Reducing Cultural Boundaries: Initiatives in Quality Assurance, Curricular Reform and Test Adaptation

This paper explores many of the underlying forces that have encouraged societies to become increasingly pluralistic and global in outlook. In the past, methods of in-country quality assurance have presented boundaries for students and professionals. An array of efforts to reduce cultural boundaries through various methods of quality assurance are reviewed in this paper. These include mutual recognition agreements between countries, transnational certification programs, recognition of substantial equivalency of programs and accreditation systems, curriculum reform, and test adaptation.