This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection and use of appropriate…

The Australian federal government is preparing a new higher education quality assurance framework under the leadership of the recently established Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). Groundwork for this framework included a major national demonstration project to develop outcome-based graduate standards in a selected range of…

Accreditation is a process of external quality review used by higher education education to scrutinize colleges, universities, and educational programs for quality assurance and quality improvement. In the United States, accreditation is carried out by private, nonprofit organizations designed for this specific purpose. Institutions and…

Benchmarking is a very common real-life function occurring every moment unnoticed. It has travelled from industry to education like other quality disciplines. Initially benchmarking was used in higher education. .Now it is diffusing into other areas including TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), which has yet to devise a…

Accreditation in the United States is about quality assurance and quality improvement. It is a process to scrutinize higher education institutions and programs. Accreditation is private (nongovernmental) and nonprofit--an outgrowth of the higher education community and not of government. It is funded primarily by the institutions and programs that…

The concordat to support research integrity sets out five commitments that will provide assurances to government, the wider public and the international community that research in the UK continues to be underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity. Developed in collaboration with the funding and research councils, the Wellcome…

Adult learning is alive in many forms. Whether it is helping to improve literacy and numeracy or to prepare people for returning to work, it is clear that, at its best, adult learning brings considerable value to learners and to the wider community. Individuals, their families and the nation as a whole benefit from enhanced social and technical…

With the assistance of four writers and dozens of expert reviewers, Lumina Foundation for Education offers the first step in creating a Degree Qualifications Profile for American higher education. The Degree Profile is a baseline set of reference points for what students should do to earn associate, bachelor's and master's degrees--regardless of…

As the world works towards 2015 when it will finally assess the progress it has made towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals it set for itself at Jomtien in 1991, it has become clear that important gains have been made in education. Equality of access has been, understandably, at the top of the world policy agenda for the last 20 years or…

Plans by the National Council on Teacher Quality to rate all teacher preparation programs in the country and publish the results in "U.S. News & World Report" have been met with concern and skepticism, but also gained some converts. Proponents say the effort can only help teachers' colleges improve, while detractors say the methods and research…

Through this document, Lumina Foundation for Education offers a "Degree Qualifications Profile," a tool that can help transform U.S. higher education. A Degree Profile--or qualifications framework--illustrates clearly what students should be expected to know and be able to do once they earn their degrees--at any level. This Degree…

This article discusses the Malaysian Qualifications Framework (MQF). An observation about the MQF is that in the particular context of developments in Malaysian education and training and its economic and social context, all roads have led to standards and quality assurance. This is the view expressed by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA)…

The post-secondary education sector in Oman consists of a complex suite of public and private institutions, in a number of distinct segments, offering local and foreign programmes developed through their respective quality assurance systems. The Omani higher education quality management system is undergoing significant advances to address this…

One of the most important trends in the early childhood field is the emergence of quality rating systems (QRS), or quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS), which are designed to assess, improve, and communicate the level of quality of early and school-age care programs. QRS came onto the scene in 1998 when Oklahoma enacted its "Reaching…

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…