Designing key performance indicators for higher education programs in engineering and technology

Abstract

Higher education plays a crucial role in the economic and social development. In order to fulfill its role, mission, and vision, as well as enhance competitive advantages in the global integration context, universities have to put quality as the top priority. Recently, many universities nationwide have been developing quality assurance system, conducting self assessment, and pursuing accreditation in both program and institutional levels. This process aims at developing suitable action plan for quality improvement based on determined strengths and weaknesses. However, this process requires a huge effort to collect and analyze data. In order to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency, the key performance indicators (KPIs) are proposed to evaluate the quality of higher education programs in many aspects. Those KPIs can be considered as a set of statistical measures of how higher education programs are performing. This paper, therefore, provides some general definitions and proposes some KPIs in order to measure the quality of higher education programs in engineering and technology. However, findings of this study can be used as references for other programs.