The last two decades have seen fast-moving and wholescale changes in the ways that education is now provided in French schools, in the nature of learner assessment, and in the form and scale of system evaluation. Innovation and reform have in part followed international trends, themselves triggered by the global impact of the international…

Research provides evidence that gender, immigrant background and socio-economic characteristics present multiple disadvantaging characteristics that change their relative importance and configurations over time. When evaluating inequalities researchers tend to focus on one particular aspect and often use composite measures when evaluating…

The development of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) as a means of assessing the relative status of qualifications across the EU is described, together with its fundamental design characteristics, particularly the adoption of a "learning outcomes" approach. Ways in which it may be implemented, and possible difficulties in this,…

This paper focuses on the state of the art for recognition of prior experiential learning in European universities. Although recognition of prior learning and prior experiential learning have been officially stated as being important aims by national ministers of education in their Bologna Process communiques, implementation in the majority of…

In this paper, I will argue that it is possible to use data from large-scale international and national mathematics assessment programmes, whose attention is on summative achievement, to provide formative information that informs teachers about the effects of their classroom practice. However, to have impact on, and be useful for, classroom…

Scottish schools have provided performance data for five international surveys of attainment in mathematics since 1990. Performance measured against national targets and progression over time and between age-stages have been monitored nationally, on a regular basis, for 20 years, within the Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP) (Scotland). The…