This study was conducted to examine the practices, challenges, and prospects of using accreditation, external quality audit, and internal quality assurance as major components of the quality assurance (QA) regime in the Ethiopian higher education sector. The research used documentary evidence and interview as principal means of investigation. The…

What happens when neoliberalism as a structural and structuring force is taken up within institutions of higher education, and works upon academics in higher education individually? Employing a critical authoethnographic approach, this paper explores the way technologies of research performance management, specifically, work to produce academics…

Bicultural educational policy is part of a much broader ensemble of bicultural policies that were first developed by the Fourth Labour Government elected in 1984. These policies were an acknowledgement of, and response to, the historical injustices suffered by Maori people as a consequence of colonisation. Bicultural education policy is thought to…

Since 2009, the Swedish Government uses an "audit" agency--the Swedish Schools Inspectorate--to monitor and assess the accuracy with which teachers grade student responses on national tests. This study explores the introduction and subsequent establishment of the Inspectorate's regrading programme as an example of political management of…

In this article, the focus is on educational governing in the making. Drawing on conceptual underpinnings of socio-technical approaches, this implies an interest both on the way in which a sound knowledge base for policy measures is created, as on the distribution of that knowledge through publically available instruments. Governing by evidence…

This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate's media strategy, how inspection is represented…

Education is dangerous. Authoritarian governments and religions have persistently tried to control the content of education and ration its distribution. In the colonial world, education was always a site of struggle as the colonizing powers sought control and modernization, and the colonized sought some balance between protecting local cultures…

This paper examines the perverse effects of the new accountability regime central to the Labor government's national reform agenda in schooling. The focus is on National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results that now act as "catalyst data" and are pivotal to school and system accountability. We offer a case study,…

This article is subdivided into three closely linked parts. It initially starts with a description of the background and objectives of the Textbook Delivery Program (TDP). This is followed by an analysis of the factors of implementation on the basis of the field notes gathered during the inquiry. An analysis of the impact of these factors on…

This paper examines Australian policy on quality for early childhood education and care (ECEC). It investigates the existing national quality assurance system, Quality Improvement and Accreditation System (QIAS) and its application in childcare centres. However, Australia's recently elected federal government has shown enormous interest in…

There is a growing literature discussing the experiences and identities of academics working within the "new times" of contemporary academia. Critiques have been levied at the impact of neoliberalism on the nature, organisation and purpose of higher education (HE), highlighting the negative consequences for "traditional" academic identities and…

This paper investigates how Australian universities are being disciplined to behave as commercial enterprises by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). The manual produced by AUQA, for the purpose of conducting audits of Australian universities, is analysed. I use an analytical framework that provides a means by which a text from the…

Ties the emergence of turbo-capitalism to concerns about governments' legitimacy and the wholesale auditing of public institutions. Criticizes hastily contrived auditing procedures for their irrelevance, narrowly focused financial criteria, and a blame-oriented view of accountability. Traditional policy values are being eclipsed by consumer…