Childbearing intentions in a low fertility context: the case of Romania

This paper applies the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to find out the predictors of fertility intentions in Romania, a low-fertility country. We analyse how attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control relate to the intention to have a child among childless individuals and one-child parents. Principal axis factor analysis confirms which items proposed by the Generation and Gender Survey (GGS 2005) act as valid and reliable measures of the suggested theoretical socio-psychological factors. Four parity-specific logistic regression models are applied to evaluate the relationship between the socio-psychological factors and childbearing intentions. Social pressure emerges as the most important aspect in fertility decision-making among childless individuals and one-child parents, and positive attitudes towards childbearing are a strong component in planning for a child. This paper also underlines the importance of the region-specific factors when studying childbearing intentions: planning for the second child significantly differs among the development regions, representing the cultural and socio-economic divisions of the Romanian territory

Accreditation in Vietnam's higher education system

Since the late 1980s the Vietnamese labour market has become increasingly diversified and dynamic, calling for more socially and economically relevant careers. As a result, coordinated efforts to assure the quality of Vietnamese higher education and introduce an accreditation system have recently been initiated. This chapter illustrates the development of accreditation and quality assurance processes in Vietnam, focusing on the contributions of ProfQim, a pilot project funded by the Dutch government. ProfQim supported the General Directory for Educational Testing and Accreditation in the Ministry of Education and Training to establish quality assurance centres and to execute pilot accreditations in select number of Vietnamese universities. The chapter reviews the phases of the 4-year ProfQim project and describes its relationship with the First Higher Education Project, funded by The World Bank, and already running at the time ProfQim was commenced. The chapter points to the strengths, weaknesses and lessons learnt by the convergence of these two projects