Globalization in the 21st century has brought innumerable challenges and opportunities to universities and countries. Universities are primarily concerned with how to ensure the quality of their education and how to boost their local and global competitiveness. The pressure from both international competition and public accountability on…

What have we learned from 25 years of experience with external academic quality assurance that can help design more effective framework conditions for assuring academic standards? The key elements appear to be the structure and means of evaluating national academic quality assurance agencies, the nature of academic quality information mandated by…

For higher education reform, most decision-makers aspire to achieving a higher participation rate and a respectable degree of excellence with diversity at the same time. But very few know exactly how. External quality assurance is a fair basis for differentiation but there can be doubt and resistance in some quarters. Stakeholder interests differ…

When Dr. James Ammons took the helm of his alma mater, Florida A&M University (FAMU), he inherited a nationally recognized school facing numerous crises. Ammons, who served as provost of FAMU during its heyday in the 1990s, knew the school was mired in trouble with the state, having accumulated dozens of state auditor questions about its…

This paper gives an overview of the Indian technical education system with regard to both its quantitative and qualitative scenario and upholds the value of accreditation in quality improvement and quality assurance of educational programmes. The paper presents a comparison of accreditation systems being followed in some important countries,…

This paper reviews the achievements of the first cycle of undergraduate teaching evaluation at institutions of higher education in China. Existing problems are identified, and suggestions are made for corresponding reforms for improving the standard and quality of China's undergraduate teaching evaluation.

This study highlights the problems facing the inspectors of education as quality assurance agents and discusses ways of solving them in order to improve the quality of education in Nigerian schools. The study adopted a qualitative method to collect data from both federal and state inspectors of education in Edo State. Data was collected from the…

This paper examines quality assurance in Nigerian University education and credentialing. The research contends that university education in Nigeria which hitherto enjoyed tremendous global respectability and acceptability is fast loosing its high esteem in the face of labour market and members of community because the currently certified Nigerian…

There have been calls to increase the autonomy of higher education institutions in Europe for a number of years. They have been counterbalanced by demands for increasing accountability and a European quality assurance system. In London in 2007, the European ministers of education decided to implement a European register of accredited quality…

This article describes the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and how the Missouri School for the Blind has been using it to measure its organizational effectiveness by focusing on the future, managing by fact, and creating innovative solutions to meet the needs of students, families, staff, and other service providers. (Contains references.)…

Concern about the legitimate role of the government in evaluating higher education institutions has developed as a result of a 1985 Dutch proposal for decentralization that combines a formal national quality control system with increased institutional autonomy through self-regulation. The issues are outlined. (MSE)

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a controversial management award program seen variously as a catalyst for organizational transformation and as a destructive influence. The core values of the program, award criteria, concerns about its impact, and implications for education are examined. (MSE)

A new model for financing Spanish universities is examined, looking first at the changing context of higher education in Spain and then at the structure and objectives of the model. Salient features include increased institutional autonomy, standardization of service quality, linking of costs to constituencies, implicit and explicit incentives for…

Despite recent rejection of proposals for national reform of college accreditation, a well-established system of regional, voluntary self-regulation offers the best vehicle for correcting imbalance in educational quality assurance. The new Council for Higher Education Accreditation can help restore public faith in voluntary self-regulation by…

Results of a followup legislative review of the operation of the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry are summarized. An initial 1982 evaluation of the dental school revealed numerous deficiencies in financial and operational management. Among other things, the 1982 report concluded the the dental school, the third smallest in the United…