Common Factors That Trigger Mechanisms For Monitoring And Evaluation Of Higher Education

Higher education is offered at universities and post-secondary institutions offering training at diploma and certificate levels. The growth of the higher education sector has resulted into tremendous increase in student enrollment in the past two decades. The rapid expansion of higher education in the last ten years, has raised serious concern over the issue of quality in higher learning. These concerns have led to the creation of national regulatory bodies to protect the quality of higher education. It is globally acknowledged that quality higher education is crucial to national development. The development and utilization of proper and effective mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation of are critical to successful higher education everywhere. Every nation and its university graduates are competing in an environment shaped by its own local and national needs, as well as international expectations and standards.

The need for proper monitoring and evaluation of higher education has been triggered by the following factors

Demand for quality higher education
Students are increasingly becoming a driver for quality education in Kenya and the world at large. In countries where students have a recognized status, they play an active role and are a powerful respected body. A current international trend likely to increase awareness of quality teaching is that students are invited to serve on governing bodies or hired as evaluation experts on par with academic peer reviewers. Students serve on the board of audits and raise concerns about teaching, learning environments, quality of content and teacher attitude. Institutions or departments dealing with competence-based education are often advanced in the institutional support for, and evaluation of, quality teaching. Frequently, they have committed to carefully selecting new teachers and to upgrading their recruitment process to encompass pedagogical skills. In career-oriented or vocational training programmes, students may complain of lack of programme consistency or poor practice-based learning, even when they are mature or working students. Student and alumni associations can easily benchmark learning conditions, teacher attitudes, pedagogy and support, and hence may promote or undermine the reputation of the institutions. Programmes requiring 30 technical skills, like information technology or healthcare studies, must pay close attention to the quality of the equipment and the type of teaching delivered.

Increasing quality assurance and recognition of qualifications
Cross-national recognition of qualifications and joint accreditation of degrees and diplomas is not new to the African continent, and various sub-regional bilateral and multilateral mechanisms have been in place for some time to facilitate these processes, e.g., in East Africa by the Inter-University Council. There is however a broad understanding that the existing international and regional initiatives on quality assurance, and accreditation and recognition of qualifications have to be further strengthened and implemented more effectively. There is a need for new regional and international initiatives to enhance student protection at a global level, while respecting individual countries authority to regulate the quality assurance and accreditation of their own higher education systems. This move calls for more collaboration between domestic higher education service providers and international organizations.

Market Demand for Quality and Relevance of Education.

We are moving very fast into an era where the end-users of the products of higher education are demanding relevance and the need for special skills from the products of these institutions. Today, it is not enough to hold a certificate, it is important to be able to exhibit skills to carry out some services. Higher education institutions therefore need to ensure that the inputs, process and outputs of these institutions through appropriate quality assurance programmes to meet the market demand.

The Challenge of Brain-Drain
This challenge is common in developing nations. For instance it is estimated that about 3 million Africans live in Europe and North America. Over one hundred thousand are professionals. The World Bank reports that approximately 23,000 university graduates and 50,000 executives leave Africa annually. Estimates show that 40,000 PhD holders live outside Africa. There are arguments that the phenomenon of “brain-drain” can be made to be beneficial as the skilled and highly qualified professionals can put their capacities to the service of their home nations, which may benefit from emigrants’ remittances, export opportunities for technology, transfer of knowledge, increased ties to foreign institutions and access to international networks. One important way of retaining African human resources is by improving the quality of education so as to avoid “brain-drain”.

With these factors in mind, it will be necessary to for every country to come up for monitoring and evaluating its higher education system.

How Can I Start A Christian Financial Home Based Business – Read On for Tips

How can I start a Christian financial home based business? This is a question that quite a lot of people have been asking. If you are knowledgeable about risk management, investment planning, taxation and other related financial topics then you can be a personal financial planner and work to help fellow Christians with their finances. Like with any other kind of business, you would have to offer a unique business proposition to your target customers. With a Christian business you will have the advantage of reaching out to a powerful niche audience.

How Can I Start A Christian Financial Home Based Business? Make A Mission Statement First
The first thing that you should do when you think about starting a business is to develop your mission statement. Your mission must effectively communicate Christian principles that you would be using for your business. There are more than 800 scriptures about money in the Bible that you can rely on. You can use any of these to make your own mission statement.

How Can I Start A Christian Financial Home Based Business? Know Your Target Market
The next thing that you would have to do is to find what your target market is. You can talk to church members, friends and family to get an idea about the kind of people who would be requiring your services. With a target market in mind you would be able to decide what type of services to provide, what kind of marketing strategy to use and how to maximize your business. Research well and talk to a wide range of individuals.

