Non-government organisations (NGOs) are big players in international development, critical to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and constantly under pressure to "achieve more". Scaling-up their initiatives successfully and sustainably can be an efficient and cost effective way for NGOs to increase their impact across a…

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…

Many children in Malawi have poor access to learning and are at risk of exclusion and early dropout. In the context of HIV/AIDS, formal schools need to become more flexible and responsive to children's lives. Introducing an educational model that integrates open and flexible learning strategies with conventional schooling, this paper highlights…

This article investigates conceptually and practically what it means for schools to engage in the practice of continuous improvement. The analysis draws upon prior research and discussion to predict core elements of the practice of continuous improvement in schools. The predictions are then applied to a case study of continuous improvement efforts…

What was accomplished and what was learned from United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) investment of over $733 million aimed at strengthening basic education systems in the developing world? These questions were addressed through an analysis of 286 documents drawn from 33 projects sponsored by the USAID between 1990 and 2005.…

This article explores the nature of participatory practices in policy-making in basic education and their impact on the directions and outcomes of policy. Drawing on theoretical developments in policy studies, the focus is on non-formal education as a policy challenge for EFA. Data are presented from a recent field study undertaken in Uganda of…

The level of educational development in Pakistan is low. A decentralisation reform was introduced in 2000 to improve the delivery of basic education by designating the local government body with primary responsibility for administering it. A qualitative field study on local education administration at the North West Frontier Province found…

This paper explores the making of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in South Africa, and asks how a policy that was intended to unite education and training, and build new forms of equality, failed to become hegemonic as the new state established itself. In so doing, it engages, and argues for, theoretical tools that help keep "the…

A school improvement program that provided support to poor-performing schools on the basis of needs identified in a school improvement plan was implemented in 72 government schools in Jamaica, from 1998 to 2005. In this independent evaluation of the program, we use propensity score matching to create, post hoc, a control group of schools that were…

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…

Debates about decentralisation, involving questions such as who should make decisions about public schooling and who should pay for it [Caillods, F., 1999. Preface. In: McGinn, N., Welsh, T. (Eds.), Decentralization of Education: Why, When, What and How? UNESCO, Paris] have permeated and affected educational planning in the last 20 or so years.…

This paper uses the device of imagining Education personnel at the World Bank engaging in study and discussion that causes them to rethink their 1999 Education Sector Strategy document. The Bank's educators discuss issues that lead them to see that the World Bank's assumptions of human capital theory are deficient. Having studied the severe…