Programme evaluation is essential for quality assurance in education. In this paper, we describe our evaluation strategy for the first year of a new medical programme. Although we used multiple methods in the evaluation, the use of the focus group method was core. This paper reports our experiences of focus groups for this purpose. We describe the…

At a time when some 24% of the Brazilian population of 182 million are functionally illiterate, the author shows how illiteracy is concentrated in traditionally poor and disadvantaged social and ethnic groups as well as in certain regions of the country. He surveys the changes in legislation, policies and attitudes relating to literacy over the…

This article describes the methodical problems of the ranking of Russian universities by the independent ranking agency RatER. The main features of this ranking system are public estimations of the quality of the higher education in Russia. The results of the sociological study were processed by the original statistical methods. The procedure…

This biennial survey, issued to all New Jersey postsecondary institutions, provides the Commission on Higher Education with current information about both the population of college students with disabilities in the state, as well as the extent to which this population is served by the state-funded regional centers. The survey was sent to all…

Since 2000, the only serious attempt to mobilise new resources for education has been the World Bank's co-ordinated "Fast Track Initiative (FTI)." However, the FTI only raises funds for achieving universal completion of primary school and it does not address early childhood education or adult literacy. To date the Global Campaign for Education has…