Develop A System and Set Up Your Business
You will also have to develop a system for a Christian financial home based system. You should select an area that will allow you to apply principles from the Bible to help others achieve their financial goals. You can start your business by setting up a website or a blog. Label and brand yourself so that you can stand out from the competition. Connect to your niche so that the potential clients would be able to find you easily. Your website should offer information about your professional and personal background, your credentials and your certifications.

Once you set up a business you must also affiliate with others. Your model can be similar to some of the traditional firms dealing with financial planning but must also offer unique selling points. You can join several financial associations and niche related associations. How can I start a Christian financial home based business? Follow these steps and you would have a business of your own.

The Best Free Home Based Business is Here!

Looking for a free home based business? You’re at the right place! We’ll tell you how to start a business without spending a penny.Affiliate MarketingLook around carefully (on the net!). There are many free tools that will help you produce design with rich content with focus on a specific theme. This can turn out to be a striking marketing asset. If you’re not interested in investing in a product, go for affiliate selling as a free home based business. Once you boast of possessing your own website, along with huge web traffic for your keyword rich content, you can go for linking your web page to other sites. Whenever a visitor clicks on the link on your site and buys something, you will get paid. This is a great way to make money by promoting others’ products or services and getting yours noticed too!Things To Watch Out ForBefore linking with a merchant’s site, you need to be clear about the following things:The commission that you will get for making a sale – you should decide it prior to posting the link.The relevance of the product to your site – you can’t promote vitamin supplements with a real estate property site! Find a product or service that is significant to your site content. This is a good way to reach your target customers and increase traffic to your site.Independent sites for different businesses – in case the merchant has multiple businesses, they should have separate sites for each. This is important for keeping things organized and retaining only those clients who’re interested in buying.Your linked web pages are easy to find on major search engines – what’s the use of creating links and themes when there’s nobody to notice them? Make sure this is not happening to your site.A Good Site Ensures A Good Free Home Based BusinessAlways go for websites that are ranked high in the search results of Google and other popular search engines. High ranking implies higher web traffic. It also shows the immense popularity of the affiliate program.When you come across such a site, contact your affiliate manager to set up an account with your chosen business. They will help you in the most effective manner and also provide quick responses. However, you have to be sure that the affiliate manager is sincere and working in your interest.Isn’t this a great idea to make money without spending money? Affiliate marketing is a free home based business that has the potential to make you richer by several thousands of dollars in due course of time.But, there is one condition: you need to be committed to your free home based business. Only then will cash flow in.

Top 5 Home Based Businesses For 2011

Being that many people tried and failed with their home based business attempts in recent years I want to help you out by giving you 5 of the top business for 2011. If you think that you aren’t cut out for this then you are wrong, it is very easy to make a decent living by simply starting one of these 5 home based businesses on the side.Top 5 Home Based Businesses For 2011Freelance writer – One of the most common things people are doing these days is becoming a freelance writer and rightfully so. With so many new websites popping up all over the place there will be more and more need for a freelance writer to put posts on the sites and get traffic to them.Blogger – Just like I said before, there are many new sites popping up online day after day and that could be you. If you want to make decent money then start blogging about something you are passionate about and as soon as people see your passion they will keep coming back time after time.Craft sales – Another great business that you can easily start is a craft business. All you will do is make the crafts and sell them online. The best places to sell crafts online are on eBay.com and Etsy.com. This business is a huge business that could make you a lot of money very quickly, so if you are good with crafts then try it.Affiliate marketer – Affiliate marketing is a huge online business that makes people well over 6 figures per year. If you would like to get into this business then you need to start today because there is money to be lost each day you wait. Something most people think about when it comes to affiliate marketing is they will make a lot of money very easily but honestly you won’t unless you put in the work.House cleaner – Cleaning houses is a very good business to get into. Just think about it, don’t you hate cleaning your house and wouldn’t you rather pay somebody to do it for you? If you would pay somebody don’t you think that others would pay you to do the same thing?If you think that you are ready to start a home based business of your own then now is the time. The only thing you need to know is that it is up to you to make the amount of money you want.

10 Tips to Having a Profitable Home Based Business

My years of practice and experience have directed me to these 10 top tips to having a profitable Home Based Business:
Make sure that having a home based business is the right thing for you. If you have the option of running your business from home or from an outside office space, base your decision as much as possible on what make sense for the overall business and keep your customers in mind.
I started my coaching business at home, but it got to the point where I had to meet clients all the time in person, so I decided to get an office. Of course I could still take calls from clients outside my area from my home, but now I can offer either phone coaching or in person coaching to my local clients.

