The distance learning experiences of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization led to the following suggestions for applying distance learning strategies to the challenges of food security and rural development: use distance learning for the right reasons, be sensitive to context, use existing infrastructure, engage stakeholders, and…

As the global economy expands, emerging nations are finding that focusing on universal primary education is not sufficient, Mr. Levine argues. They are increasingly coming to see the value of investing in early care and education as well.

Pentecostalism began in North America and spread across the globe. It grew out of the ferment of American religious life and manifested elements of Wesleyan Methodism and Holiness theology. The Azusa Street revival after 1906 facilitated its world-wide dissemination. After the 1960s the charismatic movement or "second wave" provided further…

Access to higher education is a key challenge of the 21st century state. The link between higher education and personal and socio-economic development has intensified the need for ensuring that greater numbers of citizens have expanded access to and have been provided with quality higher education. The article seeks to explore how initiatives for…

There is a lively debate about the extent to which private providers of educational services can contribute to the achievement of Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals. There is evidence that in some poor countries private provision has been growing especially at the secondary level. The reasons for this are not simple but include…

A randomized evaluation suggests that a program which provided official textbooks to randomly selected rural Kenyan primary schools did not increase test scores for the average student. In contrast, the previous literature suggests that textbook provision has a large impact on test scores. Disaggregating the results by students' initial academic…

The literature generally points to a negative relationship between female education and fertility. Citing this pattern, policymakers have advocated educating girls and young women as a means to reduce population growth and foster sustained economic and social welfare in developing countries. This paper tests whether the relationship between…

Diminishing marginal returns (DMR) to school inputs could explain a wide variety of findings in the research literature. One important example is the influential finding by Heyneman and Loxley that school inputs are the 'predominant influence' on achievement in developing nations, where input levels are low, even though the same school inputs have…

It is globally expected that universities will ensure that policies guiding researchers' conduct are in place and adhered to. This expectation is not waived in developing countries. Successful implementation of an ethics policy is facilitated by an appropriate national regulatory framework on which to base the argument for compliance. However, it…

The teaching profession is no longer a concern of academicians but the public in general who yearn for positive results. Internationally, the profession is continuously beset by several serious problems. One of the most serious problems in the teaching profession is teacher turnover. Governments are finding it difficult to retain teachers in…

The AIDS pandemic has become an important force that is shaping the world and will certainly have an enormous impact on the lives of young people today. Forty million people around the world are suffering from HIV/AIDS and, every year, eight million people die of this disease. As both school librarian and teacher of the Challenge and Change course…

In the previous report in this series, Web browser loading times were measured in 12 Asian countries, and were found to be up to four times slower than commonly prescribed as acceptable. Failure of webpages to load at all was frequent. The current follow-up study compares these loading times with the complexity of the Internet routes linking the…

The research university is a central institution of the 21st century--providing access to global science, producing basic and applied research, and educating key leaders for academe and society. Worldwide, there are very few research universities--they are expensive to develop and support, and the pressures of massification have placed priorities…

In the global workplace, there has been tremendous growth in business processing outsourcing (BPO). Many industries are establishing call centers, back offices and other offshore enterprises in developing countries in an attempt to reduce costs. This development has far-reaching implications for language in these offshore destinations. Despite…

This article explores a "pedagogical" approach to education policy formulation in developing countries. This constitutes a process that shows promise in promoting the "ownership" necessary for sustainable policies and programs, especially when they rely on external financing. Based on case studies from 26 countries focused on "what works," the…