College-for-all has become the new American dream. Most high school students today express a desire to attend college, and 90 percent of on-time high school graduates enroll in higher education in the eight years following high school. Yet, degree completion rates remain low for nontraditional students--students who are older, low-income, or have…

A strong and vibrant economy is reliant on a strong and vibrant workforce equipped with the necessary skills, competencies, and knowledge. Afterschool and summer learning programs play an integral role readying students for their career pathways; not only helping them develop the foundational skills that are critical across the different contexts…

Learning and Work Institute (L&W) was commissioned by the Department for Education to identify and illustrate effective practice in the delivery of English, maths and digital skills across a range of traineeship and/or apprenticeship providers, and to identify any practices that are particularly effective for learners with learning…

One of the recommendations of the Third International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) held in Shanghai in 2012 was to explore the possibility of developing international guidelines on quality assurance for the recognition of qualifications based on learning outcomes. Following this recommendation, UNESCO Bangkok…

Critics often see the European Bologna Process as a univocal standardisation of higher education. By exploring how different qualifications frameworks project different social imaginaries of globalisation, this article takes a different stance. The overarching qualifications framework of the Bologna Process rests on a socially constituted and…

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of public schools and their progress towards the goals of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. The purpose of the Statewide Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving…

Numerous countries are introducing National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs), or preparing to introduce them, despite the limited empirical evidence for their effectiveness. This paper takes advantage of recent additions to the evidence base on NQFs in order to assess their impacts, focusing on comprehensive frameworks. It also presents analytical…

Higher education is undergoing generational transformation, as universities adapt to the needs of a 21st century workforce. This study investigated student perspectives of a work-integrated learning (WIL) placement program, firstly in relation to its longer-term worth since they had completed it, and secondly, with respect to its value regarding…

Teacher education struggles with the challenge of preparing and retaining high-quality teachers who can work effectively with all students. While educator preparation is a strong correlate of student achievement, traditional university-based programmes are not available to all potential teachers. This manuscript describes CalStateTEACH, an online…

This article reports on the results of a statistical analysis of the weekly working hours of academics in a Faculty of Human and Social Sciences at a South African university. The aim was to quantify, analyse and compare the workload of academic staff. Seventy-five academics self-reported on their workload by completing the workload measuring…

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government's reforms to secondary school Performance Tables have changed how schools make decisions about the subjects and qualifications entered by their pupils. The National Pupil Database is used to explore these changes between 2005 and 2014. We find that schools are responding to accountability…

A growing number of teachers have undertaken National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification training since its inception over twenty-five years ago. Previous empirical research on the impact of NBCTs on student performance has focused on state or district-level exams in individual states and found mixed results. This…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the competencies needed by performance consultants, a particular role identified for training and development professionals. The role was formally named and promoted nearly two decades ago. Two ongoing discussions in the field are the competencies needed by training and development professionals and the role of…

This paper considers the overt and covert discourses in two contemporary policy documents in England and Wales, "The Nutbrown Review: Foundations for Quality" ([DfE] Department for Education Department for Education. 2012. "The Nutbrown Review: Foundations for Quality: The Independent Review of Early Education and Childcare…

This paper examines how the quality of early childhood education and care accessed by 3- and 4-year-olds in England varies by children's background. Focusing on the free entitlement to early education, the analysis combines information from three administrative datasets for 2010-2011, the Early Years Census, the Schools Census and the Ofsted…