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• Present findings from a mixed-methods analysis of out-of-school children. • Significant decline in educational exclusion in the last 20 years, but exclusion continues to be a problem. • Qualitative data analysis highlights the myriad factors that affect exclusion, how they diverge by gender, and how they can overlap. • Qualitative interview subjects include children, parents, community and religious leaders, and school staff. • Multivariate analysis is used to identify child, family and community factors that are associated with school attendance from household survey data. • Overage enrolment and high repetition rates are endemic throughout the basic education grades. • Almost all children in Guinea-Bissau eventually attend school, and they are quite persistent: once enrolled they tend to stay in school for at least six years, and many remain in basic education well into their late teens and beyond. This paper analyses out-of-school children (OOSC) in Guinea-Bissau using a mixed-methods approach. The OOSC framework includes primary and lower-secondary school-aged children who have not yet entered school, children who will never enter school, and those who have entered but already dropped out. The descriptive summary shows a significant reduction in OOSC in the last 20 years. However, universal participation remains elusive due to a number of sociocultural and economic factors along with school supply and access constraints. Furthermore, the system is highly inefficient due to high repetition rates, and improvements in participation are somewhat misleading given the extensive amount of overage enrolment. The paper's main contribution to OOSC research is a detailed analysis of barriers and key bottlenecks based on an OOSC-focused qualitative data collection in six regions of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certificates obtained after taking Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) are priority documents that qualify students to be admitted into tertiary level education and are also a minimum requirement to contest in some political elections in Nigeria. 'Miracle' Examination Centres (MECs) are rogue/corrupt business outfits that position as regular schools/examination centres, but in reality deploy deviant means to secure unmerited SSCE results/certificates, and hence undermine academic integrity and country-wide development. In these rogue centres, candidates can acquire unmerited desirable grades across subjects taken in SSCE, hence the 'miracle' commonly ascribed to such centres in Nigeria. This paper deploys a systematic review of Nigeria-focused exam malpractice literature to explore the drivers that facilitate the establishment and spread of MECs as well as interventions that can be used to eliminate them. Identified documents that met inclusion criteria (94: 48 non-traditional academic and 46 traditional academic publications) were retrieved and reviewed. Proximate drivers of MECs involve the actions and inactions of certain actors that are within immediate reach of influence and at grassroots, such as parents, community-based groups, and schools (school owners, principals, teachers, students, etc.). Remote drivers are the actions and inactions of the examination bodies and regulatory institutions that allow MECs to thrive. We consider the remote drivers to be away from immediate reach of influence as shown in our conceptual framework. Therefore, addressing the challenge of MECs by focusing on proximate drivers, appears to be feasible within the short and mid-terms, unlike the remote drivers. • Certificates obtained from writing Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCEs) are priority documents in Nigeria. • The pressure to obtain these certificates have given rise to endemic exam malpractice. • Rogue schools popularly known as miracle examination centres (MECs) position to make profit by 'helping' candidates cheat. • We conducted a systematic review to understand the nature of MECs, the drivers, as well as proposed solutions to the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the educational policy implemented by the British for the Malays, the indigenous community of Malaya. Underpinned by the policy of divide and rule, the British implemented a dualistic system of education for the indigenous Malays: one for the Malay peasantry and another for the Malay nobility. The two systems of education served different purposes and needs of the British. The Malay peasantry was provided with a rural-based Malay education which only had limited value in terms of educational mobility. This rural-based education was to serve as a means of social control for the British by entrapping the Malays in the semi-subsistence economy. On the other hand, the British provided the Malay nobility with an elitist English education that was intended to co-opt the ruling Malay traditional elites into their fold. But contrary to the intention of the British, the Malay-educated intelligentsia, in particular those from the Sultan Idris Training College became radical nationalists who adopted an anti-British stand. Such an unintended development was the result of the role played by O.T. Dussek (the college principal), the infusion of nationalistic sentiment from neighboring Indonesia and the threat posed by the Chinese immigrants. However, the radical stand of the Malay-educated intelligentsia was neutralized by the Malay traditional elites who adopted a pro-British stand. It was the Malay traditional elites who eventually led the Malays toward the independence of Malaya. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Taking as an empirical basis some of the data from a questionnaire applied to a sample of approximately eight hundred parents from three public secondary schools, this paper discusses how various categories of parents organise «hierarchies of excellence» through the «arguments for choice» that they prioritise when choosing their children's school for entrance into secondary education (year 10 of schooling, equivalent to the year 4 of compulsory secondary education in Spain - ESO). The analysis of the data highlights that, in all segments of parents, a group can be found that attaches great importance to academic indicators; in addition, an unequal concentration of these groups was verified in the three establishments studied, which reflects a predominance of different types of public in each school. Thus, even though the importance attributed to the «arguments for choice» varies according to the educational level of the parents, in the cases studied the «hierarchies of excellence» are distinguished, above all, by the school variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as an empirical basis some of the data from a questionnaire applied to a sample of approximately eight hundred parents from three public secondary schools, this paper discusses how various categories of parents organise «hierarchies of excellence» through the «arguments for choice» that they prioritise