A Critical Analysis of Accountability in Higher Education Its Relevance to Evaluation of Higher Education

Accountability, which is closely related to evaluation of efficiency, effectiveness, andperformance, requires proving that higher education has achieved planned results andperformance in an effective manner Highlighting efficiency and effectiveness and emphasizing results and outcomes are the basic characteristics of accountability in higher education. Evaluating higher education is a major approach for implementing accountability as well as a basic means of assuring quality. Strengthening quality assurance by means of evaluations reflects a new culture of accountability in the higher education governance. The inherent complexity of the higher education process determines the difficulty of accountability and of measuring performance. In order to realize the objective of ensuring and improving quality and avoid unfavorable effects on institutional autonomy, China's higher education evaluation should absorb existing experiences, use helpful foreign experiences as reference, and initiate creative explorations.