Eco-Schools is the largest global sustainability school program, with over 59,000 schools that engage 20 million students and 1.4 million teachers across 93 countries. The program was developed in response to the needs identified at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in…

Since UNESCO's Salamanca Declaration in 1994, inclusive education has progressively attracted attention in international debates around education policy. While some evidence exists on the positive impact that inclusive education reforms can have on the academic and personal outcomes of diverse students -- and in particular of students with special…

Bringing international students to study at U.S. campuses is increasingly viewed as the best option to globalize the campus, yet the United States lags behind other countries in providing opportunities for international students, particularly at the undergraduate level. Although the one million international students studying in the United States…

Today, more than half of the world population is under the age of 25 years and one in four is under age 18. The urgency of expanding access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) notably for children and young people in Africa and Asia is greater than ever before. However, many challenges to the implementation and delivery of CSE in resource…

We describe our contributions in using information and communication technologies (ICT) to address the digital and knowledge divides in developing regions. These include the implementation of new prototype systems using "state-of-the-art", low-cost technologies based on the scientific audience, the local information technology…

What do we know about the outcomes of education in developing countries? Where are the gaps in our knowledge, and why are they important to fill? What are the policy challenges that underlie these knowledge gaps, and how can education best contribute to eliminating the problem of widespread poverty in the developing world? This book arises out of…

Sustainability strategies are closely tied to the logic of the donor in every institution. Philanthropies that are set up with a limited time-span tend to scale up their impact differently. The educational programs of the Open Society Institute, for example, prioritize institutionalization over any other sustainability strategy. This is how it…

Since its establishment in 2003, the Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD-J) has paid close attention to informal learning processes in community-based efforts to promote local sustainable development. ESD-J carried out two projects to collect information on and visualise community-based ESD practice: the…

To policy planners in developing countries open and distance learning (ODL), because of its cost and delivery characteristics, is and has been a very attractive option for delivering tertiary education. Yet, we have very little evidence on outcomes and the system's effectiveness. Providing some of this evidence is the main contribution of this…

Beyond 3Rs to learning within political action to functional literacy to life skills, the discourse on adult literacy has primarily been defined by civil society organizations. This article presents thoughts on adult literacy programs coming from educators and advocates and the underlying dilemmas of autonomy and collaboration with government for…

Barriers that impede effective communication between scientists and journalists include communication styles and skills, professional jargon, mistrust, time constraints, and orientation to knowledge types and "facts." Here we describe an experiment in building bridges between journalists and scientists in Southeast Asia and Japan in a…

The U.S. public has consistently favored standardized testing in the schools, preferably with consequences (or "stakes") riding on the results, ever since the first polls taken on the topic several decades ago. Results from different polls approaching the topic in different ways suggest that nearly all Americans would like to see…

Reviews international research that documents how participation in early childhood programs influenced children's later development and success in school. The research shows participation in preschool promotes cognitive development and school success; program type matters little. Further, maternal employment and reliance on child care do not harm…

The regional seminar on the evaluation of the Teacher Education Program (TEP) tryout was held at the Regional English Language Center (RELC) in 1968. The seminar's purpose was to determine the usefulness of TEP in preparing teachers of English as a second language in the RELC member countries in Southeast Asia. This document is the seminar report.…

The Preprimary Project is a comprehensive comparative study of early childhood services in nations on four continents. This report describes the project, the instrument devised to measure the project's effectiveness, and some preliminary findings. The project is sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational…