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The fact that Departments of Accounting at South African universities, whose academic programmes are accredited by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), have for many years focused primarily only on the academic training of prospective chartered accountants, has established a culture that is removed from research, and this is in contrast to the nature of a university. The aim of this paper is to evaluate some recent developments in the South African academic environment that may promote a research culture and to point out the coercive role these developments may play in changing the existing culture of a Department of Accounting. The study concludes that in view of a list of specific recent developments in the national academic environment, Departments of Accounting will be forced to change course toward becoming more research oriented. A number of recommendations are made to expedite the process.

Professional Doctorates (PDs) have been added to the curriculum of many universities worldwide, as an alternative to the traditional Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). PDs are more focused on practice-based knowledge that advances professional practice and contributes to society, industry and the economy. The dominance of the PhD as the typical higher degree by research has led universities to develop frameworks for their PDs which are very similar to the PhD framework. This includes the assessment of the PD, which in many cases follows the same process and is based on the same criteria as for the PhD. This similarity in the assessment of the two types of doctorates creates challenges for external examiners (EEs), who are invited to evaluate the contribution of the PD within frameworks which are tailored around the PhD. Here, the authors focus the investigation on the Doctorate in Business Administration and conduct a review and analysis of institutional documents from universities in England in an attempt to understand the similarities and differences between the examination process of the PD and the PhD and the extent to which the examination process of the PD supports the evaluation of the practice-based contribution that is at its heart. Through this review and analysis, the authors identify the challenges that exist for EEs who are called to assess PDs, and make recommendations which will support EEs to evaluate the contribution of the PD.

This paper aims to analyse how learning levels differ within and between degrees and diplomas with specific application to the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business, which are delivered at a New Zealand polytechnic.

A literature review and content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks was conducted to analyse how learning levels differ within and between degrees and diplomas with specific application to the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business which are offered at a New Zealand polytechnic.

A literature review and content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks reveals that learning levels are differentiated by level of complexity, degree of abstraction, depth in a major subject, research competency, learner autonomy and responsibility, relative demand placed on students and increasing complexity and unpredictability of operational context. This analysis failed to find any difference in learning level between Bachelor of Applied Business Studies and New Zealand Diploma of Business papers nominally at the same level on the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework. The degree comprises a portion of papers at a higher learning level than the diploma and it is at this level that the difference is realised.

Future research should investigate learning level differences between disciplines, qualifications and institutions.

This paper provides a framework on which to base course design, delivery and assessment of the Bachelor of Applied Business Studies degree and the New Zealand Diploma of Business and credit transfer between them.

This case study addresses the increasingly important issue of the compatibility of learning levels between different qualifications. As many economies acknowledge the necessity for increasingly skilled workforces, credit transfer to enable seamless transfer between qualifications is becoming a focus in seeking to facilitate lifelong learning. There are few studies that focus on National Qualifications level descriptors and the implications for different qualification types.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the Bologna Process in the light of globalisation and examine how it affects curriculum and engineering education developments.

The growing need for creative competitiveness and the striving for specific profiles of engineering qualifications that are of high quality whilst taking account of diversity, transparency have resulted in the declaration of the Bologna Process. The qualifications framework proposed involving the cycle systems are examined taking account of globalization, quality assurance, management and diversity of needs. The future opportunities are explored taking account of global expectations.

The present research reveals that the Bologna Process provides a means through which higher education institutions (HEIs) can be encouraged to provide more attractive curricula for the younger generation for differing cultures whilst catering for the broad range of engineering fields where they could become more active later. The point is made that it serves to re‐invent engineering to meet the needs of the twenty‐first century.

The present investigation focuses on the Bologna Process and its implications on engineering education in Europe. Future work hopes to extend this to other disciplines and to examine global effects in diverse cultures and also from gender, economic and development perspectives.

This paper could provoke HEIs outside Europe to evaluating their policies, revise strategies and moderate existing provisions, thereby assessing impact of the Bologna Process on engineering education in different countries and cultures.

Account is taken of the diversity and transparency which have resulted in the declaration of the Bologna Process. The paper discusses and reports on developments, prospects and challenges faced in the engineering curriculum provision following the introduction of the Bologna Process in the culturally diverse European higher education area. The new field of process systems engineering is also reported.

The most recent alteration in engineering technology education in South Africa is the establishment of a new degree qualification – Bachelor of Engineering Technology. The new qualification standards alone do not give a clear distinction between knowers in the engineering technician and engineering technologist categories. This lack of clarity about what knower the new programme is intended to produce is a stumbling block to educators who need to plan, develop and implement the new curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise the intended knower dispositions for the new programme by carrying out a comparative analysis with the existing programme, thereby assisting curriculum designers particularly with development of effective scaffolding for engineering technology students.

In this paper, the authors conceptualise the intended knower dispositions for the new programme by carrying out a comparative analysis of the current and new exit-level outcomes. Each of the qualifications for the engineering technology programmes are comprehensively interpreted and analysed in this paper. This paper uses Bloom’s taxonomy and Luckett’s knowledge plane as lenses to perform the analysis and draw a distinction between knowers in the engineering technician and engineering technologist categories.

The analysis used in this paper suggests that the engineering technologist category exhibits a relative shift towards subjective and theoretical “ways of knowing”. It is found that the shift from practical ways of knowing to theoretical will evoke a shift from contextual to conceptual knowledge. The authors also flesh out how this shift could influence the new curriculum particularly with regard to developing effective scaffolding for engineering technology students. A useful tool for mapping these shifts in knowing is also established in this paper.

The most recent alteration in engineering technology education in South Africa is the establishment of the new Bachelor of Engineering Technology qualification. This qualification marks a paradigm shift in the nature of engineering technology education itself. In this paper, this paradigm shift is conceptualised. It is expected that the interpretation of the new qualification standards, and the influence of the shift in intended knower and exit-level outcomes on curriculum will be grappled with by engineering technology educators in South Africa in the coming years, as the new programmes are established around the country. This conceptual paper is significant because it marks the first work towards grappling these crucial and forthcoming issues in the country.

The South African government is restructuring tertiary education, and subsidies to universities that do not build and strengthen their research capacity will be severely restricted. Hence, academics must publish more research. This study used a questionnaire to gauge the personal opinions and perceptions of and attitudes towards research held by South African Accounting academics. The questionnaire was based on international debates and discourses on Accounting education and research that suggest factors that might affect research production and consumption, and on informal discussions with colleagues in the discipline. Tertiary institutions can use this constructive information to build a research culture and improve research output among these academics, by changing perceptions where needed and empowering Accounting academics to conduct research. The results indicate that the main limitations to research output are inadequate qualifications and a lack of skills with regard to conducting research (only 10 per cent of the respondents possess a doctoral degree), insufficient time for conducting research, financial factors, a lack of mentorship and departmental support, and difficulty finding research topics. The debate on “teaching versus research” is also ongoing.

The article introduces the idea of programme specification and background to the development of policy by the Quality Assurance Agency. Programme specification will promote an outcomes approach to learning and the specification of standards across UK higher education and provide the basis for a new national quality assurance framework that focuses primarily on academic standards. It argues that the process of producing and justifying programme specifications will have an important influence on academic and quality assurance practices and the product (the programme specification) will result in new types of information about higher education learning.