One of the demands of Council on Higher Education (CHE) on Higher Education Institutions (HEI) is the development of policies, systems, procedures and strategies for the quality management of core functions of teaching and learning. This quality management entails several elements of institutional planning and action to address issues of quality. Among these are quality assurance, quality support, development, enhancement and monitoring. The CHE has since established a Quality Assurance Framework to give guidance to HEI. The framework focuses mainly on teaching and learning practices; and students’ experiences of such practice. The main responsibility of HEIs is therefore to assure the internal quality of among other things teaching and learning; and educational experiences of their students. To achieve these, HEIs are expected to have properly established internal quality assurance systems.

While everyone agrees that quality teaching is important, not all stakeholders in institutions of Higher Learning consider it a priority, understand and recognise what it is or are willing to play a role in ensuring it is a standard practice in their institution. This is despite the strong belief that institutions of higher learning play an important role in driving quality education.

While the mandate from CHE to HEIs about internal quality management is clear, CHE Institutional audit reports normally lack details of the quality management systems of individual institutions. There is also limited research about individual HEI practices in South Africa. Therefore this current study is aimed at investigating internal quality assurance practices at the universities in South Africa.

This study is a qualitative case study which is descriptive and interpretive in nature. It is a case of one university in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The data collection was through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The participants were university 2 Quality Assurance Officers, 2 Faculty officers and 5 Lecturers teaching in different schools with the Faculty. The participants were purposely chosen. The documents meant to give guidance regarding teaching and learning practices formed part of data.

Teaching Practices:
The university has measures in place to promote quality teaching. One of such measure is the allocation new staff members to experienced colleagues who are meant to assist with good teaching practices. There is also peer and student evaluations which are meant to inform teaching. However, it was found that these are not mandatory and only done for promotion purposes in many instances. This means students experiences and perspectives are hardly considered when improving the quality of teaching; and learning materials.

Assessment Practices:
The university has a process in place which is meant to enhance the credibility and fairness of assessments. The university is also promoting different assessment methods that are likely to accommodate student diversity. However, such measures are mostly applied to examinations. Even with such measures, it was found out that at times lecturers change learning outcomes from those approved by the university structures to align to their research. This is done without following appropriate channels. This is likely to lead to students not achieving the approved exit learning outcomes.

Keywords: Quality assurance, Teaching Practices, Assessment Practices.