Despite a global commitment to guarantee access to and participation in high-quality education for all, the acceptance of marginalised pupils into mainstream education and changing policies and practices to support the aim are still contested challenges. This article discusses how inclusive education policy is understood and applied by pedagogues…

This study focuses on the state and effectiveness of national funding systems of Higher Education to support the European Universities Initiative. Its focus lies on the mechanisms employed by Member States for the core funding of higher education institutions, in particular the mechanisms that include performance elements. More specifically, the…

Practice-oriented educational research is increasingly gaining traction in educational research due to its intention to contribute to both educational research and educational practice. Educational researchers have established quality concerns that practice-oriented educational research should meet in order to realise this intention. We argue that…

In the past 15 years, the number of international students in tertiary education doubled to reach 5.6 million students in 2018 and is expected to grow to 6.9 million in 2030 (Choudaha and Van Rest, 2018). In the Netherlands, the percentage of international degree seeking students is relatively high and growing fast from 4% in 2010 to more than 10%…

Comparative education scholars are often sceptical of teaching effectiveness research that compares 'teaching quality' using systematic classroom observation systems across nations. This article investigates how three international observation systems designed for comparative use, and studies that apply them, attend to three concerns intrinsic to…

The present study examined how in the context of the hybrid, privatized and marketized Dutch early education and care system (ECEC), childcare organizations respond to the public task of supporting inclusion and equity in an increasingly diverse society. Applying cluster analysis on the organizational characteristics of a nationally representative…

There is considerable rhetoric internationally around the need for national curricula to reflect the changes that are taking place in the world outside school. This raises questions about what a quality curriculum in a technological era should look like, and equally challenging issues about how to achieve the necessary changes in schooling in…

Having found that excellence education in Dutch higher education institutions can function as a testing ground for educational innovations, we ask the questions: Are 'excellence education' teaching methods diffused towards courses in regular study programmes? Are organisational structures affected? And are there noticeable external effects? And…

Students form expectations and perceptions about assessment quality, and they experience the consequences of inferior assessment quality. These expectations and perceptions influence how students use assessment and the information it provides in educational practice. Unfortunately, little is known about students' expectations and perceptions of…

This article is a commentary on the seven articles in this special issue of EJTE on teacher quality from international perspectives. In the article, Marilyn Cochran-Smith points to differences as well as common themes and details across the articles in the issue. The article discusses the emergence of teacher quality as a global concern, including…

Increasing attention devoted to internationalisation and quality assurance of higher education reinforced the need to analyse their interdependent relationship, known as quality assurance of internationalisation and internationalisation of quality assurance in higher education. On this basis, the present article exposes the development and…

Test-based accountability or 'TBA,' as a core element of the pervasive Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), has become a central characteristic of education systems around the world. TBA often comes in conjunction with greater school autonomy, enabling governments to assess 'school quality' (i.e. test results) from a distance. Often, quality…

Little is known about how the complex notion of higher education quality is understood and (strategically) handled by a specific group of key university actors: directors of educational programmes. A framing analysis of in-depth interviews was conducted to explore how bachelor-programme directors in Dutch social science departments understand and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of perceived problem quality in the relationship between students' (N = 226) achievement goals and autonomous motivation to study in a problem-based learning (PBL) environment. Specifically, the relationships between students' achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach,…

The principle-based approach is at the heart of the inspection philosophy of the Netherlands Inspectorate of Education. In this paper, we present the results of complementary qualitative and quantitative studies analysing the impact of this approach. In the first study, we apply a system dynamics approach to provide insight on the impact of the…