when choosing their children's school for entrance into secondary education (year 10 of schooling, equivalent to the year 4 of compulsory secondary education in Spain - ESO). The analysis of the data highlights that, in all segments of parents, a group can be found that attaches great importance to academic indicators; in addition, an unequal concentration of these groups was verified in the three establishments studied, which reflects a predominance of different types of public in each school. Thus, even though the importance attributed to the «arguments for choice» varies according to the educational level of the parents, in the cases studied the «hierarchies of excellence» are distinguished, above all, by the school variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several national testing processes, involving the administration of standardised tests, are implemented widely worldwide to provide individual summative and formative assessment and/or monitor the quality of educational systems. The longitudinal national Programme for Functional Literacy (PfL) in Cyprus resembles a primarily formative testing process, oriented towards 'assessment for learning'. Specifically, focus is placed on the identification of students 'at risk' of school failure at two stages of compulsory education -Years 3 and 6- so as to effectively support them within the educational system. This article presents the basic theoretical, contextual and methodological underpinnings of the PfL and briefly discusses key findings. The authors mainly argue about the potential of this formative national research programme to impact educational policy and practice with regards to the management of school populations 'at risk', also drawing on the challenges involved in such an endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from education to the labor market are caused by multiple interacting and subjective, as well as structural factors, such as country-specific socio-cultural context, demographic and economic context, organization and structure of labor market and educational systems, the state's role in shaping labor supply and demand, etc. Young people's transition from education to the labor market is seen as a dynamic process, which reveals that young people entering the labor market is regulated, and not just a consequence of individual stocks. Recently, scientists, youth, social policy makers, implementers, and others are discussing this topic. Despite the fact, that today's young cohorts are smaller and have completed higher levels of education than older citizens, youth employment issues relevant to many European countries, and Lithuania is not an exception. This paper aims to review the political precondition of youth transition from education to the labor market in Lithuanian social policy. Social policy analysis includes the strategic documents, legislation, strategies, programs and plans, national projects descriptions review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government of Ireland, like many European countries, is currently under severe pressure from external forces to grow the economy. One possible way to maintain and grow its economy is through the production of a highly educated and globally competitive workforce. In an effort to develop such a workforce, the government, through the Department of Education, is considering ways to increase accountability in its schools. This paper examines value-added accountability systems used in the USA and raises critical questions about their perceived value for Irish schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some of the progress made in one of the research lines included in the Project "The Politicies of Educational Equality, Years 2010-2012, submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Science and Technology of the UNC. In this project, the inquiry line that this research team has maintained from the year 2000, is kept up by analysing educational macropolicies and micropolicies in their connections (analytic perspective of a middle level). On this account some reflections are presented here with regard to a specific program of educational inclusion started by the Province of Córdoba aimed at ensuring improved schooling to a group of adolescents and young people that have not begun the high school, or had become early dropouts as a result of unfavorable school performance. The program has been given a configuration that offers an alternative to the traditional school format that, according to numerous inquiries, constitutes one of the main obstacles to the reduction of student's failure at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ability and achievement are not traits: they are relations. Mistaking traits for relations has a history even in science (our understanding of gravity). This mistake is possibly responsible for the lackluster performance of the results of our educational research when we have tried to use it to inform policy. It is particularly troublesome for interventions that target 'children at risk.' The paper provides a quasi-formal outline of achievement as a relation and it then uses the outline to explain some problematic research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explain the high scores of 15-year-old native pupils in The Netherlands and Flanders by comparing them with the scores of pupils in countries with the same highly stratified educational system: Wallonia, the German Länder, the Swiss German cantons, and Austria. We use the data from the Programme for International Pupil Assessment (PISA) 2006 together with the specific PISA data of Germany and Switzerland. We apply a multilevel model that takes into account the individual-, curriculum-, and system-level features in these highly stratified educational systems. The high scores of the Dutch pupils can be explained by the size of The Netherlands' vocational sector. The high Flemish scores can be partly explained by the high curriculum mobility. Central exit exams are not a good explanation of the high Dutch scores. Despite being limited to highly stratified systems, we still find educational policies and arrangements to have significant effects on the educational performance of pupils. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Late and limited organisational differentiation is a characteristic which has, until now, distinguished the structure of education – including teacher education – in the Nordic countries from that of the rest of Europe. However, this tradition is now challenged by utilitarian ideologies, supported by international comparison tests such as PISA and TIMSS. In Norway, a new teacher education system has been recently introduced requiring students to choose to specialise in one of two age ranges – grades 1–7 or grades 5–10 – and in addition to specialise in particular school subjects. This paper traces how different learning discourses regulate spaces for professional becoming(s), focusing on an analysis of a number of policy documents underpinning the shift from broad cross-curricular themes and project-based education towards a skills-based subject specialisation. The investigation explores how particular discourses are taken up, merged and transformed in relation to the Norwegian egalitarian school tradition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose – This paper aims to review policy innovations in China for addressing the graduate unemployment crisis that has been created by the expansion of higher education in the past decade.Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw on government documents, research findings, and mass media reports to highlight the key measures of the Chinese government to alleviate the over-education problem and to improve college graduates' employment prospects.Findings – The review describes government efforts both at the institutional level to enhance student employability and at the national level to create alternative employment channels. The Chinese experiences show that the challenges posed by the graduate employment crisis may turn out to be a new opportunity to reform higher education in order to better address the needs unique to a country's own society.Social implications – The review of the Chinese case will inspire policy makers in other countries to seek alternative routes for the development of their own higher education.Originality/value – This is the first study of its kind to address the recent policy innovations and their implications for potential reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While population mobility is a fundamental component of the lived experience of many Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, the ways in which educators and education systems respond (or fail to respond) to mobility demonstrates that there is very little understanding of this social and cultural phenomena. At the local school level, student mobility has significant impacts upon the work of teachers and administrators, as well as upon the social and academic outcomes of both mobile and non-mobile students. It is consequently widely constructed as an ‘Indigenous problem’ that must be overcome by educators. Simultaneously, existing education administrative and performance data are collected and used in ways that erase and/or oversimplify the relationship of mobility to schooling. This paper critically examines the role of administrative and performance data in reinforcing assumptions about student (immobility), and the potential of such data to provide a more accurate and complete framework for engaging with highly mobile Indigenous students. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines experiences with ‘skills development’ in South Africa to contribute to broader debates about ‘skills’ and the relationships between vocational education and development. Numerous policy interventions and the creation of new institutions and systems for skills development in South Africa are widely seen as having failed to lead to an increase in numbers of skilled workers. I analyze some of the underlying reasons for this by considering South African policies and systems in the light of research in developed countries. The dominant view in South African media and policy circles is that a skills shortage, coupled with an inflexible labour market, are the leading causes of unemployment. This has led to a policy preoccupation with skills as part of a ‘self-help’ agenda, alongside policies such as wage subsidies and a reduction of protective legislation for young workers, instead of collective responsibility for social welfare. Skills policies have also been part of a policy paradigm which emphasized state regulation through qualification and quality assurance reform, with very little emphasis on building provision systems and on curriculum development. The South African experience exemplifies how difficult it is to develop robust and coherent skills development in the context of inadequate social security, high levels of job insecurity, and high levels of inequalities. It also demonstrates some of the weaknesses of so-called ‘market-led’ vocational education. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the trend of matriculation in public basic education in the State of Santa Catarina between 1996 and 2010, a period when the policy of funds became effective in the financing of education at the national level. First Fundef in effect between 1998 and 2006, replaced by Fundeb, from 2007. We used the School Census microdata matriculation conducted annually by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (INEP). The historical data show the growth of municipal networks due process of municipalization of primary education during the Fundef period and of early childhood education in Fundeb period, in contrast to the reduction in state care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the implications of the Articulated Action Plan (PAR), a component of the Education Development Plan (PDE), to the democratic management of basic education, within the context of the educational policy, during President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's second government term (2007-2010). It presents research findings through the examination of documentary sources, focusing on the actions defined by the municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, within PAR's Educational Management Dimension. These actions, in alignment with the guidelines of the plan called All for Education, indicate the limits and possibilities of building a democratic management of basic education, depending on the implementation by the municipalities, as they exercise their autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of educational policy debate and educational research in the first half of the twentieth century is part of the quest for respectability and influence in the social sciences. There was an increasing quest for “objective” methodologies and data as missionary societies, philanthropic foundations and governments sought reliable information about existing educational policy and indicators for the direction of future policies in British colonial Africa. One of the earliest attempts along these “scientific” lines was the Phelps-Stokes Commission’s report on Education in Africa (1922). An African Survey (1938), edited by Lord Hailey, was the summation of this inter-war initiative. A key site of the attempt to understand the African colonial environment was social anthropology, grounded in various traditions and institutes of colonial studies across Europe. The work of anthropologists of the time provided the foundation for policy debate and came to have considerable influence on how missionaries, colonial administrators and philanthropic funders assessed the significance of policy proposals. However, the dominant notion of “culture contact”, popularised by Bronislaw Malinowski and his students, came under attack from critics like Norman Leys, William M. Macmillan and A. Victor Murray, who placed capital, land and labour at the centre of their analyses of the colonial situation rather than race or culture. These debates were to be central to the early development of scientific planning, and the “triumph of the expert” was to have great significance for the emergence of post-war development planning. What were anthropologists, as scientific advisors to the missionaries and colonial government, saying about the colonial situation, and specifically about education? What kinds of research relevant to this field did they undertake? What roles did they play in the complex interplay of political, intellectual and social forces? This paper will investigate the ways in which social anthropology presented the promise of a creative link between science, development policy and education in the inter-war years, but concludes that little of that promise was realised. