Doctoral education in Australia is currently under pressure to become more industry focused. This report discusses the relatively recent experience of offering doctoral education through professional doctorate programs as a contribution to the improvement of doctoral education in Australian universities. The evaluation focused on the extent to which such programs had developed practices for sustaining closer collaboration between universities and industry, through: • a review of the general literatures relating to the role of doctoral research in contributing to the growth of knowledge and innovation; • a multi-method exploration of the range of practices and relationships associated with professional doctorate programs; and • the development of strategies and policy recommendations for optimising doctoral education in Australian universities in terms of industry-focused outcomes. When set against the 800-year history of the PhD, the professional doctorate is a young doctorate, the first being set up in Australia within the last two decades. The nature and status of professional doctorates remains unclear to many, including a number of university administrators of research training, as well as government and industry personnel. The fact that 61 per cent of professional doctorate programs fall under the classification of ‘research’ higher degrees is not widely understood. Moreover, the 131 programs we found to exist in 35 of the 38 Australian public universities, exhibit a wide range of structures and features.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of school assessment in Bhutan, briefly, as a background to considering the present and future school assessment issues especially as they relate to quality concerns and educational improvement in Bhutan. A benchmark for Bhutan, the National Educational Assessment (NEA) programme in Bhutan was inspired by a 2002 initiative in South Asia funded by the World Bank. In this paper, we address how the 2003 NEA was developed. Emerging issues are discussed including methods of reporting and the concept of "benchmarking" in three senses of that term. Technical issues are also addressed in the context of the desire to administer another comparative NEA in 2010. Out of these developments, the Bhutan Board of Examinations has developed ideas about expanding access to system-wide assessment data to different levels of stakeholders in order to achieve improvements. A 2x2 matrix is provided identifying four key questions around judgments of educational achievement at two key levels (system and school) within and between these levels. This matrix represents a model of the evolution of assessment in Bhutan. This paper should be of interest to education systems in developing countries that have undertaken or intend to undertake national educational assessment programmes.

The article begins by setting out a confluence of events that initiated a proposal to attract students from Taiwan to a new EdD program in Australia, and then explores the tensions and congruities that ensue from this scenario. The main tensions and congruities revolved around issues of standards, quality, English-language levels, profit motives, visa requirements, and the nature and uses of postdoctoral programs. These issues are brought into greater relief in a globalizing university sector in which time and space are reconfigured and local/global tensions are raised. We offer a program internationally that allows us to be 'respectful' of the students, i.e. the course work and research output is based upon student interest derived from data developed in context. The model allows for the development of national interest (through nationals' interests), crossing over boundaries in process and framework. In a sense we have internationalized our program through this 'respectful' model.

This chapter reviews the major outcomes in Bhutan's education system. For example, the development of the primary sector, where Millennium Development Goals have largely been met, is ahead of the secondary and tertiary sectors where considerable progress has been made in a remarkably short period of time but more needs to be done. This chapter also sets out the major challenges and points to potential ways forward. For example, several challenges are identified for the successful implementation of Educating for Gross National Happiness but we also present ways that these might be addressed. Research, and educational research in particular, is wide open for future research and some suggestions are made.

Nature of this presentation: • Not a paper reporting results of research but one sharing of intentions and plans to venture into the unknown. • Opportunity to alert you to the need for research in this area. • Opportunity to get some suggestions. • Opportunity to clarify our research methods and design.

Cast in the framework of social capital theory, this research used case studies to investigate the settlement experiences of African migrants in Armidale, Tamworth and Coffs Harbour in Australia. Analysis of individual ('n' = 29) and one focus group interview data revealed that most migrants expressed some satisfaction with service provision in the areas of initial settlement support and the work of local community organizations. Problems still remained with regard to employment, family reunion and dealing with changes in family relations. The study concludes that there is a need to educate African migrants on mainstream Australian culture in order to enhance the migrants' capacity to build social capital. Local governments need to make specific provisions within their policies, focusing on the settlement of migrants to address some of the gaps in services.

This EdD dissertation takes the form of a case study of Warrego Primary School as it operated to serve the Mungalawurru Outstation Community between 1999 and the school's closure in 2007. Mungalawurru is some 80 Km NW of Tennant Creek, NT. The central question examined is: 'what can be learned from a detailed study of the culture, curriculum and pedagogy of the education provided between 1999 and 2007 to the children from an outback Northern Territory community'? The research examines the development of a small school serving an isolated outstation community. It chronicles the evolution of processes for creating a school culture, negotiating curriculum and planning pedagogy within the context of a small Aboriginal school. ***Please Note: The accompanying DVD titled 'Bush School' is held in the Dixson Library Collection***