Quality Assurance in Designing Based Architectural Education and Its Holistic Assessment in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Architectural education is a distinctive form of teaching and learning that spans over art, science and social sciences. It is the qualification that enables designers to contribute in built environment and work for the betterment of the community by enhancing the quality of life through the built environment. In the process of making a professional architect is a complex process that involves a major portion of subjective teaching and learning. The individual interpretations and cognitive work further make the architectural education unique and complex. Quality assurance is a very popular concept in higher education as it is identified as a crucial component in making well qualified professionals to the world beyond the universities. Adaptation of quality assurance scheme that is responsive to the authentic nature of architectural education is slightly touched in the field of research in architectural education. Therefore, the study aimed to develop a framework bridging the gap between general quality assurance frameworks and architectural education. Further the study details few issues and concerns of typical architectural education when referred with quality assurance that can be used in positive modification to fundamental objectives of architectural education. These will enable to enhance the quality of architectural education in the modernity by comprehensively addressing the needs of contemporary construction industry.