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A collection of essays on European language policy, each by one or both of the authors, are: "Lessons for Europe from Language Policy in Australia"; "English Only Worldwide, or Language Ecology"; "Minority Workers or Minority Human Beings? A European Dilemma"; "Educational Language Choice--Multilingual Diversity or Monolingual Reductionism?"; "Linguicide and Linguicism"; "A Historical Outline of British Policy for the Spread of English"; "Is India Throwing Away Its Language Resources?"; reviews of two publications on language policy; reviews of Normand Labrie's "La construction linguistique de la Communaute europeenne" and Christina Bratt Paulston's "Linguistic Minorities in Multilingual Settings"; and "Language Policy," a proposed 5-year policy plan for Denmark, written in Danish. Each of the papers was written as part of a project on language policy in contemporary Europe, supported by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. Some are papers presented at conferences worldwide, and others were written for publication. (MSE)

This publication is one of two prepared for a South Asian Colloquium on issues related to teacher training in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The papers in this volume focus on innovations and alternative strategies designed to improve quality in teacher education at preservice phase. The publication is in five sections. The first four sections were prepared by the respective national Ministries of Education. Section 1 is on Bangladesh and includes an overview of literacy and primary education and a discussion of provisions for initial training of teachers, the funding of education, and problems and remedies. Section 2, on India, includes a brief history of India's educational system, a review of key issues in the National Policy of Education, a discussion of issues facing Indian educators in the nineties, and several data tables. Pakistan is the focus of section 3 which looks at historical perspectives on teacher training, training of elementary and secondary teachers, qualifications for teacher educators, innovations in teacher training, analysis of teacher training programs, financing of teacher education, and recommendations for future development. The fourth section is on Sri Lanka and covers inservice and preservice teacher education, successful innovations in teacher training, problems and issues, and statistical information. The final section is an overview by Beatrice Avalos which summarizes the educational context and the characteristics, issues, and alternatives of teacher education in general and in each of the four countries. (Individual sections contain references.) (ND)

This project is the result of a three year study of a sample of secondary schools in Botswana, India, Northern Ireland, and Zimbabwe. The study is backed up by longer interviews with students, teachers, and administrators, an audit of the curriculum, a review of educational materials, and an examination of the teacher education available. A questionnaire was administered to 915 students aged 14 and 16 in 23 schools. The study was designated as a key Commonwealth contribution to the United Nations Decade of Human Rights Education. It looked at how the education systems are currently providing an infrastructure for human rights in these member states. The project concentrated on: (1) how national commitments to human rights instruments are reflected in the school curriculum; (2) whether young people are acquiring basic concepts in selected dimensions of human rights; (3) what the difference two years of study makes to the understanding of young people; (4) whether there are any significant variations between countries (by gender or between different types of school within the same country); (5) what are the key priorities identified for strengthening this area of the curriculum; and (6) what scope there is for Commonwealth cooperation in the future. (Contains 45 references.) (BT)

A group of 100 randomly selected women living in the resettlement colony of Ambedkernager in South Delhi, India, who had participated in colony's Total Literacy Campaign (TLC) were interviewed regarding their participation in the TLC. Of the 100 women, 34 had attended school earlier. Four of the 34 women were still attending school. Most respondents were motivated to join the TLC by young literacy volunteers living in their neighborhoods. Although most women joined the TLC on their own initiative, most had husbands, parents, or children who supported their participation in the campaign. Most respondents had positive opinions about the literacy volunteers; however, not all of them liked attending literacy classes. Although all the respondents had completed the three TLC primers, only 16% were able to reach the National Literacy Mission norm when tested. By and large, the respondents did not use their newly acquired reading, writing, and numeracy skills in their everyday lives. When asked whether literacy had changed their personal and family lives, many respondents did not initially answer positively. When probed, however, they acknowledged some changes in their lives after acquiring literacy skills. (Contains 28 references.) (MN)

This publication is a companion volume to a research report that examined local, national, and international interventions and initiatives aimed at promoting education and training for the informal sector. It provides four case studies on types of initiatives being taken by a wide range of actors in the area of education and training. "Ghana" (Osei Boeh-Ocansey) addresses how the government realizes that employment opportunities in the formal sector of the economy will continue to be limited; therefore, educational reforms are now emphasizing the acquisition of skills that promote self-employment and entrepreneurship. "Kenya" (Henry Oketch) reviews strategies that individuals, the government, and nonprofit organizations are using to improve skills in the informal sector. It identifies nine different types of agencies or processes providing skills for self-employment. "India" (Keith D'Souza, Liza Thomas) focuses on the activities of four nongovernmental organizations working in the field of nonformal education in the state of Gujarat. Their emphasis is on capacity building rather than on employment generation or job skill development. "Chile" (Graciela Messina) compares two training programs for unemployed youth to develop a series of reflections on the role that training for the informal sector ought to play. It concludes that the government is more concerned with employment policies than with training policies. (YLB)

