Higher education is the third-biggest export industry
in Australia. Hence, the quality of the governance of
educational institutions is of major concern to the
Australian Government. Although evaluation of board
performance is now used widely in both the private
and public sectors, little attention has been given to its
application in university contexts. This article addresses
this gap. It describes a comparative analysis of various
criteria used to conduct board assessments with a
framework developed in Australia to guide evaluation of a
university council’s performance. In particular, it describes
the components of the University Council Assessment
Questionnaire. This article concludes by making some
recommendations about how the use of assessment can
contribute to improving a council’s performance.