2.3 Towards global convergence of education, training, quality, outcome and assessment

The purpose of this section's report is to propose strategies which will help those committed to promoting and implementing higher standards in dental education. There is a wide variety of systems throughout the world. These systems are developed, governed, operated and applied differently. Their standards, whether they are controlled by governments (federal and/or state), councils, universities or professional organizations are frequently determined cooperatively with dental educators, so that there is often some agreement among interested constituencies as to the content and application of the standards. These standards, whether they be called ‘accreditation standards’‘requirements’ or ‘guidelines’ (formal or informal), or written as laws or statutes reflect a region's history, traditions, culture and socio-economic realities. The emphasis in this report will be on the development of an organic or growing electronic database containing worldwide information relating to standards in dental education. This database might contain or be linked with similar sources detailing, inter alia, best practices, innovations and core values as they relate to the convergence of standards in education, professional training, continuous quality analysis, assessment and outcome. The linking of such a database to others containing electronic curricular modules, clinical management and practice information needs to be further developed.