This paper offers a broad look at accreditation and quality assurance in higher education and how these issues are addressed around the world. Section 1 is an overview of accreditation and addresses the aims and objectives of accreditation, standards, accreditation bodies, stages of the accreditation process, the quality of that process, the role of government in the accreditation process, some critical points of view concerning the process, and present accreditation trends. Section 2 looks at accreditation and quality assurance through brief national case studies. The nations represented are France, Germany, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States, China, India, Hong Kong, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and Australia. This section closes with a section comparing accreditation and quality assurance in various regions. Section 3 takes a closer and more detailed look at the accreditation process in Romania, particularly in light of the recent political and educational changes in this nation and the fairly recent decision to introduce accreditation of institutions of higher education. This examination covers accreditation principles and objectives, standards for initial and subsequent accreditation, application rules, structure of the accreditation committee and its functions, and provisions for financing accreditation. Appendixes contain institutional evaluation standards and a glossary. (Contains 27 references.) (JB)

This study explored the readjustment experience of 49 Indians who came to the United States to study and then returned to their home country. Interviews revealed that most experienced some stress or difficulty after their re-entry, with problems ranging from initial anxiety about getting a job or shock at the crowded conditions, pollution, or the frustrations of power and telephone outages, to an intense period of depression and alienation. A few who had been back in India for 4 to 5 years were still having a difficult time, while some students who had been back for less than a year seemed quite comfortable with their lives in India. Twelve interviewees specifically mentioned that they "think about going back" to the United States. Factors in difficult re-entries related to cultural differences, economic differences, changes in values, and having to make adjustments in many aspects of their lives such as changing family roles and changing from student life to work life. Profiles of five returned students are presented to illustrate their very different re-entry experiences. Issues discussed include returning to mutual dependence in the family, marriage and family, the job search, the work environment, national identity, attitudes, and coping strategies. (Contains 14 reference notes.) (JDD)

The Right to Education Act in 2009 guaranteed access to free primary education for all children in India ages 6-14. This paper investigates whether national trends in educational data changed around the time of this law using household surveys and administrative data. We document four trends: (1) School-going increases after the passage of RTE, (2) Test scores decline dramatically after 2010, (3) School infrastructure appears to be improving both before and after RTE, and (4) The number of students who have to repeat a grade falls precipitously after RTE is enacted, in line with the official provisions of the law.

Scaling up good corporate social investment practices in developing countries is crucial to realizing the "Education for All" and "Millennium Development Goals". Yet very few corporate social investments have the right mix of vision, financing, cross-sector engagement and leadership to come to scale. Globally, 67 million children are not enrolled in primary school, over 200 million are in school but not mastering basic skills such as reading, and many millions more complete post-primary education without the skills needed to participate in society or the local economy. Overcoming these challenges will require swift and bold action by many actors, including governments, multilateral organizations, donors and civil society. Corporations can use their core assets to generate shared value for business and society by helping get children into school, setting a strong learning agenda and scaling up what works in education. This policy paper looks at what works and what is not working in corporate efforts to further education in developing countries. (Contains 54 endnotes.)

Performance pay for teachers is frequently suggested as a way of improving educational outcomes in schools, but the empirical evidence to date on its effectiveness is limited and mixed. We present results from a randomized evaluation of a teacher incentive program implemented across a representative sample of government-run rural primary schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The program provided bonus payments to teachers based on the average improvement of their students' test scores in independently administered learning assessments (with a mean bonus of 3% of annual pay). Students in incentive schools performed significantly better than those in control schools by 0.19 and 0.12 standard deviations in math and language tests respectively. They scored significantly higher on "conceptual" as well as "mechanical" components of the tests suggesting that the gains in test scores represented an actual increase in learning outcomes. Incentive schools also performed better on subjects for which there were no incentives. We find no significant difference in the effectiveness of group versus individual teacher incentives. Incentive schools performed significantly better than other randomly-chosen schools that received additional schooling inputs of a similar value. Appended are: (1) Project Timeline and Activities; and (2) Project Team, Test Administration, and Robustness to Cheating. (Contains 17 tables, 6 figures, and 53 footnotes.)

