This paper examines the "imaginaries" taking place in New Engineering Education (NEE). The NEE is the most recent reform of the engineering education sector in China and is used to interrogate the more encompassing backdrop of the country's national imaginary, the "Chinese Dream." Further, this paper analyzes three important…

There has been a global convergence of policies attempting to standardize the practices and competencies of school leaders. This policy convergence highlights a similar set of leadership practices that are expected for effective school leaders, and contributes to the constitution of a global dominant discourse on school leadership. This study is a…

In this Forum the authors suggest that a growing intensity of contradictory public and private interests in education is a persistent force in education development stemming from the increasing centrality of education in contemporary society. Contrasting South Korea's effective policies ensuring equality of educational opportunity with its…

The study detailed in this paper examines the role of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in the transnational policy-making landscape in relation to African fragile and conflict-affected states. Data collection was based on content analysis of a corpus of documents -- Education Sector Plans (ESPs)/Transitional Sector Plans -- examining to…

In the late 1980s, the Chinese government instituted massive educational reforms to promote competition between schools and between students. By the late 1990s, however, educational reforms shifted to regulating and reducing competition in primary and secondary education. Why did a rapid policy swing occur? What was the rationale for the policy…

In 2002 a high-level economic review committee recommended that Singapore position itself as a "global schoolhouse". An ambitious target was set to attract 150,000 international students to Singapore by 2015 and to lift the education sector's contribution to GDP from 1.9% to 5% in the same timeframe. The global schoolhouse was viewed as…

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyse and evaluate the successive comprehensive reforms in Spain as a "paradigmatic" example of the emergence, evolution and crisis of the comprehensive school. In the first part, we describe the development of the comprehensive school project (1970-2013), using the image of the life cycle,…

Background: Scholars widely acknowledge that politics help explain why policies are adopted and how they play out in states, districts, and schools. To date, political analyses of education reform tend to isolate a particular policy and examine the politics of its adoption or implementation, but pay less attention to the effects of the politics of…

For 20 years, charter schools have held a precarious existence in Canada. Implemented in the province of Alberta in 1994, only a handful of charter schools remain in the entire nation. In this article, I explore the ideas of school choice and charter schooling and how they have largely disappeared as educational policy issues for Canadians. While…

While the landscape of postsecondary education in Alberta continues to expand and diversify, there seems to be very little written about the organization of postsecondary education in the province over the past 15 to 20 years (Wimmer & Schmaus, 2010). This paper provides an analysis of postsecondary education in Alberta over the past 15 to 20…

Programmes of international educational exchange are not only carried out for educational purposes, but form an important part of modern-day public diplomacy. Through exchange programmes education and research are linked with foreign policy interests, which then in turn should affect the international contacts of universities and research…

In this descriptive study the aim is to analyze the Hungarian educational policy history and event-chain of the comprehensive and post-comprehensive project. As a structuring framework this paper used the historical landmarks and the different institutional arrangement models (governance types and power distribution models). Accordingly, three…

The purpose of this article is to provide a more comprehensive picture of teacher preparation in Ethiopia on top of a closer scrutiny of current teacher education reforms. In particular, it presents teacher education within the context of policy implementation over the last six decades by highlighting key reforms and how these reforms impacted the…

In 2009, the Obama Administration created a $4.3 billion dollar grant competition for states called "Race to the Top" (RttT). The money, earmarked from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was to be distributed by the Department of Education to states who were making efforts to adhere to precirculated reforms supported by…

This essay explores the role of UNESCO, the World Bank, and the US Agency for International Development as key international actors shaping teacher development in Palestine. The argument presented is that international influence, particularly through donor-funded projects, combined with limited capacity within the Ministry of Education and local…