Distance education has become an important policy option for educational planners in developing countries. In the context of Nigeria, increasing population, growing national demand for education, dwindling financial resources, increasing fiscal constraints, and therefore narrowing of access to education led to the emergence of Open University in…

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in college access and with it, a growing concern about the debt incurred by students. Analysts on all sides suggest a variety of causes and solutions to this very complex problem. This paper presents a collection of informational items that can be seen as both disparate and connected. We can see…

Now as Congress and the Bush administration consider the five-year reauthorization of the law, they have the opportunity to address some of NCLB's important problems of commission and omission. The goal of closing the huge achievement gap is laudable and must be addressed effectively. The NCLB seeks to develop and implement a new federal and state…

Since 1988 the education system in England has been subjected to wave upon wave of radical change and reform. Despite significant investments and some successes, this programme contains so many serious weaknesses that it is doing more harm than good and it should be fundamentally redesigned. However, before any new programme of reform is…

This paper reports on research into how effective non-statutory guidance has been in managing the primary science curriculum in England. A small-scale qualitative study was used to elicit the views of teachers, local education authority advisors, an Ofsted inspector and a policy-maker. The findings indicate that the guidance is influencing the…

This article explores policy and curriculum diffusion in southern and eastern Africa through an examination of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and outcomes-based education. The article argues that the NQF was adopted for different reasons in different contexts, but that discourse coalitions and conferences have been critical in…

Holding public schools accountable for students' academic achievement is the centerpiece of educational reform policies in the United States (U.S.). Two dominant accountability frameworks are standards-driven and market-driven. A significant challenge associated with these 2 frameworks is how to include children with disabilities. We assert that…

In this article, the author revisits a case study presented in "Arts Education Policy Review" 105(1) in September/October 2003. The author discusses Arts Collaborator's Incorporated's (ACI) efforts to educate the community about art and about arts opportunities in River City. Themes visited in the discussion are community development through the…

In 2006 Vietnam had experienced more than two decades of reform. However, while the reforms have transformed the entire Vietnamese economy and opened the country to globalization, the education system is still very much under the Vietnamese Communist Party's control. The schoolbooks are published under close supervision of the authorities. The…

In this article, the author explores the features of the higher education (HE) industry (nationally and globally) in terms of an industrial economic analysis. Specifically, the author explores the following questions: (1) Can HE as an industry and HEIs as service-providers control costs in the absence of a free and genuinely/ruthlessly competitive…

On October 6, 1957, most Americans had concluded that Sputnik, a manmade satellite that the Russians had sent into orbit, was not a hoax nor an electronic Potemkin Village, a product of what is called today as "special effects." Initially, the idea that Russian technology could surpass the American's was unthinkable. And the brains'…

Governing boards and administrations wrestle with complex endowment policy decisions that will determine current institutional quality and future institutional viability. This chapter presents data from the 2006 NACUBO Endowment Study (published in 2007), divided into the following issues of endowment management: historical returns; endowment…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need for accessible learning within the online environment by investigating disabled students' levels of engagement with a virtual learning environment (VLE) and the extent to which lecturers' use of the VLE made learning accessible. Design/methodology/approach: A small focus group of…

This article is concerned with how and to what extent cultural diversity and difference are promoted in early childhood education and the curriculum. With reference to the "Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage in England" (2000), I argue that dominant discourses of cultural homogeneity continue to powerfully inform the…

User-led disability organizations have emerged as an important force in the non-profit sector. While much is known about the traditional disability organizations that began to proliferate in the 1950s (e.g. National Institute for the Blind), relatively less is known about the user-led organizations that emerged in the 1970s. Using a collective…