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents an ongoing study of educational policy enactment in Singapore lower primary English classrooms. It explores how teachers react to and interpret educational reforms in their classroom practices against a backdrop of traditional cultural values. Using a prescribed coding scheme, the article presents the instructional organisational patterns and participation structures of the lessons. Through a systematic analysis of the enacted curricula, the paper examines classroom practices as well as teaching and learning activities in Primary 1 (7–8 years) and Primary 2 (8–9 years) English lessons in Singapore. The results suggest that there are cultural clashes between major educational reforms which emphasise independent/critical thinking and ‘Asian values’ which promote respect for authority and conformity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is a theoretical discussion of the university. The principle of autonomy serves as a guideline for examining the political role of the university, divided as it is between service to the state, to society, to the professional marketplace and to science that is created as a value in itself. In it the principle of autonomy is reconstructed, beginning with an instrumentalist view of the relationship between university and state and continuing with a study of the transformation processes in the university, which would be unintelligible without taking into account the intervention of political variables such as pressure from state interests, student activism and academia. It acknowledges a stage in the building of the educational project in which there is an acceptance of specifically political statements. Finally it attempts to develop a comprehensive conception of the university that explicitly admits the coalescence of the political with the social whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyses a ‘critical moment’ in the educational trajectories of young indigenous children in Peru: the transition to primary school. It addresses the inequalities in educational services that affect indigenous children, before looking at the micro-level processes that take place in school settings, through a focus on two selected case studies from the Young Lives study of childhood poverty. Using longitudinal information collected in two consecutive years, the case studies show how the children''s language and culture are excluded from school premises and their very identity as children and indigenous people is disregarded, negatively affecting their educational performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the Zapatista schools which arose in 1996 in the state of Chiapas in Mexico as a pillar of Zapatista autonomy and also as a result of the indigenous communities’ dissatisfaction with the government''s bilingual education programme. Based on ethnographic field work, the author reveals the objectives of the schools as being the protection of indigenous culture, values, languages and rights, the promotion of sexual equality, the gearing of education towards the rural context and the strengthening of communities’ independence of external organisations. The author finds that despite the political, financial and didactic obstacles they face, the schools are succeeding in making progress in fulfilling their objectives and building an alternative to the neoliberal development model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since the late 1990s there has been a fundamental shift in the way schooling and even education as a whole is evaluated. From this new perspective the education system would seem to be interpreted as a sub-system of the economic system and thus subservient to it. Decisions on education matters seem to have become determinant for individual prosperity and decisions on the education system crucial for national welfare. In line with this view, which is rooted in the economics of education and human capital theories of the 1960s, international studies have been designed under the auspices of the OECD in the hope of obtaining more and better data for control purposes. This paper argues that such hope is not justified. Using Germany as an example, the practical consequences of these assumptions, which appear to be arbitrary, if not counter-productive, and the resultant changes in education policy based on the related control data will be described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents estimates of production functions of reading and mathematics test scores to assess the effects of supply-side interventions, such as the provision of a community-based school management programme, bilingual education and multigrade teaching, on student learning in Guatemala. The efficiency and consistency of the estimates is improved by using seemingly unrelated regressions to account for potential correlation between test scores. Results indicate that the community-based management programme, bilingual schools and traditional schools produce comparable learning of first-graders. However, in the case of third-graders the community-based school management programme and bilingual schools produce less learning than traditional schools. The learning of both first- and third-graders is found to be diminished in the multigrade teaching approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the professional technical education in Brazil and its interface with the high school level preliminary education, which prepares students for higher education (in Brazil called secondary, second degree or middle education). The study also analyzes its space in the Brazilian scenery, generally showing its relation with preliminary education since 1930, when the educational system was instated, to the current days. For that purpose, a survey was done both on the legislation concerning general education and the professional one, as well as the analysis rated by experts from that field. The survey shows that the professional technical education takes upon different forms and functions in the national scenery, according to the political phases, configuring itself as independent and distinctive from the preliminary education of high school level, sometimes sharing the function