What contribution can information technology (IT) make to India's overall economic development? This paper provides an analytical framework centred around the concepts of comparative advantage, complementarities, and innovation. There is strong evidence that India has a strong and sustainable comparative advantage in software development and IT-enabled services. Complementarities -- in particular some form of domestic hardware industry as well as growing demand for software within the domestic market -- are also important to sustain the growth of the IT sector, as well as to broaden its developmental impact. The paper also reviews innovative experiments of IT use to improve interactions between citizens and governments, farmers and corporations, and students and teachers in rural areas. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of opportunities for future growth in IT-enabled services, constraints to such dynamics, and possible policy responses. India faces existing and potential bottlenecks in areas such as infrastructure, availability of a skilled labour force, and financing of entrepreneurial activity that can hinder the contribution of IT to broader economic development. Continuing and accelerating cross-cutting reforms in areas such as labour and investment laws and in privatisation is preferable to narrowly targeted tax subsidies and other incentives on the IT sector. (A bibliography is included. Contains 44 notes and 4 tables.)

This paper describes the results of two specific primary surveys, one of IT professionals in the city of Bangalore and their role in making the city a corridor for international mobility of Indian professionals, and the second survey of health professionals (doctors and nurses) in the city of New Delhi. In these surveys, highly skilled Indians were asked about their motivations for emigrating, their experiences abroad, their reasons for coming back to India and their perception of their current situation. These surveys were carried out as a supplement to a study on estimating the stocks, flows and international mobility of human resources in science and technology (HRST) in India. The results of that work are reported in STI Working Paper 2004/7 (Khadria 2004). The findings of both case studies show that young IT professionals as well as the medical professionals want to go abroad mainly to gain professional experience, which they think will be highly valued in India when they come back. In addition, they are encouraged by higher earnings, perks and high quality of life in the host country. However, unlike the IT professionals as well as most doctors, the majority of prospective nurses want to settle down abroad permanently, because they hardly perceive their career prospects to be bright in India. Amongst the doctors, only some are prepared to settle down abroad permanently if they get a chance. The fact that none of the respondent professionals in Bangalore gave priority to the idea of settling down abroad highlights a unique aspect behind Bangalore becoming a "corridor" for migration (outward and inward) of Indian HRST, which is not the case with health professionals from New Delhi. The IT professionals in Bangalore feel that they have growing opportunities for their career growth in India in general and Bangalore in particular. This study was done by an Indian consultant for the OECD, as part of the programme of work of the OECD Centre for Co-operation with Non-members (CCNM) and the Economic Analysis and Statistics Division (EAS) of the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI). The OECD wishes to thank the National Science Foundation (United States) for its generous support which has facilitated this work and the work on HRST in general. The following are appended: (1) Questionnaire on the Return Migration of Skilled Professionals in Bangalore; and (2) Questionnaire for the Study of Out-Migration of Health Professionals (Doctors and Nurses) from India. (Contains 5 footnotes, 21 figures, and 5 tables.)

This paper compares the influence of state policies on gender roles and women's empowerment in China, India, and South Korea. In 1950, these newly formed states were largely poor and agrarian, with common cultural factors that placed similar severe constraints on women's autonomy. The three countries followed very different paths of development, which have had a tremendous impact on gender outcomes. Today the countries show striking differences in the extent of gender equity achieved, with China showing the most gender equity and South Korea the least. India has achieved considerable improvement in gender equity, but both men and women continue to struggle with poverty, illiteracy, and poor health conditions. Following an overview of kinship systems and the construction of gender in the three countries, this paper focuses on several key issues: access to education, employment and income patterns, women's health and health education, family law and the legal rights of women, and state efforts to influence gender-related values and behaviors through mass communication. The experiences of these three countries suggest that even when states are interested in promoting gender equity, their actions are often constrained by the desire to maintain stable family structures. In addition, it is very difficult for states to alter inequitable rural rules of residence and land ownership, which form part of the moral order of rural society. Transition to an urban economy often loosens the constraints to gender equity. The impact of policies to provide opportunities for women's empowerment have been greatly enhanced by communication efforts to alter cultural values that impede women's access to those opportunities. (Contains 59 references.) (SV)

China and India have faced similar conditions and challenges in education during their rapid industrial and social transformation. The two countries started building their national education systems under comparable conditions in the late 1940s. However, different policies, strategies, and historical circumstances have led them through different routes. China has outperformed India in primary and secondary education along a broad spectrum of access, quality, and delivery indicators. India, on the other hand, enjoys a competitive edge over China in higher education. Recently, India has begun catching up with China in K-12 education, while China has already overtaken India in terms of the college enrollment and number of graduates. The respective successes and challenges of the Chinese and Indian education systems offer valuable lessons for both countries and for the rest of the developing world. The authors identify issues that deserve further attention of researchers and policymakers. (Contains 6 figures, 2 tables, 14 footnotes, and a bibliography.)

