Standards education policy development: Observations based on APEC Research

Since the late 1990's, governments or national standards organizations have started paying increasing attention to standards education in schools and universities. Many of these initiatives were based on their education policies laid down in a national standards strategy. This paper explores the common and different development status of education policy in national standards strategies in twenty countries. As a result, this paper presents some similarities and dissimilarities in the policy. The resemblance of policies might imply that standards education is considered as a common interest. The differences could indicate that the different interests and socio-economic infrastructure per country require differences in standards education strategy. Also, these differences could indicate a lack of recognition about possible policy considerations and ideas. In this case, the policies of some countries could be referred as good practices as to other countries when they develop their national policy or strategy for standards education.