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The French government adopted a policy of raising the education level of young people following a vocational track in response to the growing problems this group was experiencing in entering the labour market. To achieve these ends, a new diploma was created, the ‘bac professionnel’. In the French education system, the baccalaureat has traditionally operated as both a level of education and a social barrier. The baccalaureat thus offers its holders both the chance to follow higher-level studies and also access to middle and upper-middle class jobs. In creating a ‘bac professionnel’, the French government destroyed the barrier between the middle and the working classes and opened the university gates to young people who until then had been denied access. The effects of the policy have meant the ‘massification’ of higher education, but also a marked loss of clarity in the way upper levels of education and training are organised, and, at company level, the phenomenon of overqualified people in subordinate positions.

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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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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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The purpose of this article is to consider the effects of the currently emerging qualifications frameworks upon the recognition of qualifications within the European Higher Education Area. We will therefore concentrate on the main principles of the assessment of foreign higher education qualifications, on the national qualifications frameworks which are currently emerging in European countries, and on the European overarching frameworks, that provide descriptors for the main levels of qualifications at European level to which the national qualifications frameworks are being aligned and which establish how the qualifications can be ‘translated’ between the national qualifications frameworks. The article will reflect on the potential role of qualifications frameworks in the improvement of recognition, the situation today and the possible challenges.

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This paper explores the relationship between student mobility, qualifications and academic recognition within Europe. It provides an outline of supranational legal instruments and policies in relation to academic recognition and student mobility. It then examines some of the difficulties associated with the different concepts underpinning the notion of ‘student mobility’ and the consequences in terms of the data available. This is followed by an overview of national policies relating to university admissions, recognition of upper secondary qualifications and mobility, with particular reference to four EU countries with different systems of higher education. We argue that although recognition is clearly of importance, other issues, in particular foreign language proficiency and adequate financial support, also need to be addressed if student mobility is to increase significantly.

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This paper draws together various strands of argument in the emerging field of ‘New Literacy Studies’ to put forward the view that we need to re-evaluate how literacy is conceptualised, taught and assessed. Three central themes form the basis of the argument. First, the paper points to the emergence of the so-called new economy and globalisation, and argues that the skills and knowledge base required to cope effectively with the demands of work and the demands of everyday life are increasingly changing, and differ in important ways from some of the basic skills associated with the current literacy curriculum. Second, the paper argues that society is becoming increasingly plural and diverse, and, as such, forefronts many different ways in which people make shared meaning. Yet assessment apparently requires a single standard by which meaning is validated and this, it seems, calls into question the democratic basis of learning and teaching. In the final section of the paper, we argue that we can learn from new theoretical understandings of cognition and human action in order to develop a roadmap for redesigning pedagogy and assessment.

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While 2010 was originally stated as being the end point for the creation of the European Higher Education Area through the Bologna Process, it is in fact a point along the way. The journey from Sorbonne (1998) to Bologna (1999) towards 2010 has seen an expansion of the number of signatory states (from four to 29 to 46) and a broadening of the objectives, whilst at the same time not losing sight of the original focus. This paper outlines the journey being undertaken by the universities, linked to changes in the economy and the social dimension.

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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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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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Portfolios can serve as a means of collecting information that can be seen as evidence for evaluating the achievement of students in classrooms. The use of portfolios has a long history although their general use in classroom assessment is a recent phenomenon. Portfolios are not widely used in large-scale assessments; they are a classroom-based phenomenon in Canadian schools. First, we consider examples of policies and procedures as recommended by Ministries of Education to illustrate the range of statements provided. Next, we review surveys of portfolio use and acceptance by teachers and, to a lesser degree, administrators. Finally, we describe and discuss three studies that have begun to investigate the use and interpretation of portfolios.

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