Run a Business like a Business. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make in regards starting a home based business, is to forget they are running a business. This hint will make things clear for you. Businesses are meant to be profitable; Hobbies are not!
If you are letting the daily household chores come first, well… you are not treating your business like a business. Time Management skills come very handy, especially for an entrepreneur home business.

Make it Legal. Not be a fool thinking that because you are working from home, you can skip the legal steps of starting a home based business. You still need to choose the right entity for you business, have your bookkeeping records up to date, pay your taxes, etc. If you don’t you will pay the price later, when you are successful.

Get insurance. Because we live in the land of lawsuits, you should make sure you protect your business, but most importantly, your family and your personal assests. Consider some business liability protection, or an add-on to your homeowner’s insurance to cover personal liability.

Look Professional. You only have one chance to make a good first impression, and that impression should be professional.

Here are few pointers that you could follow to make your home based business look more professional:

Your office should be separated from the house, at least with a door that you should be able to close.
Try to have a dedicated phone line for your business, but if not, just make sure whomever answers the phone during business hours know it could be a customer calling for you.
Get an answer machine and/or voice mail, a toll free number will be ideal, a fax, set yourself with an email dedicated only for your business
Order business cards and don’t scrimp on them. A good quality and well designed business card, is a better marketing tool than many ads in the newspaper.
Stay up to date with technology. As scary as it sounds, you should make sure you have:
A computer, where you can have software for word processing, customer service, time management, finances, etc.
Printer, fax, modem, answering machine, calculator, etc.

Develop a Marketing Plan. This is the most feared task of any entrepreneur (besides financial tasks). People, including us women, are afraid of marketing their businesses.

In today’s world, word of mouth isn’t enough to have a profitable home based business. You need to use networking, and the internet in order to get more clients with less marketing dollars spent.

Time Management. This is a key element for profitability. Click here to read more about time management.

Include your family. Without your family’s support it’ll be almost impossible to have a successful and profitable home based business; so make sure everyone is on board with the rules, schedules, and goals.

Stay in the loop. Join some of your local business organizations and some other ones using the internet.

Get a Coach. There are so many obstacles and roadblocks, that any entrepreneur has to face in order to become successful and accomplish a profitable home based business, let alone us; women entrepreneurs. We have to balance work – family – house- us; every hour of the day. This can be very stressful, which makes more difficult to do effective problem solving and brainstorming.

Having an extra pair of eyes that can help us visualize the problem from another angle, is most of the time just what we were missing in order to achieve our goals.

Internet Home Based Business – The Information Overload Trap

One of the big advantages of running an internet home based business is the level of access you have to online information that is free or low cost which can really help you to make crucial decisions about your online business.On the other hand one of the potential drawbacks is also the tremendous amount of information that is available for evaluation.So what is someone hoping to make a success of their internet home based business to do to make sure that this abundance of information does not in fact turn out to be a disadvantage and hurt how they run their business?First, it is extremely important that you realize that this is a real problem online. The internet has been touted in many ways as giving you the capacity to bootstrap a business given the available free or low cost resources.However, in many ways this same availability, this same ease of access to a tremendous amount of information can turn out to being very costly in the long run.How so?Well progress is made by first and foremost making decisions that will move your plans for your online business forward.The longer you take to make decisions the less likely you will make any real progress in running your internet home based business. And given the amount of information coming at you without a strategy to deal with this, you are likely to be caught in the information overload trap.So what do you do to avoid information overload when running your home based online business?Look there is always going to be another piece of information related to your niche that you will be tempted to evaluate. You just cannot do it all.So here is how to best get out of this information overload trap that can undermine how effective you can be in running your internet home based business.Define your requirements clearly. Make sure that your requirements answer the following:- What are the tools and resources you will need?- What capabilities should each tool and resource have?- How much time will you allocate towards evaluation and selection of each resource or tool?- At what time will you need these tools and resources?- What resources do you have to secure these?- How important is each tool or resource to the success of your internet home based business?By clearly spelling out your business requirements along these lines you force yourself to focus on what is really important to the success of your online business.Because you also have allocated a reasonable time frame for evaluation and selection, you are motivated to get on with the business of execution rather than spending too much time on these.Your internet home based business can only be successful if you strategically put in place the elements that will get it and keep it running to achieve its goals. Overcoming the information overload is one big step towards that objective.

