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Quality assurance and management is vital for the continuous improvement of the content, delivery and development of teacher education programmes. This paper seeks to explore theoretical issues and ideas in assessing the quality preparation of teachers in the Singapore context.

An academic quality framework provides an architectural approach to optimizing quality processes, transitioning from a disjointed set of quality processes to an integrated workflow based upon established best practices.

The architectural framework provided a systematic focus to develop and sustain the academic quality of the teacher development programmes. Quality change and developments occur through collaboration and learning. The emphasis is on quality management as a process-oriented strategy.

There is a shift in paradigm from traditional models of programme evaluation to a systems approach that incorporate multi-dimensional models to impact administration, teaching and research in a teacher education institution. Thus Singapore's teacher education quality management should be considered beyond a set of measurement tools towards a systematic, scheduled and focused examination as a whole, as a process-oriented strategy.

This study aims to model the creative pedagogy of children's book development and then engages teacher education students in this work, as a way to explore and express conceptions of teacher quality, across cultural perspectives.

This self-study engages a/r/tography and currere to explore teacher quality in a teacher education classroom in a Chinese university. A/r/tography (Irwin et al., 2006) considers teacher quality through the conventional lens based on standards and through a more aesthetic lens shaped by cultural nuances and personal experiences. This self-study engages currere (Pinar, 2004) as a methodology marked by contiguous living inquiry explored with an abstract lens aimed to see openings for insight leading to transformation (Pourchier, 2010).

Discussing similarities and distinctions across the presentation and conceptualization of teacher quality in the created children's books promoted dialogue considering intercultural, international pictures of a caring student–teacher relationship. A/r/tographic, currere approaches to exploring this enhanced reflective insight and supported acceptance of diverse notions of teacher quality.

As 21st-century global societies evolve, the meaning of progress also evolves from vertical linear trajectories to horizontal, webbed transformations, driven by differences leading to rhizomatic global connections. A/r/tography and currere are meaningful methodologies to explore the concept of teacher quality from aesthetic angles and on a more personal level so that our understandings may be shaped meaningfully by more diverse perspectives and voices.

The education sector acts as an input for every other sector and contributes around 7% to the service industry; hence, it is important to identify, measure and analyze the drivers that impact the delivered service quality.

This paper used different approaches to identify measure and analyze the drivers that impact the service quality. In addition to a thorough literature review, qualitative tools like brainstorming, the focused group technique, and the survey technique have been used. Decision-making tools like the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and a quantitative tool, one-sample t-test, with the help of MINITAB software, were used to analyze the inputs received from 179 experts. By using the stated approach, the planned research outcomes have been achieved.

Quality of teachers, quality of students, quality of policies, and quality of facilities have been identified as the key drivers that impact quality of education. The paper highlights that the people quality drivers play a significantly important role in the quality of education when compared to the quality of non-people drivers. From the statistical analysis of the hypotheses, it was inferred that the People quality consisting of the quality of a teacher and the quality of students are the two prominent drivers to the Quality of education. This paper demonstrates the importance of the quality of a teacher and its significance to the quality of education. The recommendations made might be considered for the implementation, which can improve the quality of education in the country.

This paper is focused on the data collected from the experts in the top-ranked management institutes only. The data from the experts from undergraduate institutions and other management institutes could have added more value.

In the paper, the drivers were identified and further analyzed to suggest that teacher quality is a dominant driver of education quality. The findings also suggest that there should be a high focus on having a great quality teacher as compared to the facilities. The weights identified will enable the researcher to arrive at the overall quality scores of any Institute. As a part of the process, the user just needs to collect the ratings from the end customers (the parents of the students) against each driver, and the institute level scores can be derived. These scores can then be used by the Institute's management to analyze the results and improve upon the weak areas to improve the delivered service quality in the education sector.

A holistic approach to exploring major drivers that impact the quality of education is a new approach. Moreover, using different tools like AHP, hypothesis testing, t-test, using the coefficient of variation in a single paper has not been attempted before. The revalidations of accepted hypotheses with respondents is also a new approach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of a sample of Hong Kong principals and teachers of the extent to which quality management (QM) has been effectively implemented in primary schools. The features of QM improvement implemented in Hong Kong primary schools include: values and duties, systems and teams(ST) resources and changes(RC) and meeting pupil needs and empowering staff.

A quantitative, survey questionnaire was adopted in this study. A total of 322 respondents (83 principals and 239 teachers) out of 83 primary schools responded to the questionnaire.

The finding shows that all four features of QM are perceived as being implemented in Hong Kong primary schools. There are significant differences between the perceptions of principals and teachers towards “value and duties”, “ST”, “RC” of QM. However, there is no significant difference between the perceptions of principles and teachers towards “meeting pupil needs and empowering staff” of QM.

This paper is a first step towards extending the theory and practice of QM to principals and teachers in Hong Kong primary schools.

This paper aims to investigate whether educational leadership in Greece implements the values of total quality management and contributes to the improvement of the educational process, and to offer proposals for a framework of total quality management that would contribute to an improvement in the overall quality of the education process.

