AbstractThis paper is concerned with the quality or standards of degrees seen as an aspect of quality assurance. The awarding of a degree is the key, formal, public and legal act by which a university sets its seal on its graduates’ achievements. The paper calls on two studies: one in the UK and the other in Australia. Both focus on the minutiae of examining practice. This paper focuses on four matters of principle: the purpose and function of external examiners; the disposition of external examiners; examiners’ contribution to the technical soundness of examinations; the role of the external examiner in the Examination Board. The paper concludes by suggesting examination arrangements which are consistent with three distinct, possibly mutually exclusive, purposes of external examining: the means for an institution to check its own standards, the means by which a group of instititions calibrate degree standards; a form of public accountability.