The Top 3 Reasons To Consider Work From Home Or A Part Time Home Based Business

These days, traditional employment structures seem to be more in flux than we have ever seen before. This had led to a boom in people looking to work from home, and an explosion of people creating their own part time home based businesses in order to provide a supplementary income. If you are a flexible sort of person and can adapt to change easily, you may find that a work from home business provides you a number of unique benefits. Let’s take a look at three of the biggest advantages that you can enjoy if you own a part time home based business or work from home:• Convenient – One of the biggest advantages of a part time business, or work from home in general, is that it is extremely convenient. There is no boss to answer to, you decide when you want to work, how hard, and for how long. There are no schedules or deadlines other than those that you set yourself. The convenience of working for yourself puts the most generous flextime package to shame.• Profitable – While you may draw less total gross revenue if you work from home or supplement your income through a part time home based business, your time spent may be more profitable on a per hour basis. Remember, performing work from home or owning a part time home based business means you have no overhead, no rent expense, and none of the other costs associated with owning a brick and mortar commercial storefront.• Tax Advantages – Having a part time home based business or working from home can provide you some real and significant tax advantages. Commute costs, food and beverage, entertainment for clients, and even office space within your own home all can be tax deductible and save you thousands of dollars on an annual basis.As you can see, working from home or starting a supplementary part time home based business is a great idea that offers some real benefits to people in a wide variety of circumstances. Another major benefit that we haven’t mentioned is that when you work for yourself, you enjoy true job security. Corporations and industry in general simply do not take care of their employees in the way that they used to, and a person cannot afford to rest on their laurels and place themselves at the mercy of a business dedicated to maximizing profit.

Selecting a Real Estate Domain Name That Increases Rankings and Generates Closings

Choosing the right domain name often takes some time. When you consider that the domain name you select will be one that can be on your marketing, will be submitted to search engines, and will be with you for years to come it is certainly not a decision that you should make in just a couple of minutes. When you understand what to avoid and what makes up a good domain you will easily be able to choose an address that will work hard for you for many years to come.
Avoid The Classic Mistakes
In the real estate industry, many agents are taught “branding” and that in order to get business they must “brand” themselves on everything from flyers to their web address. This leads to such real estate domain names as:

JaneSellsHomes.com
TomJohnson.com
RichardSells.com
These domain names are oriented around the agent and not the consumer. Although these are easy to purchase they do little to identify what the website is about and certainly won’t help in increase your search engine rankings. Also, consider that with these domain names it’s not even clear what the website is going to be about. Going through each of the domain names above think of the following questions:

JaneSellsHomes.com – Sells them where? What city, what neighborhood?
TomJohnson.com – Is this an attorney? Accountant?
RichardSells.com – What does he sell?
You can have a domain name as your First and Last Name, however consider NOT using that as your main website because you want new customers to find you! New customers have no relationship with you so they certainly won’t typing your name and if they saw your domain name in the search engine results pages wouldn’t know what your site is about by reading your web address.

What Makes Up A Good Real Estate Domain Name?

A good website address will allow a total stranger the ability to understand what the website is going to be about without even visiting the website. Consider the following few simple rules before purchasing a website:

Does my website address incorporate the area I work in? – This could mean including your city, or even your local neighborhood into your website address. Having real estate domain name that incorporates your local area demonstrates your expertise without you having to shout it out.
Does my website address incorporate a specific type of real estate? – Instead of having a website about “real estate” consider having a website about just Homes, Condos, Luxury Properties, or another specific type of real estate. Having a website about a specific type of real estate will allow you to focus your ads, content, and allow you to work with the customers that you actually want!
Is my website address three to five words long? – Although the shorter the domain name, the easier it is to remember, it is often challenging to find one that is just two words. Craft a domain name that is creative and clear about what your website is all about.

Investment Guide to Investing For Beginners

You need the best investment guide you can find in this messed up economy and tough investment environment. You’ll also need a good guide to investing for beginners to navigate the rough waters ahead. Investing has never been more difficult or confusing. It’s time to learn how to invest, and here’s how to go about it.

First, you’ll need to get a handle on the investment universe including any investments you might already own. This is not that difficult if you have a good investment guide, since there are only 4 basic investment alternatives out there. Second, you’ll need to learn how to invest and put together a sound investment strategy that will work for you in both good times and bad. That’s what a good guide to investing for beginners can do for you.

