In many OECD countries, tertiary education systems have experienced rapid growth over the last decade. With tertiary education increasingly seen as a fundamental pillar for economic growth, these systems must now address the pressures of a ...

1. The human right to higher education -- 2. Theoretical approaches to higher education -- 3. Evaluating higher education policy and legislation -- 4. Practical approaches to higher education -- Appendix A. Signs and measures of a successful higher education system -- Appendix B. Evaluation of state higher education policy: by country -- Appendix C. Summary country comparison.

Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society provides a thorough international investigation of tertiary education policy across its many facets – governance, funding, quality assurance, equity, research and innovation, academic career, links to the labour market and internationalisation.

The significant growth of number of students enrolled in tertiary education institutions in the recent past decades has caused an unprecedented expansion of higher education systems. The rapid and constant social, economic and technological mutations and international competition make the importance of qualitatively well-educated citizenry and labor forces very decisive. Globalization has developed a powerful impact on the development of higher education and imposes new challenges for the organization (standards, financing, regulations). Systems of higher education tend to detach from the national models and adopt a more "global" orientation. The implementation of quality assurance is one of the recent and most decisive transformations of higher education. Different higher education systems are trying to develop assessment tools (internal and external) to improve the quality of teaching, research and extension activities, and these are either based on experiences of selected countries or are extensively country specific. The quality assurance procedures that were often dependent on national directorial traditions have gradually tended to converge and led to a setup of common tools and standards. Countries under a centralized system tend to impose a uniform and general model while decentralized systems give greater freedom to universities to set up their own quality. International rankings of universities also contribute to impose a set of transnational standards and values, which is also being considered as indicative by the stakeholders. The present book tries to look at the quality assurance mechanism, international rankings and its impact in both absolute and comparative fashion in context of 11 countries from different parts of the world.

This Selected Issues paper analyses the impact of a potential rebalancing of Icelandic residents’ investment portfolios as capital controls are lifted. It applies optimal portfolio theory to calculate the potential rebalancing toward foreign assets, and then makes an estimate of the cumulative impact on the balance of payments and international reserves. Conclusions for the authorities’ capital account liberalization strategy are drawn. This paper also measures the potential budgetary savings from improving the efficiency of public spending in health and education in Iceland. A Data Envelopment Analysis is used to estimate an efficiency frontier by comparing across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries the transformation rates of public spending into valuable social outcomes.

This review, designed to help Spain understand how improving tertiary education can help it achieve its economic and social goals, presents an overview and assessment of Spain's tertiary education system as well as recommendation for future development.

This book provides an international investigation of tertiary education policy across its many facets -- governance, funding, quality assurance, equity, research and innovation, academic career, links to the labor market and internationalization. It presents an analysis of the trends and developments in tertiary education; a synthesis of research-based evidence on the impact of tertiary-education policies; innovative and successful policies and practices that countries have implemented; and tertiary-education policy options. The report draws on the results of a major OECD review of tertiary education policy -- the OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education -- conducted over the 2004-08 period in collaboration with 24 countries around the world.--Publisher's description.