of preparation for the continuity of the studies and sometimes even taking over both possibilities. At the current context, the professional technical education has varied roles, i.e., it can take over the integrated model with the preliminary education of secondary level, regarding professional qualification functions and formation for the continuity of the studies. On the other hand, it can also accomplish itself at a distinct course, concomitant or sequentially, focusing on professional technical formation. It was verified the absence of the consensus about the outline of the professional technical education in the Brazilian educational legislation, even during a same government, developing models that are repeated independently of the management, which makes difficult the delimitation of the professional secondary education in the Brazilian educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the socioeconomic stratification of achievement in the Chilean voucher system using a census of 4th and 8th graders, a multilevel methodology, and accounting for unobserved selectivity into school sector. Findings indicate that the association between the school''s aggregate family socioeconomic status (SES) and test scores is much greater in the private-voucher sector than in the public one, resulting in marked socioeconomic stratification of test scores in the Chilean voucher system. We also find that the amount of tuition fees paid by parents in private-voucher schools has no bearing on test scores, after controlling for the socioeconomic makeup of the school. Implications of these findings for educational inequality in the context of a universal voucher system are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study tries to make a revision of the conflicts, negotiations and coexistences that characterized the configuration of the pedagogical field in Argentina during the 1930s, as well as recognizing the place that the New School occupied in it. This school of thought was not totally consistent as a whole: in fact, there was a wide range of interpretations about these ideas. In the Argentine pedagogical field of this decade, the relationship between the State and the educationalists who promoted New School's ideas was not always characterized by imposition or transgression. The New School wasn't an outsider in the educational system and the educational policy received its influence. Argentine promoters of New School that gathered around La Obra tried to present themselves as innovators in terms of pedagogical knowledge in order to appear as the only group capable of transforming the educational system as well as the only qualified to become spokesman for all the teachers in the country. This paper will analyze the underlying logic of the speeches of teachers and educationalists. It will be stated throughout this article that even though the Argentine pedagogical field had close connections with politics, it also followed its own path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortcomings in the funding system, along to public policies that promote private schools at expense of public schools, have influenced the emergence of a segregated school system that is accented in Chile by a marked inequality in the spatial distribution of education providers. In fact, student migration from public to private schools may be understood as a strategy from students and their families to deal with inequality in public education provision. This paper makes a study of migration from public schools to private schools in Chile, using the Maule Region as case of study. It concludes that the main challenge of a regional education policy is to promote collaboration within the public system to face competition from private education, improve quality and equity of the system as a whole, and enhance the prestige of public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to critically review theories of learning from the perspective of engineering education in order to align relevant assessment methods with each respective learning theory, considering theoretical aspects and practical observations and reflections. The role of formative assessment, taxonomies, peer learning and educational policy as regards promoting the learning of engineering is discussed. It is suggested that an integrated learning method in which cognitive levels, social factors and teamwork and behaviouristic elements are integrated will optimise the learning process on an engineering course. Moreover, assessment of learning should not be isolated from views of teaching and the learning methods employed by the university teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 25 years have brought upheaval to the indigenous people of Mexico due to two opposing forces: modernization and globalization, on the one hand, and indigenous uprisings on the other. Suddenly, the topic of indigenous languages and education was brought into official discussions at the national level. This paper examines the tensions that emerge between the political discourses which emanate from within the indigenous communities and from the national government, and the actual implementation of educational policy models. The political-educational discourse shifted from Spanishization [castellanizacion], assimilation, and integration to bilingualism, interculturalism, and participation. We demonstrate that this shift was not a smooth transition, but rather an abrupt change that occurred in the early 1990s. Further, despite the shift to new discourses that respected indigenous languages and cultures, institutional factors have not been altered sufficiently to improve the conditions of indigenous education or their well-being in Mexico. Thus, ultimately, the new discourse of bilingualism and interculturalism in education serves to obfuscate the socio-political-economic work that must be done to truly allow the indigenous people to participate in the nation's political life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Despite moves to ‘fast-track’ progress towards universal primary education, few fragile states have been able to access Fast Track Initiative (FTI) funding facilities. Weak systems and capacity have made these countries a high-risk proposition for donor investment. The absence of credible education sector plans has meant that the majority of fragile states are not eligible for endorsement to receive financial resources via the FTI. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that the FTI has struggled to identify suitable channels for resourcing education in these difficult development environments. Importantly, it finds that procedural and governance issues in particular have presented obstacles that have stymied the promotion of wider access to education in fragile states under the FTI umbrella. