The paper draws on the project research to summarise and analyse the shifting nature of QAE in the Finnish context. We will outline developments in understanding quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) in Finnish arena of basic schooling, ie. in Comprehensive Education. In our study, we seek to trace the political effects and consequences of QAE which means asking how evaluative activities shape our understanding of ourselves, and of modern organisations, education, teaching and learning . There was little centralised control during the 1990s until evaluation and self-evaluation arrived in the Basic Education legislation in 1998, so that the "Finnish Miracle of PISA" was realised in a country where there was no national testing, no league tables and no school inspection. Methodology. Our methodological approach could be characterised as sociological and historical text analysis. In this the main materials thus far have been policy documents and interviews of the selected national and municipal level actors operating at the interface between national policy and European/international developments.Conclusions. The work is still in progress but it seems that there is some evidence for a working hypothesis of importance of division of work, brought by the hegemonic ideas of steering by results.