Vocational education and training plays a major and increasing role in developing the knowledge and skills that underpin Australia's economy and society. It is vital, accordingly, that training outcomes are of high quality. This paper reports work undertaken to develop a new evidence-based and outcomes-focused national approach to monitoring and…

A framework is described to assist institutions in evaluating the extent to which activities described as "quality improvements" or "quality enhancements" are likely to directly improve the student experience. The framework classifies ways of improving the student experience into "coaching improvements",…

Using a new model of subject delivery, the University of New England (UNE--Armidale, Australia) offers specialist subjects at partner or host institutions. The model is a modified version of distance education. It is designed to meet the needs of on-campus students who wish to study a subject that their university is unable to offer as a full…

This article provides the background and describes the processes involved in establishing a national approach to benchmarking the way universities engage with their local and regional communities in Australia. Local and regional community engagement is a rapidly expanding activity in Australian public universities and is increasingly being seen as…

An experimental program at the University of Woollongong (Australia) identified a quality management framework, developed indicators of institutional performance, created a database for user-defined information needs, and provided access to information at all institutional levels. The project explored use of performance indicators and demonstrated…

School education in Australia is a complex interplay between federal and state governments, and between government and non-government schools. This article explores the supervision of schools in Australia through school accountability systems. Utilising publicly available documents a systematic analysis of the state and territory systems for…

Outlines strategies used by one Australian university for systematic quality improvement, including development of a quality management plan, devolution of responsibility for quality advancement to faculties and schools, and improving documentation of quality-assurance procedures and outcomes. Topics discussed include leadership, committees,…

This paper clarifies the problems of meaning and translation into practice of concepts of "quality" in higher education by examining a quality improvement program at Griffith University (Queensland, Australia). The paper notes that Australian government agencies have advanced a quality assurance (QA) approach concerned with the…

Teaching quality emerged as a significant issue in higher education during the 90s. This led to the implementation of numerous quality control, assurance and enhancement schemes as institutions attempted to stay abreast of demands from various stakeholders in a rapidly changing educational environment. More recently, with the establishment of the…

The author was employed as an inspector of education in Nigeria from 1973 to 1978, in what was a completely new system of national inspection. His experience as an inspector has given him a long term interest in educational administration, particularly in relation to the types of school inspection that different countries have in relation to their…

This is a report on the quality review of distance learning in a sample of five countries. The report was commissioned by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation's (CHEA's) International Commission in order to understand better the nature of existing regulatory arrangements in the context of growth in electronically supported learning and…