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 question of connecting what is learned at university and within school sites has always been considered problematic. In the Teaching Project unit. we address this through the issue of the problematic of knowledge production. specifically the work of Gibbons et al. (1994) and Lee, Green and Brennan (2000). In this paper we set out the theoretical frameworks of the unit, including its position as the final unit in the Bachelor of Education (Primary) (BEd(P)) in a developmental continuum. We also show our pedagogical approach using combinations of an online learning management system (WebeT) both on and off campus. We examine the connection between the preparatory workshops and the online work in the first semester and the action research project completed while on internship in second semester. Additionally, the articulation between the Teaching Project unit and professional experience within the Internship unit is discussed.

The argument of this article is that assessment in higher education in the professions can benefit from quality assessment tasks linked to professional practice. Such an assessment task would need to be authentic requiring considerable intellectual skill as well as attending to the realities of professional demands. The idea of authentic assessment is developed by using five of Boud et al.'s propositions in higher educational assessment. This idea is illustrated by the use of action research in a teaching internship, that is, data driven learning in the workplace which also serves as an assessment task in the final year of a professional Bachelor degree. Some difficulties and some illustrative, positive student reactions are presented.

The question of student teachers connecting what is learned at university and within school sites has always been considered problematic. At the University of New England (UNE), in New South Wales, Australia, this issue is addressed through an action research project undertaken by fourth year Bachelor of Education (BEd) primary students during their final professional experience component, i.e. an internship. This article sets out the theoretical framework for the project, which is grounded on previous work on the problems of knowledge production. Additionally, the articulation between the action research project and professional experience within the internship is discussed. Although this article reports on a project designed within the context of the Australian teacher education system, the concept may well be of interest to a much wider audience.

Recently there has been considerable criticism of Professional Doctorates in an Australian government report (Neumann, 2003). Specifically this report claimed that many Professional Doctorates were almost indistinguishable from the conventional PhD model. The Doctor of Education (EdD) degree at University of New England predates the Neumann report and was conceptualized, not only to set it apart from an education PhD, but also to link it much more closely to the profession - specifically as an instrument of change. A key feature of the UNE EdD is the emphasis placed on the educational context and the learning that occurs in the professional's workplace. It now has much more in common with the so-called co-operative education triangle of student, employer and educational institution than many other EdDs that we know about. A recent evaluation of the UNE EdD has been very favorable with students claiming to have gained significant professional benefits from studying the EdD.

The development and re-development of Professional Doctorates in Australia and elsewhere in the 1990s has led to a reconsideration of the nature of the doctoral award. Some of the key developments are identified using papers from the four biennial conferences on professional doctorates. UNE's early EdD has been re-conceptualised to become the 'new EdD at UNE'. Some of the features and challenges to this award are identified. The key conceptualisation used for the analysis and development of UNE's EdD was Lee, Green and Brennan (2000).

Teacher education has been a source of much debate and critique. Perhaps the most problematic area has been in pre-service education. Armidale has been involved in this area for 75 years. UNE's several combined degrees challenge traditional models of teacher pre-service education. There are three main purposes for this presentation. They are: a) to record the history of the development of the combined degrees at UNE; b) to explain the rationale for the development of the combined degree model as an alternative pathway to both the BEd and a '3 + 1' model; and c) to reflect on the consequences of the introduction of the combined degrees. The paper ends with a consideration of the merits of providing alternative pathways for teacher education.

The Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (CDDGS, 1998, 1) document responded to the need nationally for a definition of "Professional Doctorate" and provided the following: a program of research, scholarship and advanced study which enables candidates to make a 'significant contribution to knowledge and practice in their professional context.' In doing so, a candidate may also contribute more generally to scholarship within the discipline or field study. Professional doctorate students should be required to apply their research and study to problems, issues or other matters of substance which produce 'significant benefits in professional practice' [italics, our emphasis].