Abstract:
Student-involvement in higher-education is necessary for quality-assurance outcomes, yet such involvement also
threatens attainment of quality assured, presenting the paradox of higher-education (HE) systems. With the massification of
enrolment-figures across the HE sector has been the need to balance HEI and student-centred perspectives. The notion of students
as co-producers, consumers, and products of HEI processes creates discord in the quality assurance arena. Contradictory problems
manifest when the producer must satisfy the consumer and audit quality of the products, yet students are all of these. This article
explored the extent to which student-involvement fosters quality as well as sets parameters beyond which such participation cannot
be done without compromising quality-assurance and desired academic-success. The artile drew a line for student-involvement and
quality- assurance as double-barreled and sometimes paradoxical, contradictory pursuits. Data elicited from two HEIs in Zimbabwe
using the questionnaire method and analysed using Microsoft Excel package generated descriptive frequencies and related graphs
and charts to present findings. Documents were analysed using thematic content analysis to glean for relevant secondary data.
Student-involvement is marred by unclear parameters at the three confluences of ‘students as co-producers’; ‘students as
consumers’; and ‘students as products’ of HEI quality-assurance processes students should participate in, consume, and be products
of. Derolling is thus necessary for students to function in various capacities as as co-producers, consumers, or as products. Students
as ‘co-producers’ cannot be expected to produce themselves through ‘students as products’, neither can they be ‘consumers’
themselves while being the ‘product’ to be consumed by industry and communities through employment and innovation. The
National Assembly should address contradictions through amending HEI-establishing Acts to cede policy making powers to the
University Councilsacting jointly with senior management of universities. As co-producers, students involvement should be
unlimited at governance levels (by different HEI students) while as consumers (within particular HEIs), student involvement should
be limited to lower rungs at consumer level to avoid contradictions that potentially compromise quality. As HEI products, students
should be limited to Alumni activities as main function should clearly differentiate among the various roles when crafting HEI
policies that foster student involvement.
