It can be stated that for many years a solid (PDCA guided) quality assurance system has been in place that includes the major stakeholders, being students, staff, alumni, educational committee, assessment committee, industry, NVAO (The Netherlands Accreditation Organisation) and external sources such as NSE and Elsevier annual Best Studies overview. Based on the output of this system we conclude that the programme delivers a stable high level of quality. Actions taken to further improve were made on specific elements such as the thesis quality, process and grading. For the MBA, it is beneficial to have such an overarching Hotelschool The Hague system of quality assurance as a starting point and to still have the flexibility to adapt this to the needs of a small and specific programme like the MBA.

The option to collect and analyse course evaluation data quickly is necessary as most course evaluations bring valuable suggestions to the surface that can also be used in the courses that are still to come for this group of students. Due to the positive feedback of the MBA students, some of these Curriculum Extra activities have been on the programme for a number of years, e.g. the four sessions on academic writing, the sessions on innovative business models and trends, the six sessions on Revenue Management.

“The evaluation which we were asked to complete on each subject per Block, I found extremely valuable. I could voice my opinion and give constructive feedback on the quality of the lecturers and the course content. I experienced that the feedback was indeed considered, and what proved this to me as a student, was when I witnessed small improvements in the way lecturers presented the subject content to us, and the student lecturer feedback loop, which resulted in a more interactive class session.”
Anita van Tonder 2022

As part of ensuring that the student perspective is represented in the quality assurance cycle, the Education Committee features and earmarked a membership seat for a master student. As the master programmes covers one year, a new master student is elected at the beginning of every new academic year. The master programmes have also been actively represented in the Co-Determination Council (Dutch: Medezeggenschapsraad) through the master’s programme coordinator’s election into the council in 2019.

The quality assurance activities and improvements over the last 10 years have led to the situation wherein the quality of the MBA stabilised. The MBA team, for monitoring purposes, continues executing the PDCA cycle but the differences in results and outcomes are getting smaller every year and results can almost be predicted. This might be seen as a sign that the programme has matured over the years.