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent educational attainment targets set by Australian governments recognise education and training as pivotal to the economic and social well-being of Australians. The targets seek to close the gaps in attainment that socially and economically divide the population, and, in doing so, raise the levels of skills of the workforce and improve the ways in which education and training are delivered. TVET will play a critical role as it provides important programs for raising Year 12 completion rates, for re-engaging early school leavers, and for helping adults acquire qualifications after many years away from formal study. This paper examines some of the prospects and challenges that confront the TVET system in engaging with new populations and helping promote lifelong education for the most disadvantaged: early school leavers, the indigenous, people from poor families, those located in rural and remote areas and those with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the example of what is now known in a large part of the Anglo-saxon world as the boys' underachievement debate, this paper explores the construction of gender issues, which underpins educational policies in England and France. It argues that the formation of particular questions as 'policy issues' bears limited relation to what happens on the ground, yet is contingent on societal contexts. For example, while England and France share similar patterns in terms of the differential achievement of boys and girls, in the former the boys' underachievement debate is prominent, but in the latter it is non-existent. This supports the view that the emergence of the boys' underachievement debate is not related to a 'grounded reality'. Rather, the debate appears embedded in the discursive construction of gender and education and, more generally, of notions of citizenship and equality/difference. These findings provide a strong case in favour of a reflexive approach to equality matters in educational policy making. They also suggest that the analysis of what is constructed as a key issue in policy circles represents a rich terrain for feminist analysis, and they highlight that national frameworks continue to structure the thinking on equality issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dramatic changes during the past 20 years in Taiwan offer a good example of how gender policy in education is facilitated by a combination of interrelated economic, political and social forces. Taiwan's policy on gender education emerged from the interaction of state, education, academic and non-academic feminist positions in reforms. This paper demonstrates - first, the importance of the socio-political contexts in which reform was proposed, and second, the actions of feminists in making best use of the opportunities thrown up by a confluence of social factors. The social, economic and political transformations of the 1980s saw the rise of a 'new' state both supposedly and in reality more responsive to the needs of non-profit organisations. In testing out relationships of partnership with the state, feminist activists saw the deregulation of education as an opportunity to get women's issues on the agenda. These reforms were catalysed by a series of social events bringing together supporters in a mood of celebration, protest or mourning specifically in response to particular events. The struggles, contentions, and negotiations that underlay the eventual approval of gender reform in education are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Headteachers working under conditions of severe hardship in Africa face tremendous challenges, often exacerbated by a sense of hopelessness and lack of agency to effect improvements within their school. This paper focuses on notions of leadership agency and ‘social justice’ within an African educational context, with a specific focus on the school level, and reports on a small-scale research project involving primary headteachers in Ghana and Tanzania engaging with action research in order to bring about changes which they feel will benefit the quality of pupil learning. The study presents some positive impacts generated by the headteachers’ actions and indicates ways in which these actions illustrate developments in areas of ‘social justice’ related to fairness, equity, recognition, and redistribution. The findings suggest that empowering headteachers through the use of action research can enable them to act creatively and positively to benefit the quality of education offered to the pupils within their schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragmented condition of current educational order is a phenomenon that's been studied recently in Argentina. Fragmentation in macro political terms, as an effect of transference of educational services that, from an economic logic didn't recognize the necessary conditions to produce an effective decentralization. A Socio-educational fragmentation expressed in the institutional field with a pronounced social stratification inside schools. Recent social changes are shaping up an idea of the social as a conglomeration of scarcely articulated fragments. Said changes are generating new and deeper social-cultural distances in between the different groups that constitute what once could have been conceived as a "whole". What are the role of political discourse and particularly the role of official discourses in these processes? This paper, starting from an analysis of the official discourse of the province of Córdoba; attempts to show how the official formulations of the educational policy displaced the concept of segmentation from political discourse, generating new meanings for the system and school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with the principles of the Bologna Process, teacher education systems across Europe are converging along a common path. Taking the Republic of Ireland (Ireland) as a case study, this paper examines the European agenda in relation to teacher education and asks how individual nation states are coping with the demands of greater comparability and compatibility. It suggests that while structurally, teacher education in Ireland has undergone significant reform in order to conform to a wider European agenda, significant gaps remain in existing teacher education policy particularly in relation to continuous professional development which will, if not addressed, impede Ireland's capacity to adequately prepare teachers for the challenges of the twentieth-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 2008, the OECD published Improving School Leadership Volume 1: Policy and Practice and Improving School Leadership Volume 2: Case Studies on System Leadership. The main objectives of these reports were to compare school leadership policy between participating countries and to identify innovative practices and options for policy development. As part of the preparation for the final report, a background report on school leadership in the Republic of Ireland was prepared by the Department of Education and Science in 2007. This report will be analysed in this paper in order to identify the degree to which the background report achieved the objective of capturing the current