In the context of low-income countries, the role of donors in public policymaking is of great importance. Donors use a combination of lending and non-lending instruments as pathways of influence to shape policy directions in aid-recipient countries. This paper reports some findings from a doctoral study on the role of the World Bank in the recent…

Improving school capacity building has become one of the major themes in research on educational effectiveness. This study investigates the implementation of the International Standard School (SBI) policy in Indonesia which can be seen as an example of the efforts of a particular country to improve school capacity building. Disappointingly little…

This report documents the history and evolution of the Stuart Foundation California Leaders in Education (SCALE) Initiative through 2014. It tells the story of how the work began, what it entails, and how it has developed across time. The report also identifies lessons learned from the SCALE experience. These lessons can inform the participants of…

Preparation for and application to medical school, as well as the subsequent medical training of matriculating students, can have an important impact on psychosocial development. The premedical baccalaureate is the traditional preparation for medical school, although many medical schools also offer a separate entry path through early assurance…

This article builds on our ongoing work in conceptualising an "evaluative stance" framework to assist in understanding how leaders in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) make decisions about the selection of professional development options for themselves and their staff. It introduces the notion that evaluative…

This study examined how principals in eight high-functioning elementary schools provide teacher supervision and evaluation to promote high levels of student achievement. Perceptions of teachers were measured to provide an understanding of which specific principal behaviors translated into better instructional practices within the selected schools.…

This study examined the lessons learned from the introduction of a teacher mentoring culture within a teacher professional development program in selected pilot schools in Kosovo. Four mentor teachers and four mentee focus groups were involved in the open interviews, and their portfolios were examined. The important themes in terms of developing a…

The Ontario Ministry of Education recently implemented the Steps to English Proficiency (STEP) language assessment framework to build educator capacity for addressing the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in K-12 schools. The STEP framework is a set of descriptors-based language proficiency scales that specify observable linguistic…

This paper attempts to identify leadership practices and qualities of school teachers as they engaged in effecting change initiated by a curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Based on interview data of teachers from nine schools, this paper shows how teacher leadership manifested itself in schools. Three approaches to teacher leadership were identified,…

This article explores prospects for community-based water resources management in Tlokoeng Valley, in the northern district of Lesotho. A qualitative survey was conducted to establish the pre-knowledge of the valley community. This provided a basis for a community education programme on wetlands conservation. Fifteen focus group interviews (FGIs)…

This paper reports on the current experience of one higher education institution in Australia embarking on the path towards mainstreaming online learning opportunities by providing three complementary academic development initiatives that can inform strategies undertaken by other institutions internationally. First, an academic development program…

This article describes one school of social work's innovative online elective course to prepare Masters of Social Work (MSW) students for practice with the military, veterans and their families. Developed as part of a university-wide Veterans Initiative, this online course keeps the focus on the student veteran and uses the best practices of…

This study aims to explore the relationships between the extent and perceived quality of teachers' experience of training in behaviour management (BM), and their awareness of the nature and extent of behavioural problems among school students, and their confidence in their own competence to deal with such problems. Teachers (n = 183) from Hong…

This paper reports findings from a multi-year study of the scale-up of Reading Apprenticeship (RA), an approach to improve academic literacy by helping teachers provide the support students need to be successful readers in the content areas. WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI), began developing the program in 1995 and has since reached…

Helping people solve the practical problems of everyday life while maintaining contemporary relevance describes the mission of Cooperative Extension. To achieve that mission, Extension professionals have increasingly relied on information gathered from stakeholders to identify relevant problems and potential educational solutions. The methods,…