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 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…

Students do not always feel that their ideas for improving educational quality are taken seriously. Student-staff partnerships may help take this feeling away. In such partnerships, students equally collaborate with staff and participate in shared decision-making and implementation processes for improving education. However, empirical research has…

Problem Statement: The new regulations for the last ten years in terms of educational inspection in the Ministry of National Education reveal the requirement of setting up a new inspection model that will focus on compliance with statutory regulations and improving the quality of education. In this context, this study is significant, assuming that…

Among pioneering European countries who started to establish a formal higher education quality assurance system in the 1980s, the Netherlands adopted one based on peer review and quality enhancement, which was replaced in 2003 by an accountability-oriented accreditation system under the substantial influence of the Bologna Process. Recently, the…

Inquiry-based working contributes to teacher professionalization and educational improvements. This article presents the key findings of a qualitative case study carried out in three primary schools in the Netherlands. That study focused on the inquiry-based working of school boards, school leaders and teachers, with the goal of better…

To this date, research on the interplay between organisational structure/managerial and organisational value/psychological elements which impact on educational quality is scarce and fragmented. As a consequence of a lack of knowledge in this area, institutions often address these elements in isolation, moving past integral approaches, which…

The Netherlands currently has 43 Islamic primary schools. Each is fully subsidised by the government. Yet since the first school was established in 1988 Islamic schools have been confronted with obstacles by the Ministry of Education, bad press and increasingly strict state supervision. Under pressure to improve their image, since 2008 Dutch…

The crisis in Europe constitutes a major test for the very pursuit of European integration and for its legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens. In this paper a number of striking economic aspects of the crisis will be discussed next to political tensions concerning sensitive issues. Given the decline in the support for the European integration…

Teachers are often assumed to have a negative attitude towards quality endeavours of their institutions and to hold defensive organisational values. However, there is little empirical research on this issue. This study focuses on teachers' conceptions of quality, on their preferred organisational values and on the relationships between the two. A…

In the context of a European knowledge economy, the Dutch non-university institutions systematically develop research activities at a higher frequency than before. With this development, they have been accused of academic drift, of striving to receive a status comparable to traditional universities. This study considers the perceptions of both…

Purpose: Elementary schools have been confronted with large-scale educational reforms as strategies to improve the educational quality. While building school-wide capacity for improvement is considered critical for changing teachers' classroom practices, there is still little empirical evidence for link between enhanced school capacity for…

"New" school inspections are essential parts of "evidence-based governance" concepts and have been implemented by many European countries as a major strategy to assure and improve the effectiveness and quality of their education systems. However, national inspection systems vary in their composition and in their contextual…

The development of assessments that are fit to assess professional competence in higher vocational education requires a reconsideration of assessment methods, quality criteria and (self)evaluation. This article examines the self-evaluations of nine courses of a large higher vocational education institute. Per course, 4-11 teachers and 3-10…