Many efforts to improve school quality by adding school resources have proven to be ineffective. This paper presents the results of two experiments conducted in Mumbai and Vadodara, India, designed to evaluate ways to improve the quality of education in urban slums. A remedial education program hired young women from the community to teach basic literacy and numeracy skills to children lagging behind in government schools. We find the program to be very effective: it increased average test scores of all children in treatment schools by 0.14 standard deviations in the first year, and 0.28 in the second year, relative to comparison schools. A computer-assisted learning program provided each child in the fourth grade with two hours of shared computer time per week, in which students played educational games that reinforced mathematics skills. The program was also very effective, increasing math scores by 0.35 standard deviations the first year, and 0.47 the second year. These results were not limited to the period in which students received assistance, but persisted for at least one year after leaving the program. Two instrumental variable strategies suggest that while remedial education benefited the children who attended the remedial classes, their classmates, who did not attend the remedial courses but did experience smaller classes, did not post gains, confirming that resources alone may not be sufficient to improve outcomes.

In the rural areas of developing countries, teacher absence is a widespread problem. This paper tests whether a simple incentive program based on teacher presence can reduce teacher absence, and whether it has the potential to lead to more teaching activities and better learning. In 60 informal one-teacher schools in rural India, randomly chosen out of 120 (the treatment schools), a financial incentive program was initiated to reduce absenteeism. Teachers were given a camera with a tamper-proof date and time function, along with instructions to have one of the children photograph the teacher and other students at the beginning and end of the school day. The time and date stamps on the photographs were used to track teacher attendance. A teacher's salary was a direct function of his attendance. The remaining 60 schools served as comparison schools. The introduction of the program resulted in an immediate decline in teacher absence. The absence rate (measured using unannounced visits both in treatment and comparison schools) changed from an average of 42 percent in the comparison schools to 22 percent in the treatment schools. When the schools were open, teachers were as likely to be teaching in both types of schools, and the number of students present was roughly the same. The program positively affected child achievement levels: a year after the start of the program, test scores in program schools were 0.17 standard deviations higher than in the comparison schools and children were 40 percent more likely to be admitted into regular schools.

This study analyses the impact of democratic decentralisation on the chances of socially excluded groups to participate in newly created local governance institutions--Panchayati Raj Institutions--in three Indian states. This institutional reform included a quota for the disadvantaged--women and lower castes--to ensure their effective participation. The comparative analysis on the determinants of participation of these groups and the poor vis-a-vis other groups across the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh yields highly interesting results, relevant beyond the Indian context. First, the outcomes of decentralisation on participation are different across states and between different marginalised groups. While in Kerala socially disadvantaged groups and the poor are represented more than other groups at the Panchayat level, in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh the socially disadvantaged groups are as represented as the others whereas the poor continue to be largely under-represented. In all three states, women are under-represented. Secondly, creating awareness through political mobilisation seems to be the driving factor explaining the different outcomes across the three states. In fact, Kerala distinguished itself from the other two states significantly with respect to mobilisation possibilities through political parties, a denser network of self-help groups, better outcomes in basic education and literacy. The conclusion is that the success of institutional reforms aiming to increase political participation depends on the specific design of the process itself as well as on the local conditions. An effective devolution of resources to Panchayats seems to influence participation positively as does a vibrant political society characterised by a broad spectrum of political parties, active civil society and newspaper reading. (A bibliography is included. Survey questions and maps of the selected states are appended. Contains 11 footnotes, 11 figures and 22 tables.)

This paper studies the trends in the financing of elementary education in India over the past decade. In 1994 the Indian Supreme Court issued a directive to universalize free and compulsory elementary education, but that in a changing economic milieu where social service expenditures have often been reduced in other countries, it is important to analyze the financing of elementary education in India. The paper considers the financing of elementary education by all agents, including: the government of India and individual state governments. Household data from central and state government budget documents are used to obtain public expenditures, while private expenditures are obtained from survey data. The analysis in the paper compares public spending on elementary education over time and across states. It explores the relationships between spending on elementary education and national/state incomes. It also examines the variations in real expenditures and real expenditures per student. The paper attempts to correlate public expenditures with enrollments in elementary schools in various states. The paper studies the role of household spending on sending children to government, private aided, and private unaided schools in the various states. Includes 29 notes, 2 information boxes, and 19 tables. Six figures are annexed. (Contains 18 references.) (BT)