At the request of the State Board of Education, the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) conducted an early childhood education policy study. The study provided an opportunity to listen to the thoughts, ideas and concerns of Nebraskans to help determine the direction of early childhood policy in the state. The policy study is an outgrowth of…

For much of the past 20 years, philanthropists have invested significant time, money and knowledge into the important task of improving the nation's education system. Collectively, their efforts have targeted all aspects of the system--from helping teachers upgrade their skills and knowledge to creating better curricula and classroom tools, from…

In Northern Ireland there has been a dearth of evidence on the role of further education colleges in relation to educating adults. Given the existence of a system of education based on academic selection, it has emerged that the "losers" in this process grow up to become adults with reduced self-esteem in relation to how they perceive…

This article traces the demise of creativity in the national curriculum in England and Wales. It is argued that the creative dimension in the national curriculum has been purged by various government directives since the Ruskin speech in 1976, all aiming to introduce provisions of standardisation, centralisation, and vocationalisation of…

This article seeks to lay out the use and importance of English in Malaysia from the time when the British ruled what was then Malaya to the present moment. When the British came to colonize the country, they brought with them their culture, their language and their beliefs. They introduced the English language as the medium of instruction in the…

This paper provides a critical analysis of the EU's "Memorandum on lifelong learning" in light of the evolution of the concepts of lifelong education and lifelong learning from the late sixties onward. It also analyses this document in light of the forces of globalisation that impinge on educational policy-making in Europe as well as the…

Over recent years the issue of free and open source software (FOSS) for development in less developed countries (LDCs) has received increasing attention. In the beginning the benefits of FOSS for lower developed countries was only stressed by small groups of idealists like Richard Stallman. Now, however, it is moving into the hands of large…

This study examined processes and strategies utilized by states to implement transition policies designed to facilitate coordination of the state-level service delivery systems of special education, vocational education, and vocational rehabilitation. The study used a model involving four policy instruments: mandates, inducements, capacity…

This report is a synthesis of the Midterm Review of the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V), a systematic effort to determine how recommendations made at CONFINTEA V in 1997 have been implemented and its commitments met by examining activities carried out worldwide in the field of adult education and learning since…

The 1996 welfare reform law--the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act--has contradictory aspects. It gives the states greatly increased fiscal flexibility and at the same time sets extensive and elaborate new behavioral requirements. The dynamics of welfare since the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 have been…

This book includes revised presentations from an October 2001 meeting of the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research and the Cornell Rehabilitation Research and Training Center that considered the validity of current data for measuring trends in the employment rate of people with disabilities and investigated the causes and…

The 17 monographs in this book are written from the perspective of Canadian women students, faculty, and administrators about their experiences in postsecondary education. Selections are organized under five headings: (1) "Post-Secondary Education: The Inclusion Myth Then and Now"; (2) "Women as Students: The Marginal…

Although U.S. policymakers have adopted the view that work is the solution to poverty, work may not ensure a decent standard of living for many families. This report estimates the number of families who are not making ends meet. It examines the cost of living in various communities in every state and determines "basic family budgets" for…

A survey of 243 New England colleges and universities found a strong relationship between institution size and the scope of its institutional research function, reporting relationship, and size and qualifications of the research staff. Size of staff and qualifications of the institutional director were significant predictors of involvement in…

Australian governments at both federal and state levels have collaborated for the past 15 years to lift Indigenous students from their position as the nation's most educationally disadvantaged group. The introduction in 1989 of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Plan was accompanied by an ambitious target of achieving…