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.