EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE ON A GLOBAL EDUCATION MARKETPLACE: COMPARATIVE STUDY

Nowadays, while considering the educational issues and the discussions and debates concerning the education, "knowledge society" has become the inevitable phrase. The knowledge and the knowledge society is a topic discussed nowadays more than ever, but it unfortunately does not mean that the knowledge gained value in society. On the question of whether knowledge is of economic value, i.e. does the society recognize it as a value, there is no definite answer. Creating a high level of human capital leads to an accelerated increase in educated population and the growth potential of a specific population. Universities on a global marketplace have potentially a pivotal role to play in the social and economic development of their regions. Main purpose of this paper is to investigate has the perceptions of the main stakeholders of educational process, students (n (Croatia)=738; n (Portugal)=366) differ among each other of measuring their satisfaction at the begining of this year, 2014 in two European countries: Croatia and Portugal. Reliable and validated KVALIMETAR measuring instrument has been used to compare perception results among University stakeholders. The results show that Croatian and Portuguese higher education institutions have to accept several challenges made by students to improve the quality of the teaching and learning process. The aforementioned facts should be taken into account in the process of planning the future educational programs in order to improve the quality of education in Croatia and in Portugal in order to be competitive in a global educational marketplace and to meet the new demands of the modern business environment.