The paper is based on theoretical analysis and on the current legislative framework. Three different aspects of the Greek education system are critically reviewed and discussed.

This study recognises that, due mainly to the lack of a long‐term educational strategy, the absence of an educational leadership development programme and limited financial support, the Greek educational system needs to review its structure and procedures ‐ even those that are “taken for granted”.

Given the differences between education and industry, and the fact that only three different aspects of the Greek education system are investigated here, more research and analysis would be required in this field.

The paper is useful to educational planners and policy makers. From the perspective of total quality management, there may be a substantial impact on the improvement mechanisms and outputs in education, contributing to a country's social and economic well‐being.

The paper contributes to the better understanding of the value of total quality management in education, and offers recommendations that may be more widely adopted, and may contribute to an enhancement of overall educational quality.

Since the late 1990s, teacher professional development models have shifted from a focus on individual improvement to collaboration as a means to foster support, information, and resource exchange between teachers. Following this shift, researchers began to use social network research methodology in the early 2000s to reveal the ways in which informal relationships affect teachers’ practices. This chapter reviews current literature on teachers’ social networks and teacher quality to describe the ways in which social networks mediate teachers’ practices. It provides detailed examples from two studies on teachers’ social networks and suggests ways that scholars can incorporate the constructs of social capital and social networks into large-scale research on teacher quality.

Building a quality teaching force depends fundamentally upon attracting suitable candidates into teaching. This translates into transparent and clear policies and procedures for recruitment and transfers. Teacher recruitment and transfer are significant aspects of teacher management in Indian states because of the size and the differences that exist in different locations, in terms of facilities including access to health care services, higher educational institutions, and also transport and mobility. The presence or absence of these facilities and services determine the perceived quality for teachers, especially as it also determines their and the family members’ (including spouse and children) ability to access education, health care, or job market. This makes the recruitment and transfer policy a critical aspect of teacher management that contributes significantly to the motivation and job satisfaction of the teacher. Karnataka was able to make progress on designing and implementing transparent and effective teacher recruitment and transfer policies and move away from a system plagued by the weaknesses exhibited by other states. This chapter undertakes a historical analysis of teacher recruitment and transfers in the state, examines the determinants that led to current policies and an examination of the on-going changes since the policy was first introduced. Using Karnataka’s example, it argues that effective and efficient teacher management systems can lead to better teacher quality.

Global governance has granted international organizations a political role of utmost importance. As the search for research-based best practices is the spearhead of these nongovernmental organizations, national decision-makers tend to accept their recommendations willingly. The way decision-makers use research-based evidence has been amply investigated, but few researchers have interrogated how the same international organizations, that claim to establish a bridge between research and policy, use such evidence. This prompted us to analyze the pedagogical discourse of UNESCO, an organization that recently reminded the international community that improving teacher quality is now a major issue for all those who are preoccupied with improving the quality of education (UNESCO, 2014). Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all. EFA global monitoring report. Paris, France: UNESCO). How does UNESCO deal with the issue of teaching practices? What is the content of its pedagogical discourse? To answer these questions, we analyzed the Organization’s publications on teachers in the past 15 years (N = 45) and conducted interviews with a number of its strategic members (N = 5). The results of our analyses of this dataset indicate a tension between the content of the publications and what the interviewees had to say. While the publications timidly but recurrently promote learner-centered constructivist approaches, the interviewees argued that pedagogical orientations are a matter of national sovereignty; that UNESCO should not cross this line. As an intermediary between research and policy and a think tank, UNESCO seems caught in this contradiction. In matters of pedagogy, shouldn’t the Organization be more forceful in counseling its member States by referring to research-based evidence on teaching effectiveness?

Against a broader global and regional shift toward “quality education for all,” the chapter explores education policy developments and trends related to teacher education and professional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. We examine how multilateral education policy circulation and regional horizontal cooperation has guided these education policy developments. The chapter is organized into three parts. It first provides a discussion of educational multilateralism and new forms of horizontal cooperation, as it relates to educational development efforts. We argue that these new forms of multilateralism and horizontal cooperation guide the development of policies that seek to enhance both educational equity and quality education, particularly through advancing teacher education and professional development. The second section explores several recent education policy trends that relate to teacher education and professional development in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the challenges that Ministries of Education face when designing and implementing programs of teacher education and professional development. Lastly, the chapter examines the role of regional organizations in promoting new forms of regional horizontal cooperation specific to teacher education and professional development, focusing on the example of Organization of American States’ (OAS) Inter-American Teacher Education Network (ITEN).

Reforming and restructuring education through Deming’s 14 points have proved successful in yielding quality outcomes. However, many newly proposed programmes take the traditional, unimaginative approach to implementation – orientation sessions and workshops. These approaches often promote failure before programmes are implemented. This successful, practical approach to quality implementation lacks fanfare but creates wide interest in TQM. In a grass‐roots approach, principals begin slowly to create interest in quality by providing readings, chairing discussion groups, and identifying interested teachers to solve classroom problems using the TQM process. Capitalizing on self‐interest and success, quality teams form, support networks develop and successful outcomes spread as more and more teachers gradually embrace the quality principles.