Ten years after the first global rankings appeared, it is clear that they have had an extraordinary impact on higher education. While there are fundamental questions about whether rankings measure either quality or what's meaningful, they have succeeded in exposing higher education to international comparison. More so, because of the…

The emergence and development of quality assurance schemes in European countries over the last 15-20 years has inspired many national case studies of the systems and procedures adopted. The methods, contexts, and procedures associated with this policy change are diverse. But although individual countries have set about changing policy in different…

Rankings and online comparison sites have both facilitated and shaped the marketisation of higher education in England, the UK as a whole and elsewhere. They have facilitated marketisation by introducing greater competition between and within higher education institutions. Ultimately, they accomplish the transformation of qualities into…

We present a comparative survey between the French and Indian higher education systems. In spite of their respective idiosyncratic features, we show that the two countries have both evolved comprehensively toward a knowledge-based society, in order to ensure the prosperity of their citizens. Secondly, we single out a threefold convergence between…

Recent policy suggestions from the European Community underlined the importance of "efficiency" and "equity" in the provision of education while, at the same time, the European countries are required to provide their educational services by minimizing the amount of public money devoted to them. In this article, an empirical…

National cultures are known to influence educational institutions and practices in many ways. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that drop-out from university is also influenced by differences in national cultures. In this article, we compare drop-out from Danish universities with drop-out from European universities. Based on Danish national…

Studies on early school leaving (ESL) from countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia have been missing from the international early school leaving research map. As a contribution to remedying this, the article reviews research papers and strategic documents from these countries, guided by the general…

The idea of using digital technologies and in particular web 2.0 tools to enhance school collaboration has recently been received with great enthusiasm and a range of new collaborative initiatives has emerged. Through a comparative qualitative case study of four schools in the UK and Greece, this article analyses how online tools are supporting…

This article presents a comparative analysis of the determinants of early school leaving (ESL) at the country level. We decompose ESL rates into two components: a "primary" rate reflecting unqualified school leaving from initial education, and a second component accounting for early school leavers who participate in training programmes.…

This article focuses on evidence regarding cross-national patterns of participation in adult education and an interpretation of these patterns from an institutional and public policy perspective. The interpretation follows from the perspective that sustaining high and widely distributed levels of investment in the development and maintenance of…

This article addresses cross-country and cross-period differences in average levels of training activity from an institutional perspective. Firm-provided training in Europe between 1999 and 2010 is scrutinized in order to explore whether diverse institutional arrangements that can be linked to welfare state regimes can yield discernible…

There has been much discussion about quantitative and qualitative approaches to research in different disciplines. In the behavioural and social sciences, these two paradigms are compared to reveal their relative strengths and weaknesses. But the debate about both traditions has commonly taken place in academic books. It is hard to find an article…

In Europe, the Bologna and Copenhagen Processes in higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET) are on the agenda, aiming to create a European educational area. Acknowledging important differences between countries, we compare the evolving relationship between HE and VET. We ask whether and how these two distinct…

In this article, the work of three international governmental organisations (IGOs) dealing with human rights will be discussed, namely the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Council of Europe (CoE). In the first section, the main characteristics of the…

In many European countries and in North America, home education is a viable alternative for education at school. Parents who want to home school their child are legally allowed to do so, although some countries impose rather strict conditions. This article concentrates on the way authorities supervise or inspect the quality of home education. A…