American public higher education systems include the largest and most impactful colleges and universities in the nation, including 75 percent of the nation's public sector students. While their impact is enormous, they are largely neglected as an area of study and underutilized as an instrument for the improvement of postsecondary outcomes.…

A national qualifications framework (NQF) is an instrument used to classify a country's qualifications at different levels. Each level is defined by a set of learning outcomes expected at that level. NQFs can be useful tools in education and training reforms and are vital reference points for lifelong learning and comparing qualifications across…

The "Global Inventory of Regional and National Qualifications Frameworks," the result of collaborative work between the European Training Foundation (ETF), the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] and UIL [UNESCO Institute for…

Traditionally, the Nordic curriculum has been viewed as a document with school subjects in focus. This article reports on how two national curricula function as instruments for governing education and explores the possible differences in how national curricula govern education. This investigation was carried out by researching curricula for…

School reform is achieved through the collaboration and coordination among educators with the mutual goal of improved learning for all students. Given the complexity within and among educational systems, the need to develop and implement a common framework of school reform based upon mutually agreed-upon goals, standards, outcomes, and…

Rather than purporting to be a definitive study in data gathering techniques for federal and state regulatory agencies, this paper is a systems approach for gathering data for affirmative action utilization availability analysis and for setting goals and time tables at a large university. The system is essentially for a large university setting…

A General Policy Systems Theory is outlined and its application at a university in regard to governance in the face of retrenchment is described. The way that this model of nonrigorous but holistic research supports the Purpose, Target, Results (PTR) strategy and is in turn more useful than either operations research/management or science/systems…

The evolution of cadre (political elite and bureaucratic functionaries) education in China from 1949 to the present was evaluated in terms of leadership development and the underlying interests of the Chinese Communist Party as it integrates more fully into the world economy. Historic achievements include: (1) increased knowledge about market…