Educational discourse is becoming increasingly globalized. This trend is particularly pronounced in the area of assessment, where notions of accountability, comparability, and competition have become prevalent in many countries. Scholars have critiqued this trend. They contend that global assessment discourse provides educators with…

Unlike in the US and other western countries, the higher education market in Germany has been sheltered from competition. This changed recently, when a governmental "excellence initiative" began to allocate substantial supplementary funds dependent on higher education institutions' performance, in 2005. This study is aimed at assessing…

Corporate universities have emerged as a mechanism for providing companies with a wide variety of training and development activities. They are a recent but under-researched phenomenon, and given their substantial budgets, it might be expected that they would wish to evaluate what they do. The authors explore the evaluation practices of six…

When the United Nations General Assembly authorized holding the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, it was hardly a secret--or even a point in dispute--that progress in implementing sustainable development had been disappointing since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. With poverty deepening and environmental…

The evaluation examined issues related to: (1) Rationale and Relevance; (2) Implementation; and (3) Success. In addition, the interim evaluation was intended to: (1) Determine whether sufficient data was being collected to inform the summative evaluation and identify opportunities for improvement to fill any potential gaps; (2) Assess whether the…

The South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) is a credential and formal qualification within the Australian Qualifications Framework. A recent review of the SACE outlined a number of recommendations for significant changes to this certificate. These recommendations were the result of a process that began with the review panel…

The most debatable question in higher education today is: Why first "open access" to promote massafication and now "capping" to restrict learner intake? (cf. SA Media Information 2004). Concerning the managing of this difficult and extremely sensitive issue, the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) has come a long…

This book, which is an informal initiative of a group of 31 concerned South African specialists and practitioners in education and training, is designed to provide readers with a broad overview of South Africa's National Qualifications Framework, suggested tools/mechanisms for working within the National Qualifications Framework, and understanding…

It is reasonable to argue that the members of a profession are the only ones who can directly address issues of accreditation. In the context of accreditation for international continuing education, it may be argued that professional organizations in continuing education cannot function as accrediting bodies except in the sense that they determine…

This document examines the major issues and implications related to the development of quality guidelines for adult literacy programs in Ontario (Canada) and presents a framework for discussing issues related to quality guidelines and their formulation. Discussed in the first section are the following topics: the place of quality issues/guidelines…

This booklet, which is written for adult literacy practitioners in Australia, argues that adult literacy practitioners working as trainers and assessors must become familiar with the tasks and texts used by competent workers in particular occupations and industries, and must understand how those tasks and texts fit within the broader social…

Australia's new information technology training package emphasizes assessment occurring in the workplace or in a simulated work environment. The options available to Australia's technical and further education (TAFE) institutes in delivering institutionalized training to meet this requirement were explored. The following four options were…

This white paper outlines a proposed framework for post-16 learning in England. Chapter 1 discusses the principles underpinning the new policy, which are as follows: investing in learning to benefit everyone; lifting barriers to learning; putting people first; sharing responsibility with employers, employees, and the community; achieving world…

The Workers' Educational Association (WEA) developed a series of recommendations in response to the British government consultation paper "The Learning Age: A Renaissance for a New Britain." The recommendations addressed the following areas: individual learning revolution; investing in learning; learning at work; realizing the learning…

A 6-month consultation process was conducted to identify changes needed in Ireland's system of adult education in the era of lifelong learning. The following issues were addressed: (1) financial barriers for adults wishing to return to education; (2) the lack of access to mainstream programs of education and training; (3) the lack of information…