Education system is the basis of successful development not only of a person but of a country. It means that education is a necessary investment into the future. Still, standards of education change rapidly, because society and its requirements change as well. That is why the task of admitting profitable system of benchmark for this or that subject s the key task in the essential aspect (Griffin, 2006: 93).The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) is the organization which defines and adopts academic standards of the UK education system. Its task is to review all universities and colleges of the country, publish reports about quality of education, provide guidelines for particular sphere and subjects of graduate and undergraduate education, offer governments changes which should be introduced into this or that sphere of education, engage beneficial international relationships in the sphere of education, etc. The QAA is responsible for introducing of benchmarks for all undergraduate courses of the United Kingdom (Jackson, 2001: 18).
According to the General Business Management Benchmark which was introduced by the QAA there are two graduate achievements: threshold and typical. Both threshold and typical achievements are based on national educational norms. Still, each of the achievement types has its own peculiarity (Comfort, 2008). The threshold achievements in the sphere of General Business Management apply to the minimum which should be achieved by all honors graduates (Smith, 1999: 53). As for typical ones, they describe achievements which are gained by the majority of students. In the General Business Management Benchmark provided by the QAA one can find description of the factors which have been selected as the basis for differentiation between these two categories of education, threshold and typical achievements. There are six of them: application and integration of knowledge, intellectual skills, interpersonal skills, learning skills, ability to deal with unknown or complicated spheres, such skills as evaluation, reflection originality, creativity, etc (Charleston,2006: 32).
Correspondingly, there are two standards described in the General Business Management Benchmark: typical and threshold. The QAA gives a detailed description of the threshold standard (Kipper, 2009). The QAA defines that students who graduate with an honor degree in General Business Management should have such achievements as knowledge and understanding of the main areas of business and management, all-round competence on the sphere of education, critical view at the sphere of management and business (Brown, 2009: 18).
As for typical standards by the end of the General Business Management course students should have broad knowledge of the area of business and management, competence in the sphere of management and business, independent view on the system of management and business, and, what is more important, enhanced capacity to develop and apply their own perspectives to their studies (Jeffry, 2005: 29). The last factor is the key one in the aspect of differentiation between threshold and typical standards. Still, the benchmark by the QAA does not provide with detailed description of what is meant under the last factor of typical standards and in what way it is different from threshold standards (Parker, 2007: 48).
The Russell Group, which represents twenty leading universities of the United Kingdom, relies on the standards and benchmarks which are provided by the QAA (Attwood, 2007: 190). I am doing a survey of lecturers in the sphere of General Business Management, and it is obvious that standards as well as benchmark information and content should be updated, because the recent standard of higher education in the sphere of business and management refers to the 2007 year.
References
Attwood, N. (2007) Benchmarking in Services, Copenhagen: Kurt Bauknecht.
Brown, E. (2009) Strategic Knowledge Management Technology, New York: Milton.
Charleston, P. (2006) Best Practice Benchmarking: a Management Guide, Washington: Addison-Wesley.
Comfort, M. (2008) The Value Management Benchmark: Research Results of an International Benchmarking Study, California: DIANE Publishing.
Griffin, M. (2006) Business Process Management, Stoke on Trent: Staffordshire University Press.
Jackson, R. (2001) International Environmental Management Benchmarks, New York: Springer.
Jeffry, P. (2005) The Law of Electronic Commerce, Glasgow: Aspen Publishers.
Kipper, T. (2009) “Designing and Executing Strategy in Management”, Journal of Economic, 2, 5: 54-86.
Parker, B. (2007) Learning by Example: Imitation and Innovation, London: Peterson Institute.
Smith, N. (1999) “Business Benchmark”, Journal of Business, 1, 1: 43-65.