Quality of Education and Its Evaluation: An Analysis of the Russian Academic Discussion

The article describes and critically analyzes how Russian education researchers approached the topic of quality evaluation in education between 1990 and 2014. Evaluation and quality have grown into major policy issues in education across the world, simultaneously acting as powerful steering mechanisms on national and transnational levels. Russia is no exception to this global phenomenon, but little is known about how Russian education researchers discuss the topic in national academic journals. This article discusses four major periods, each characterized by a shift in the focus of discussion and/or the introduction of a completely new agenda. These periods capture the dominant themes, titled “effective management and customization of education,” “the rise of broad-scale assessments,” “systemic approach to quality evaluation,” and “toward a more nuanced usage of evaluation data.” We interpret the findings within two intertwined conceptual frameworks: governance at a distance and New Public Management. How these frames help us understand the academic discussion on quality evaluation in Russian school education is also discussed.     

The University Teacher in Bulgaria as a Factor in the Motivation of Student Learning

This article discusses the role of the university teacher in fostering an interest in studying for future professional realization and personal development. It answers such questions as “Who are the ‘new’ students? In what ways have social, technological, economic, and political changes affected the motivation of students to learn? What is the role of the university teacher in training high quality scholarly specialists?” As the various categories or groups of students have specific characteristics, university teachers must be aware of these group characteristics and must teach accordingly (including the use of computers and audio‐visual facilities).