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This article is part of a special issue, ‘Globalisation, qualifications and livelihoods’, edited by Angela W. Little. The issue explores emerging relations between economic globalisation, education, qualifications and jobs. The articles are indexed from TD/TNC 64.84 to TD/TNC 64.92.

This paper describes the commercial provision of education goods (books, pedagogical software, etc.) and services (testing, evaluation, management consulting, etc.) and argues that a vibrant private sector is an essential ingredient for an efficient and high-quality public school system. It also describes the rising trade in education goods and services and points to areas of controversy associated with that trade. It concentrates on one ingredient of the overall picture, that of educational qualifications. It discusses how changes in technology and labour markets are forcing a shift in the debate over access to education. Some argue that education, chosen by the individual, is a human right. Others argue that education by nature is different from other public services justifying government prohibition of private and/or international providers. Central to the debate are the differences from one part of the world to another in how educational institutions are accredited and how graduates become certified to enter the professional workforce. However one may feel, these issues are destined to become an important ingredient of the international education debate over the next decade.

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This article is part of a special issue, ‘Globalisation, qualifications and livelihoods’, edited by Angela W. Little. The issue explores emerging relations between economic globalisation, education, qualifications and jobs. The articles are indexed from TD/TNC 64.84 to TD/TNC 64.92.

This paper presents and discusses the results of empirical research into the provision of vocational training by private sector training institutions (PSTIs) in Zimbabwe. A representative sample of registered PSTIs in Harare was surveyed in early 1997. With economic liberalisation during the 1990s, there has been an extremely rapid growth in the number of students enrolled on a wide variety of courses offered by registered, for-profit PSTIs. The professional and sub-professional courses offered by these institutions rely very heavily on foreign qualifications, in particular from examination bodies in the United Kingdom (UK).

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This profile explains the assessment system in England, concentrating on those aspects that are related to government policy. It begins by putting the system in context; it then describes the national educational structure, curriculum and assessment arrangements. The government agencies responsible for carrying out education policies are introduced. In order to illustrate the intersection of curriculum and assessment development and political policy, the profile describes and discusses assessment issues that highlight the role of government and its agencies in the development, implementation and monitoring of England’s national curriculum tests and 14-to-19 qualifications. It argues that successive governments have increasingly intervened directly in curriculum and qualifications development, and observes the growing governmental policy influence over assessment issues and the repercussions of that influence.

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This article is part of a special issue, ‘Globalisation, qualifications and livelihoods’, edited by Angela W. Little. The issue explores emerging relations between economic globalisation, education, qualifications and jobs. The articles are indexed from TD/TNC 64.84 to TD/TNC 64.92.

International examinations are increasingly being used by local elites to reproduce their advantage in the face of growing educational competition and the changing economic order associated with globalisation and ‘post-Fordism’. Evidence from opportunity samples of students taking these examinations in five countries suggests how this may be working in practice. The evidence indicates that the patterns of use are various and are influenced both by local educational cultures and by broader considerations of location in relation to global economic ‘cores’. International credentials bring a qualitatively new dimension to the issue of credentialism and credential inflation as they exclude the majority from participation in the new competition for access to the most advantageous occupational opportunities.

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National skill formation strategies based on competency standards are a recent feature of the Anglo-American economies. These strategies reflect a response to the widespread evidence of market failure in training in these economies. This article explores the similarities and important differences in standards frameworks between Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) underpins its extensive policy work with strong databases of comparable statistics and indicators with which it compares countries. In 2000, it extended its education database with its first collection of data on the performances of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science through its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which continues on a three-yearly cycle. In developing PISA, crucial decisions were made about the target student population, sampling requirements, tests development frameworks, translation procedures and pilot testing regimes prior to full data collection. The international comparisons of student performance offer much more than rankings of countries. Analyses of students’ social backgrounds and their performances on the PISA measures, for example, have shown that some countries achieve both high quality and high equity together. While the analyses can point only to possible explanations of how they have managed this, they do at least show what is possible and encourage more detailed examination of strategies for achieving such a quality/equity mix.

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There has been enormous growth in English young people’s participation in education over the last 20 years, and a commensurate growth in the number and perceived importance of formal diplomas. However, the growth has been uneven. Politicians have embraced a rather simple theory about the link between economic prosperity and education (and the formation of ‘human capital’). As a result they have supported the creation of a large number of new vocational qualifications, and tried to encourage their uptake. The general population, however, has viewed these qualifications as the lemons of the diploma world; a view supported by evidence on earnings and employment, and the economic returns to different qualifications. Rather than taking vocational qualifications, young people and adults have enrolled for university courses in unprecedented numbers, transforming the higher education sector and the role of diplomas in the labour market. Although the ‘diploma disease’ has advanced with respect to numbers of diplomas, and pressure to stay in school, there is little evidence that this has reduced the quality of English education at school level. Moreover, changes in the world economy have reduced opportunities for unskilled workers in the UK, and suggest that longer schooling may be justified on economic grounds.

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This is an account of a study, conducted over a period of one extended school placement lasting a term, which monitored the dialogues between student teachers undertaking their school-based initial training and their mentors. The study took place in the context of the increasing emphasis placed on pupil assessment in England and Wales and the increasing prominence of school-based work in initial teacher training. This particular analysis focuses on the extent and kind of attention within the dialogues given to the assessment of pupil learning, and the ways in which school-based mentors model assessment practice through their formative discussions with student teachers. The evidence suggests that the dialogues are tending to define assessment in terms of examinations, tests and class control rather than in terms of pupil learning. While this suggests that there is scope for continued development of the mentoring role and the interpretation of initial teaching competences, it also adds to existing evidence that pupil-assessment is an area of difficulty for many experienced teachers.

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Given the new European institutional environment for education and training, policy and methodology for evaluation have become closely interwoven and stakes have been raised. This emerging situation calls for a robust reappraisal of existing comparative evaluation data and systems in the light of the perceived needs of European countries and of the specificity of European policies. Educational evaluation in Europe is not meant to compare results in the usual sense of the word but rather to help set global policy objectives and provide data to see if those are reached within national contexts. Is it really possible to do this without developing a ‘unified’ European understanding and methodology of evaluation? To what extent can existing national and international data be used for the purpose, knowing that in some instances they measure aspects of education which are either not relevant for or are contrary to the educational objectives of the construction of the Union? What are the alternatives? What are the consequences for education and for assessment research in Europe?

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The paper reports on a multi-country review of formative assessment in adult education settings with specific reference to basic literacy and numeracy. It reports many examples of emergent innovative practice in Europe and elsewhere but concludes that there is a real need to develop a stronger conceptual base for formative assessment, as well as to accumulate much more empirical evidence on its impact on teaching and learning.

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