and emerging issues facing school leaders in Ireland. A critique of the 'one size fits all' approach to policy in the area of school leadership detailed in Volume 1 of the OECD report follows. This critique contests that some of the policy recommendations contained in the report are based on a narrow and selective range of supporting evidence. A number of these are a cause of some concern particularly when considered in the context of specific features of the schools in the Republic of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments, international organizations and academics have, in recent decades, expressed a sense of crisis in the practice of democracy based largely upon increasing levels of disengagement by citizens from even the most basic elements of civic life. One response has been to devise civics and citizenship education curricula for schools with the concomitant expectations of enhanced civic practice. Our examination of citizenship education programs has revealed considerable variation from country to country in the degree of success achieved in the design, development and implementation of programs. This paper examines recent developments in citizenship education in four leading Western democracies - Australia, Canada, England and the USA; each one with its own particular successes and shortcomings. It identifies several factors associated with the successful building of curriculum capacity for citizenship education and argues that these are fundamental for countries wishing to move beyond rhetoric and toward substance in citizenship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the development of educational policy and curricula in relation to the development of a multicultural society in Iceland are critically discussed. Neither policy nor national curriculum guides refer particularly to multicultural society, multicultural or intercultural education. Implementations of equity principles are not clear in the curriculum guides. These facts leave schools at all levels with little guidance regarding how to implement multicultural education and even less encouragement to do so. However, examples of good multicultural practices in schools are increasing in number, largely led by interested principals, many of who have been educated in the field of multicultural or intercultural education. These schools are often encouraged and supported by highly progressive municipal policies. I greininni er fjallað a gagnryninn hatt um Þroun menntastefnu og aðalnamskraa i tengslum við Þroun fjolmenningarlegs samfelags a Islandi. Hvorki menntastefna ne almennir hlutar aðalnamskraa visa serstaklega i fjolmenningarlegt samfelag a Islandi og fjolmenningarlega menntun. Framkvæmd jafnrettislaga er ekki skyr i aðalnamskranum. Skolar fa Þvi mjog takmarkaða leiðsogn við framkvæmd fjolmenningarlegrar menntunar og enn minni hvatningu. Þo fjolgar skolum Þar sem fjolmenningarlegt skolastarf fer fram með einum eða oðrum hætti. Þa skola leiða i flestum tilvikum ahugasamir leiðtogar, margir hverjir menntaðir a sviði fjolmenningarlegrar menntunar. Framsæknar stefnur tiltekinna sveitarfelaga styðja enn fremur við og hvetja til sliks skolastarfs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we discuss results from an analysis of a large dataset that includes virtually all sixth-grade students in Uruguay in 1996. We analyze the relationship between teacher attributes and student achievement scores and we explore the distribution of teachers according to characteristics identified as important by this analysis. We find that teachers with “important” attributes are distributed in a way that systematically favors schools with higher average achievement and socioeconomic context. Policy-related factors that may explain these patterns include Uruguay''s system of teacher compensation, teachers’ working conditions, the level and locus of educational decision making in Uruguay, and teacher recruitment and assignment policies. The results are particularly interesting because Uruguay is a relatively equal society in Latin American terms, so the unequal distribution of teacher attributes is probably more accentuated in other Latin American societies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper sets out to examine educational policy and practice in Scotland, showing how the 'comprehensive and coherent programme to promote social inclusion' - inculcating 'readiness to learn', ensuring that education equips the young for adult life, creating a demand for lifelong learning, above all through the presumption of mainstreaming - is indicative of and constitutive of a change in the way in which we are subject to governance in Scotland. This shift can be read as consistent with a move from a predominantly 'disciplinary' society as set out by Michel Foucault towards the 'control society' as elaborated by Gilles Deleuze - a society which does not operate through confinement but continuous control made possible by cybertechnology. Although it specifically draws on Scottish legislation and policy, it should be recognised that this is itself subject to emergent global education policy and so its relevance goes beyond these borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The right to education has an established legacy in international agreements and debates, but has nonetheless proved difficult to achieve across the countries of the world. This paper explores why this might be so. It begins by locating the current architecture of rights in Enlightenment philosophy and the political and legal formations of modernity, exploring the paradoxical legacy this brings. It then looks more specifically at the right to education, and why it cannot be assumed that statements of rights deliver what they promise. Finally, it looks at education in South Africa to explore both the limits and the possibilities of using a framework of rights to achieve greater social justice in global times. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Most nations in Africa south of the Sahara made a significant effort to promote education mainly in the years that followed their independence from colonial powers; however, the policies devised for promoting education after independence minimized or excluded the private sector. It is only recently that most African governments started to realize the limitations of public monopoly in education and since then, private schools are re-emerging in all major cities in Africa south of the Sahara. This paper therefore, after providing a brief overview of the development of private education in the Africa south of the Sahara, addresses the comparative analysis of the merits of private and public education and some policy issues that are emerging out of the current trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing a richer understanding of why the populations of economically underdeveloped countries are less literate than those who live in wealthier nations is the goal of this paper. Our analysis relies primarily on insights from our own research: ethnographic