The present paper aims to present a different perspective to the equal opportunity (EO) issue. It argues that if a Quality Assurance (QA) position is adopted, both utilitarian and humanistic approaches will be considered during EO policy implementation. Hence in the case of an Examining and/or Awarding Body, a QA outlook would mean that EO should not license incompetence. On the other hand, based on this same QA principle, there is an urgent need to ensure that assessment results are based solely on the required standards for competence in a particular occupational area. Any interfering obstacles, in terms of unnecessary requirements that could disadvantage some categories of the population, should therefore be removed. A QA approach, by identifying more systematically the sources of disadvantages, may expedite the promotion of remedial strategies for reducing group differences. This paper starts by giving a broad introduction to the issue and goes on to provide an illustration on how QA systems could be used to check the adequacy of an EO policy.
