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Appropriately educated and skilled human resources (HR) are a real asset for a country and can be instrumental in accruing several other assets such as a sound, sustained economy; social development and cohesion; international leadership and suchlike. What can be considered ‘appropriate’ education and training is a question constantly at the centre of local and global debates and discussions. It is also a dynamic phenomenon as what is suitable and desirable today may not be appropriate tomorrow. For example, earlier, education and training prepared a person for a lifetime’s career but now the trend is towards frequent and multiple career changes, part-time and casual work. To remain relevant and meaningful, the process of education has to undergo various transitions, reforms and adaptations even more frequently in the current context. The fast pace of development is even driving ‘established’ set-ups to continuous review and reforms. Regarding technical and vocational education and training (TVET), throughout the world, countries are constantly trying to adapt to a new economic and social order. No country today can prosper in isolation. All are part of a global landscape. The changes, challenges and growth of one affect the other. The latest example is the crisis in Greece. The entire European Union is working to pull the country out of it. Another example is the reported global shortage of skills (HR) in the future while Asia is being seen as a potential hub for the development of competent and competitive HR. At the same time if the much talked about demographic dividend of this region is not suitably cashed, it would be a global disaster. Thus, ‘growing together’ is the key to global peace and prosperity wherein internal, regional and international cooperation is going to play a determinant role. These collaborations must address the issues of skill requirements, international benchmarking of skill standards and competency assessment, comparability of qualifications and suchlike. Moreover, it is essential that such initiatives rise above the paperwork and declarations become functional, responsive and effective.

The paper discusses in detail the Indian experience and experiments with internal cooperation and various international collaborations. Regional prospects are also identified.

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This article analyses the impacts of the Portuguese quality assurance system on academic cultures, using the Cultural Theory proposed by Douglas (1970, 1982) and developed by Thompson, Ellis and Wildavsky (1990) as an explanatory framework for Portuguese academics’ preference formation in relation to quality assessment. The Portuguese higher education system has been undergoing a change of paradigm by moving from traditional collegial system to a legal framework influenced by New Public Management.

The former institutional context, where academic collegiality was the basis of democratic decision, promoted the egalitarian way of life, where the group dimension is stronger. However, recent legislation has promoted two different logics. On the one hand it has decreased the influence of the group dimension by favouring individualistic values and beliefs. On the other, it has reinforced the grid dimension through greater centralisation of power and separation of roles of universities and polytechnics, thus promoting the hierarchic way of life. The new legislation framework has produced changes that have strongly modified traditional governance structures and mechanisms and are likely to affect academics’ perceptions of quality assurance processes and impacts as much as they influence the development of beliefs and values.

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The paper provides an overview on the [technical and vocational education and training] TVET program components/mechanisms and their overall effect on learning outcomes in a developing country context. Using secondary data, this descriptive case-study integrates the realistic evaluation framework of Pawson and Tilley (1997) with Total Quality Management (TQM) frameworks. Ethiopia's TVET system adopts/adapts international best practices. Following the implementation of the 2008 TVET strategy, the proportion of formal TVET graduates who were recognized as competent by the assessment and certification system increased from 17.42 per cent in 2009/10 to 40.23 per cent in 2011/12. Nevertheless, there is regional variation. Outcome-based TVET reforms that are based on total quality management frameworks could improve learning outcome achievements in developing countries by enhancing awareness, coordination, integration, flexibility, participation, empowerment, accountability and a quality culture. Nevertheless, this research is limited by lack of longitudinal data on competency test results. There is also a need for further investigation into the practice of TQM and the sources of differences in internal effectiveness across TVET institutions. A realistic evaluation of TVET programs, the articulation of the mechanisms, especially based on TQM, that affect TVET effectiveness would add some insight into the literature. The evidence we have provided from the Ethiopian case is also fresh.

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This paper puts forward the position of the Construction and Property Services Industry Skills Council (CPSISC) on the assessment of competency prescribed in its Training Package units of competency and qualifications. Research and consultation informing this paper have confirmed industry's expressed need for there to be greater specification of the evidence for assessment and the conditions under which it is collected. Given the implications associated with any significant change to assessment content, stakeholder-expressed considerations have been taken into account in representing the required change process.

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Education policy has undergone transformation in many countries over the last decade. In this article, we focus on the effects of the most significant international initiative in secondary education, which is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyse two countries that provide variation regarding the degree of change in their respective education policy-making due to this study; while Germany substantially reformed its education system in reaction to its mediocre PISA results, almost no change has been observed in England. As we show, alterations and shifts in ideas of education policy best account for such a change.

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Public funding of higher education in Australia as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) has followed a downward trend and is currently only two thirds that of the OECD average. Cuts to public funding have not been accompanied by increases in private funding. In addition, the international student market can no longer be relied upon to fill the gap in public funding. This book is designed to stimulate and contribute to a discussion of the substance of higher education and research. It has been prepared by academic staff associated with the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of Melbourne. The chapters focus on the big policy issues facing tertiary education in Australia.

Excerpts from publication.

The contents are as follows: Introduction / Simon Marginson; Creating a demand-driven system / Conor King and Richard James; Monitoring and improving student engagement / Alexandra Radloff and Hamish Coates; Assessing higher education outcomes and performance / Hamish Coates; Assessing academic standards in Australian higher education / Scott Thompson-Whiteside; [Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency] TEQSA and the holy grail of outcomes-based quality assessment / Vin Massaro; Labor's failure to ground public funding / Simon Marginson; Degrees of debt: the Base Funding Review, Graduate Winners and undergraduate fees / Geoff Sharrock; Research training in Australia / Nigel Palmer; On the fragmentation and decline of academic work / Emmaline Bexley; Towards a model for professionalising [vocational education and training] VET teaching / Leesa Wheelahan; Internationalisation: where to from here? / Dennis Murray; English language standards and claims of soft marking / Sophie Arkoudis; Internationalising the student experience / Chi Baik; Australia and world university rankings / Simon Marginson. Show less