In a series of reports since 2000, the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom (UK) confirmed a major expansion in the number of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to be educated (Department of Health [DH] 2000a, 2000b, 2002). This increase in numbers included occupational therapists and augmented the more modest growth in the number of education places available in...

The purpose of this article is to explore the development of qualifications frameworks as a key element in the Bologna process, which aims to develop a European Higher Education Area by 2010. By setting up descriptors of learning outcomes, a European qualifications framework is intended as an instrument that enables Europe to coordinate and exchange qualifications. Furthermore, the article anal...

Individual copy price: £5 The Centre for the Economics of Education is an independent research centre funded by the Department of Education and Employment. The view expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Education and Employment. All errors and omissions remain the authors. Executive Summary Previous work looking at the retu...

In this paper we explore for the first time regional differences in the patterning of occupational social mobility in the UK. Drawing on data from Understanding Society (US), supported by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), we examine how rates of absolute and relative intergenerational occupational mobility vary across 19 regions of England, Scotland and Wales. Our findings somewhat problematize th...

Aligning tertiary institute courses and programmes with internationally recognised industry qualifications has been the subject of various publications (Atkins 2002, Gutierrez and Tawa, 2003) and has engendered much debate among academics for several years now; e.g. Strategic Industry Qualifications Forum: NACCQ 14th Annual Conference 2001 at EIT. This initiative is not unique to the Informatio...