studies concerning literacy learning and use among unschooled and under-schooled women conducted during the late 1990s in Mexico City and historical studies of literacy in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia along the southeastern seaboard of the USA. We examine three social mechanisms that potentially obstruct access to literacy: (1) cultural ideas and practices about schooling and written language; (2) family and personal attitudes towards literacy: (3) the impact of poverty on family life and access to literacy. Any one of these mechanisms may impede the dispersion of literacy. If all three are present, as they frequently are, then the spread and use of literacy is likely to be severely hindered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on the efforts of educators at nine different research sites within the United States, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), to develop and implement innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum on the relationship of the environment and human health. The NIEHS correctly maintained that the interdisciplinary nature of learning about environmental health would improve students' learning across several subject areas and should, therefore, contribute to students scoring higher on state's subject area based standardized tests. However, these goals were undermined by state polices linking standardized tests with student promotion and graduation, and the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that required public schools and districts to aggregate test scores which might have negative consequences, such as reducing school funding or privatizing school administration and state policies. These policies resulted in deleterious effects that undermined implementing environmental health curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is widespread agreement that poverty and poor educational outcomes are related, there are different explanations about why that should be the case. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual synthesis of some of the research literature on poverty and education. From our readings the debates cohere, to a greater or lesser extent, around three different foci: ones that focus on the individual and that we have termed the 'micro-level'; some that focus on 'immediate social contexts' that might be located in families, communities, schools and peer groups and that we have termed the 'meso-level'; and others again that focus on social structures and/or are linked to notions of power and inequality and that we have termed the 'macro-level'. In addition, the various literatures highlight a fundamental difference in the way they understood the role of education in producing what we might call the 'good society' - and hence what counts as 'good education'. These two broad positions we have termed as functionalist and socially critical perspectives and together with the micro-, meso- and macro-foci provide a mapping framework by which we organise the literature and through which we examine a number of educational policy interventions in England that have focused on educational outcomes and disadvantage/poverty. The analysis suggests that perhaps too much policy intervention focuses on the more accessible and amenable meso-level (and to lesser extent the micro-level) with too little emphasis on the macro-level. At the same time many interventions appear disjointed, often lack coherence and seem to eschew issues of power. Different ways of responding to these apparent deficiencies are explored through current developments and potential in full service extended schools and through notions of democratic pedagogy and governance possibilities suggestive of the 'new localism' agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of Chinese government attempts to promote a revised school curriculum reflecting a more holistic approach to education under the banner of suzhi jiaoyu (“quality education”), and positions the policies in the Chinese historical, educational, social and economic context. While the push has inspired innovative reforms in a number of schools and met with considerable in-principal support, on a wider scale implementation of the reforms is hampered by insufficient resources, conceptual ambiguity and conservative resistance. The goals of the new curriculum are still not reflected in the examinations and frequently conflict with teacher, student and parental goals in a society where examination outcomes have life long consequences. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Discourse on a knowledge based society and its connection with the concept of lifelong learning is among the dominant debates within European education circles today. The term knowledge society can be explained as a policy construction which seeks to present things as they are, as they were, and as they should be. This paper deals with the various discourses on lifelong learning, especially where they present difficulties for educational policy transfers in the European Union. In the EU, lifelong learning connects educational and social policies, which today are mostly defined by member states. The European Union has complementary and supporting competences in education and shared competences for social policy (defined in the yet-to-be ratified Lisbon Treaty). But is there one policy that can connect the ideas of 27 different member states? The author argues that the idea of lifelong learning has until now only occurred within a specific epistemic community of international experts and leading persons of international organizations. Changes in Croatia's educational policy, however, have occurred as a continuation of transition, under the influence of global changes, and as a part of the accession process to the European Union. The changes in definition of European educational initiatives can be attributed to the implementation processes, where a community in practice tends to adapt European meanings to the national environment, specifically the position of its own organization and abilities. It is argued that the difference between national and European discourse is not necessarily an obstacle to the development of national educational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the economic benefits and costs of higher education as these are perceived by higher education candidates and labour market entrants in Cyprus. It provides further evidence on the topic after a similar study which preceded the present project by 10 years. Perceived rates of return to education are presented for two points in time, namely, 1993 and 2003. The findings point to an increasing awareness of the link between education and earnings on the part of young people, which can be linked to the country''s economic development. The main influences on the respondents’ expected lifetime earnings are examined through multiple regression analysis. Gender and ability are found to be significantly related to expected earnings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]