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.

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.

A Simple Product Creation and Product Launching Formula

If you tried to think of people involved in product creation, who would come to mind? You may think of Edison, Franklin, or maybe Henry Ford. Would you ever think of yourself as someone who can create a quality product? Product creation is actually relatively easy and product launching is not that tough either! If you follow a few easy to understand steps, you could be starting the product creation and product launching process sooner than you think.

The first step in creating your information product is to know and understand your market. This can be very time-consuming, especially if you are unsure of what to do or where to look to know your market. Studying your niche market and understanding the buzz words and buying patterns can ease the process dramatically. Personally, I would recommend networking with someone who has had success in the niche market you are considering and learn from their results. If they are into product creation and not very business savvy expect some hesitation. If they only sell products and have nothing to do with product launching or product creation you may your first affiliate (sales person)! Something else you can use to find hot trends is with the Google Trends tool.

The second step is the product creation process. Take your niche market and brainstorm ideas and topics relating to it. There are a lot of product launching contests going on recently relating to a newly created internet marketing tool. There are so many aspects to the mentioned niche that literally, and unfortunately, anything can be considered an Internet Marketing tool. The reason that anyone can basically create an Internet Marketing tool is because of something called Private Label Rights products.

What I use private label rights products for, and highly recommend them in this specific manner, is to cure writer’s block especially when it is lingering. Many people base their entire product creation and product launching on a private label rights product. This is where you can start to shine and build a strong brand for yourself. If you set goals for yourself, short-term goals to be exact, you can see your product creation come into being much faster and there is a good chance with less revision needed. If you keep hitting time restraint road blocks; however there is nothing wrong with a slow and steady approach, you can consider outsourcing portions of your project. Outsourcing can be an extremely huge benefit or just as great of a disaster.

You can find someone to outsource work to at a freelance site such as Guru.com or eLance.com. When reviewing proposals it is almost mandatory you perform a background check on them as you are in essence hiring them. Doing a background check on freelancers is as easy as asking for samples of their work and reviewing feedback on the freelance site from previous customers. Depending on the size and requirements of your project this can add up to a decent sized investment, so caution is very important. One tip I always recommend to people looking to hire an individual is to ask them what they can provide you that no one else can. This simple question gives them a chance to “toot their own horn” and acknowledge where they feel most competent as far as their skill set.

The final portion of the product creation and product launching formula is the launch. This can literally make or break the effort, time, and maybe (if you invested) money you put in to your project. There are numerous aspects to product launching and although their relevance is debated in terms to their effect, experts agree all must be followed. The person in your field who you asked for product advice from can help you substantially if you have kept in touch. If not, the first thing you need to do is to create a visually appealing website with flawless design work.

I also mentioned outsourcing before, this is one aspect of product launching I have little strength in and I always outsource this portion. The website does not have to be large however the content (ad copy in Internet Marketing) must be stellar and as perfect as possible. This is where advertising knowledge or experience is beneficial. When the site is set up you now put a lead capture form on your website.

I put two lead capture pages on all products I create on the internet and is one of the best methods of getting a solid start when you are in the product launching stage. When you gain information from a prospect or someone looking to get paid for referring sales you are able to provide them updates or specials. Many people abuse their prospect or affiliate lists by in turn emailing them with a new product daily and I find the recommendations to be totally unrelated to their original need, problem, or interest.

Another stage in the product launching stage is creating a free report or demo version of your product to entice the product to sign up to your email list. Using proper follow up with this can help generate numerous sales for you. One thing you need to ensure is that your free product completely relates to your main product that you are looking to sell.

You are now ready to advertise your product launching to customers as well as the opportunity to sell for affiliates. This is the single aspect that many product creations and launches fail on. It is actually not entirely difficult. One thing you can do is write articles (and a good amount of them) on topics relating to your product. I am a huge advocate of giving a solution in forums. When you join a forum you are normally offered the opportunity to create a signature. In your signature, you should enter the link to your opt-in or lead capture page. When you respond to posts, you are advertising your opportunity.

It is not impossible to create a product and it does not have to take a long time. You need to setup a plan and stick to it. If you get stuck, look at similar and successful products to your own and try and see how they did it. When you sit down and brainstorm you will be surprised with what you can imagine.