In other words, learning how to invest successfully over the long term is a two step process. Skip step number one and you won’t understand step two. Without step two you won’t be able to put the investment knowledge you learned in step one into action. Up front I stated that now is a tough time to invest. Now I’ll back that up with my 35 years of investing experience, in terms of the 4 basic investment alternatives available to all investors. Consider this a mini investment guide and a wake up call. Investing for beginners is no picnic today.

Your 4 basic investment alternatives in order of safest to riskiest: safe investments, bonds, stocks, and alternative investments. Safe investments like bank accounts and money funds pay interest, and these days they don’t pay much. The score in late summer 2010: 1-yr. CDs at less than 1% and money funds at less than.05%, or one-twentieth of 1%. This is not normal, and is in fact downright scary. The government can hardly push rates lower to stimulate the economy as they’ve done in past years. We are already looking at zero interest rates in the money markets.

In order to earn higher interest income of 3% or more, average investors are moving money into bonds in the form of bond funds, which are not really safe investments. Simply put, when interest rates go UP, the value of bonds go DOWN. That’s a basic investment fact you can count on – interest rate risk. If you believe that interest rates will fluctuate as they always have and will go up in the not-too-distant future, bonds are not exactly great investment alternatives at this time. With two down and two to go, we move into the riskier choices that involve assuming the risk of ownership in order to earn higher returns.

Any guide to investing for beginners can point out that on average, over the long term, stocks have returned about 10% a year. The problem is that over the past 10 years the average investor would have done better with his or her money in safe investments in the bank. And over the past 3 years, a loss of about 10% a year was common for the stock funds that invest money for millions of average investors. Investor confidence in the economy and the stock market is not high, as billions of dollars are being pulled out of stock funds and moved someplace else (like to bond and money funds) in search of greater safety.

In the past when uncertainty was high and confidence in the stock market was low, smart investors turned to other (alternative) investments like real estate to find opportunity. That’s been a problem this time around, because the financial system seems unable to get the traction needed get things moving again. High unemployment won’t go away and millions of mortgages are “under water”, as people decide to just walk away from their financial obligations. Gold and silver have done well compared to other investment alternatives. If history is any guide to investing, that’s not exactly a cheerful note. People buy and hoard gold in times of fear and desperation.

Out of our 4 basic choices, none looks like a screaming BUY opportunity. Some of the best minds in the investment world are suggesting that investors need to start viewing the investing game differently and lower their expectations. I suggest that you start with the basics and curl up with a good investment guide on a rainy day. Then, you’ll want to follow up and learn how to invest with a guide to investing written for beginners. Once you start to get up to speed you might even begin to enjoy the challenge. And make no mistake about it… investing today is a challenge.

A retired financial planner, James Leitz has an MBA (finance) and 35 years of investing experience. For 20 years he advised individual investors, working directly with them helping them to reach their financial goals.

How To Succeed At Online Product Creation The Easy Way

Product creation could be a frightening subject for a lot of Internet marketers to face. Some folks who get in the game with the intention of making a full time income are completely ignorant as to how an online business operates. One of the most profitable ways to create online cash is by creating a product that others are happy to pay for.

Product creation is legitimate method of generating money through internet marketing but many entrepreneurs get it wrong. They start by imitating their Internet marketing gurus by creating information products on Internet marketing in hopes of getting rich the way their heroes did. The problem is that they usually don’t know what they are doing and enter a highly competitive niche with very little marketing experience or connections.

Here are a few tips for effective product creation that may help you get on the right track:
Start by finding a profitable niche with low to moderate competition. If you conduct some rudimentary market research and keyword research, you’ll find many opportunities in areas that will surprise you. Amazon and eBay are two great places to brainstorm for product ideas.

Developing Your Product does not have to be a difficult project. You can find experts in the right field for your niche and pay them to write the material while an artist designs the packaging and website or blog. You can outsource the entire product creation part of the project after you conduct the research and testing to ensure profitability.

Sales and marketing strategies should be created while developing the product and learning about the market. Some experienced marketers use pay per click to drive traffic to their offer page; some folks outsource the entire marketing campaign to affiliates through ClickBank or other affiliate programs.

Product creation does not need to be hard, particularly when the merchandise is electronic. E-books, videos, audio and multi-media products sell very well. They are distributed immediately to customers electronically. Once you have a good feel for a niche market, try to service your customers with associated products and upgrades. If you want to earn money online through product creation, you must understand supply and demand. The majority of new online marketers fail miserably because they go after highly competitive markets or forget to research their chosen niche properly. You have to create your products according to the needs, wants and desires of the prospective customers.