Accreditation can serve as an accountability mechanism for higher education, ensuring institutions meet specific standards, which can be impacted by various factors including the regulatory environment of each country or local jurisdiction as well as an institution's mission, enrollment, and student success trends. In addition, higher education…

Taking the students' perspective, Education Policy Outlook 2018: Putting Student Learning at the Centre analyses the evolution of key education priorities and key education policies in 43 education systems. It compares more recent developments in education policy ecosystems (mainly between 2015 and 2017) with various education policies adopted…

An approach to quality in college instruction at a French technical institute, based on the industrial model of quality assurance, is outlined, and four separate initiatives are described. They include a group organized to implement the approach in a civil engineering department, undergraduate curriculum reform, redefinition of objectives in…

This article presents two reports on the interviews with school principals in Belgium and France. The first report presents the results of interviews with 5 Flemish secondary school leaders. The purpose of the investigation was to gain an explorative insight of their use of and their remarks on the recent initiated systems to provide schools with…

These two papers look at international aspects of quality in higher education from contrasting perspectives. The first paper, "Higher Education Quality: A European Dimension" by John Brennan asks whether there is a distinctive European dimension to quality in higher education and, if so, what are its implications for British institutions…

This conference proceedings presents 17 papers which examine quality assurance and evaluation in higher education, including methodologies, procedures, and ideas from various nations. The papers include: (1) "Quality Assurance in Higher Education" (Malcolm Frazer); (2) "Academic Standards Panels in Australia" (Kwong Lee Dow);…

A 1976-78 Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, Centre of Educational Research and Innovation, Sparsely-Populated Areas project produced 14 case studies from 11 member countries. Fifteen basic conclusions of international relevance were identified. Conclusions were as follows: there is no single definition of rural or sparsely…

This bulletin contains assessments of visits by three comparative monitoring groups to European experiments in adult education, including programs in Portugal and Italy; Sweden, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany and France; and Turkey and Norway. The bulletin also examines a parallel program involving the co-production of multimedia…

Those involved in early childhood development must recognize that many of their most cherished beliefs about what is best for children are cultural constructions. This book focuses on quality in large-scale programs for disadvantaged young children in a variety of cultural settings. Chapter 1, "Changing Childhoods," discusses issues…

This report summarizes responses to a public opinion survey designed to reveal attitudes towards secondary education in other countries and compares these with attitudes in the United States. The survey was conducted in the United States and 11 other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED). The other…

The history of (external) quality assurance schemes in European higher education since ca. 1980 is sketched in this article. The three pioneering countries in Western Europe are taken as models of different developments and contrasted with the rise of accreditation in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989. Using theoretical insights, the dynamics…