The current article discusses the changes in the role of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) in the Bologna Process, mainly from the ENQA point of view. This paper argues that ENQA's development to its current status as a European-level policy maker is to a great extent a result of the European Union's policy…

The purpose of this article is to analyse the development of accreditation standards and processes in Vietnam and to offer recommendations for the further progress of Vietnam's accreditation model. The authors first provide contextual details of the higher education system and then present the conceptual framework of quality assurance in relation…

This paper presents an analysis of the reasons why students in Norway leave higher education institutions before degree completion and the extent to which these reasons are of the type that can be influenced by the university. As occurs in many countries, a proportion of students starting an undergraduate liberal arts degree in Norway leave their…

In accordance with the recommendation concerning the status of higher-education teaching personnel approved by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1997, higher education institutions and their academic personnel have long been expected to exercise their intellectual capacity and their moral prestige to defend and actively disseminate…

Arguments for National Qualification Frameworks (NQF) are compelling. Indeed, such frameworks are now an international phenomenon. Yet, few studies take a critical perspective and challenge the broad assumptions underpinning NQF. Arguments presented in this paper attempt to open a debate within the higher education community that draws attention…

This article presents the findings of exploratory research on the relationship of external quality assurance (EQA) systems and equity policies conducted at the UNESCO Institute for Educational Planning. Authors from Australia, Brazil, India and South Africa were invited to discuss this relationship in the context of their respective higher…

In this paper, staff members' perceptions about the organisational culture are measured. The questions addressed are: what are their opinions about the current and preferred organisational culture? Are there differences between the current and preferred situation? Do the perceptions differ per department? The Organisational Culture Assessment…

The argument made in this paper is that good quality is subsumed into the practices of skillful participants and that institutions should act upon their consciences. This is particularly important in the complex blending of the workplace and the academy, where codified quality may disrupt learning rather than support a flourishing environment for…

Online surveys in general are advantageous because of the ease of administration, collection and storing of data resulting in monetary and time savings. Though research in general shows the advantages to be beneficial, the down-side to such online surveys has been the response rate. The aim of this paper is to initiate a discussion where one…

Greece, an EU-member state since 1981, lagged behind other European countries in the development of a national quality assurance system. This article charts the route to the establishment of a quality assurance system in Greece. While national evaluation and accreditation systems were established in most European countries during the mid-1980s and…

Previous research suggests that higher education employees experience comparatively high levels of job stress. A range of instruments, both generic and job-specific, has been used to measure stressors and strains in this occupational context. The Work-related Quality of Life (WRQoL) scale is a measure designed to capture perceptions of the working…

The Knowledge and Human Development Authority in Dubai has developed an innovative system of quality assurance designed to ensure that the appropriate international standards are being maintained through this cross-border method of delivery. This paper describes and provides the strategic rationale for this new model of "validation" and sets it in…

In Kuwait, as in other rapidly-developing higher education systems, one major area of concern is ensuring the quality of education offered by private providers. This paper briefly reviews the history of the development of higher education in Kuwait since its inception in 1936. It considers various quality systems currently in place in other…

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…

In recent years, Bahrain has taken serious actions to diversify its sources of income and solve major national problems such as unemployment. Through this process it discovered that one of the main factors for its economic problems was the quality of higher education on offer. This led to the creation of a national Quality Assurance Authority that…