Quality assurance in higher education is essential for ensuring that the degrees and credits accredited by each university are of equal value and commonly available to the international community. Quality assurance is based on the internal quality assurance efforts that each university undertakes independently, and external public institutions evaluate their achievements according to common standards. Furthermore, it is important to develop a system of global quality assurance in cooperation with international accreditation organizations such as INQAAHE. Currently, an increasing number of Japanese universities are establishing professional graduate schools. Their quality assurance evaluation is more rigorous than that of ordinary graduate schools. However, because different countries have different standards for occupational qualifications, there is an issue of lagging behind the globalization process. It is necessary to reform higher education in parallel with the mutual recognition of international vocational qualifications.

Yusuke EDA^* Shingo HARADA

* Professor Tokyo Kasei Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus Wakayama University

** Assistant Professor Tokyo Kasei Gakuin University