal opportunity in higher education, the theory runs, SA cannot deliver the graduates necessary to grow the economy and deepen the processes of democracy and governance.

These are all difficult issues but the HEQC’s record — and its professionalism — are impressive. To date it has conducted audits into 11 of SA’s universities and seven private providers of higher education. Anybody associated with these will attest they are thorough and demanding.

So, the institutional audit of the University of Pretoria, a fortnight ago, enjoyed the attention of 10 auditors, and two professionals from the HEQC’s staff — this team was supported by ancillary staff.

An audit is always le d by a senior academic: in Pretoria’s case it was Albert van Jaarsveld, formerly the dean of science at Stellenbosch, and now the vice-president of the National Research Foundation.

The auditors themselves are experienced academics drawn from other universities or from the research community. (The principle of peer review, which guides all serious academic work, plays a decisive role in the HEQC work.) One of the auditors is always a non-South African — a senior Australian academic was flown in for the Pretoria audit.

For the institution involved, audits are not an easy experience: they can be a logistical nightmare and are time-consuming. For its part, the HEQC needs nimble footwork because each university has a unique culture, each operates in a different environment, each presents distinctive — and often very immediate — challenges to the audit team.

This glimpse into the development of QA in SA offers a counter to recent claims that South African qualifications — two doctorates in particular, Chippy Shaik’s and Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s — have fallen short of the required standards.

Let’s be very clear about these immediate allegations — they must be taken very seriously.

Happily there is already evidence of official disquiet.

In her recent budget speech, Education Minister Naledi Pandor pointed out that “unscholarly practices … do not enhance the profile of the sector”. Every professional in South African higher education will endorse this view. They will certainly look for action from the universities involved.

But there is a linked issue that must be put into perspective. Very often, aspersions on higher education in SA are cast within the narrative of decline, which, regrettably, attends much of our national debate.

The facts of this matter, however, as the work of the HEQC illustrates, point in the other direction. Concern for the quality of South African higher education has deepened, not weakened, in the past 15 years.

Indeed, QA may be the only stable feature of a sector that has been buffeted by the fashions set by macroeconomic debates.

As a result, South African higher education has experienced a torrid time these 15 years past. Early talk of “massification” — drawing more students into universities — soon gave way to a series of further Ms: markets, managerialism and mergers.

The first followed the appeal of globalisation — universities, it was argued, should serve only markets. And it was a sometime vice-principal of Rhodes University Mike Smout who pointed to the allure of the second M — managerialism: “Universities may not be business, but they need to become more businesslike.”

Give that open debate is essential in universities, it was to be expected — and should indeed be applauded — that these positions were hotly contested and often fiercely resisted on SA’s campuses.

Conflicts around them are still not settled and, as approaches to running universities, they will continue to simmer, in one form or the other, until it is clear what opportunities lie beyond the narrow policy remedy offered by neoliberalism.

Many believe, however, that universities were chiefly threatened by the third M — the 2002 mergers, which were decided by ministerial fiat. These mergers have not been easy to implement.

But, as Pandor also noted in her budget speech, earmarked funding will smooth the path towards what she called a “single shared identity” in these institutions.

Here, it seems, QA plays a positive role. The requirements and the procedures to be followed as a university builds towards an institutional audit have helped antagonistic parties to draw together in common cause.

But audits are not universally applauded. They are seen to clutter an already untidy and crowded university agenda and are said to drain budgets at a time when these are under pressure.

Audits are also poorly understood by the public. The declinist view has fed a belief that any university under audit must be in crisis, without realising that the national audit cycle is scheduled to run until 2009.

With its multiple goals — maintaining standards, seeking accountability and promoting transformation — QA has taken on an enormous task in SA.

Like the messy business of external examining, it is no perfect science — it can never be. But the prominence given to QA — and the professionalism with which it is being pursued — does challenge those who all too readily argue that higher education in SA is not concerned with its quality.

n Vale is Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics at Rhodes University. He participated in the audit of the University of Stellenbosch in 2005 and has recently facilitated a workshop of QA specialists under the auspices of Higher Education South Africa.

With acknowledgements to Peter Vale and Business Day.