High-quality early childhood education and care is of critical importance to children's optimal development and wellbeing, and to a nation's social and economic capital. Consequently, assessing and monitoring quality through regulatory mechanisms has become increasingly significant across the world. Yet, literature pertaining to the impact of…

University rankings have a growing impact on how people view the academic excellence of higher education. The complicated relationship between rankings and academic excellence is explored in this essay along with how it may affect higher education policy and practice. The importance of rankings and their influence on institutional decision-making…

All Australian children and their families have an equal right to access quality early years education. To achieve this, rationalisation of the Australian early childhood (EC) sector in 2007 saw the introduction of mandated governing frameworks, including the National Quality Framework (NQF), designed to regulate and assure quality practices…

This article reviews the literature on trends and practices of recognition of prior learning (RPL) in Africa and internationally with specific reference to some of the key elements of the RPL system, including; purpose; assessment methods; quality assurance; and legislative and regulatory frameworks. In addition, a theoretical foundation of RPL is…

The CLASS (classroom assessment scoring system) has become integrally linked with quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) throughout the United States and other international locations. This relationship reinforces the neoliberal consumer-based perspectives of quality and devalues localized perspectives. This article challenges the notion of…

This paper investigates quality assurance in Chinese higher education by looking at the Evaluation of the University Baccalaureate Programmes Project (EUBPP) conducted in China. It analyses factors that bring about tensions between policy and practice in this area through a study of two contrasting tertiary institutions. The results show that the…

Rather than a rational, technical activity, evaluation reflects the socio-political dynamics of the evaluative context. This presents a challenge for universities and the individuals within them, who may assume that plans or policies for evaluation will result in straightforward outcomes. This small-scale study in one institution looks at the…

Within a transnational educational programme, students residing in the Czech Republic obtain baccalaureate degrees from an accredited American college. The college has a distinctive approach towards learning, co-creation of knowledge and the use of mentors. Part of the degree assessment is an undergraduate dissertation, which serves as a capstone…

Education aiming at students' competence development asks for new assessment methods. The quality of these methods needs to be assured using adapted quality criteria and accompanying standards. As such standards are not widely available, this study sets out to examine what level of compliance with quality criteria stakeholders consider…

While measurement precision is relatively easy to establish for single tests and assessments, it is much more difficult to determine for decision making with multiple tests on different subjects. This latter is the situation in the system of final examinations for secondary education in the Netherlands and is used as an example in this paper. This…

Purpose: Teaching and unit evaluations surveys are used to assess the quality of teaching and the quality of the unit of study. An analysis of teaching and unit evaluation survey practices in Australian universities suggests significant changes. One key change discussed in the paper is the shift from voluntary to mandatory use of surveys with the…

This report examines the contribution of self-evaluation to internal review processes in Scotland's colleges. It identifies the range of methodologies used by colleges, what makes these effective and what needs to improve further. It explores in particular, the extent to which self-evaluation has a positive impact on learners' experiences. The…