In Texas, the members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) are elected in a partisan election. One of the duties of the State Board of Education is overseeing the writing of curriculum standards for the various content areas. A call went out to educators across the state, asking for volunteers to write the standards. Committees were formed for…

This paper examines the links between language, social difference and political domination in the practices of parental school choice at the heart of a global city, Vancouver. Vancouver is a highly diverse city, especially in terms of language. Its inner city is replete with multiple languages whose exchange values are not equal. In this context,…

Adult and community educators have always seen themselves as agents of change, building people's confidence, sense of community and ability to take part in society as well as their knowledge and skills. All the main political parties in the UK have put issues of social justice, social mobility and citizens' empowerment near the top of the policy…

To accelerate the development of the ethnic minority regions and cultivate ethnic minority talent, the state has successively implemented policies of setting up the Tibet Class and the Xinjiang Class in institutions of higher learning in China's interior regions ("neidi"), enabling some of the finest young students among the ethnic…

This article examines the role of the consultants in secondary schools and local authorities within a large-scale consultancy-based reform, the Secondary National Strategy (SNS), in London, UK. The SNS follows a cascade model of implementation in which nationally created initiatives are introduced and supported within local authorities (LA) and…

There has recently been discussion of whether independent contract evaluation is possible. This article acknowledges the inherent tension in contract evaluation and in response suggests a range of constructive approaches to improving the independence of contract evaluation. In particular, a clear separation between the official evaluation report…

In August 2008, the OECD published "Improving School Leadership Volume 1: Policy and Practice" and "Improving School Leadership Volume 2: Case Studies on System Leadership". The main objectives of these reports were to compare school leadership policy between participating countries and to identify innovative practices and…

This paper investigates what happened in one Australian primary school as part of the establishment, use and development of a computer laboratory over a period of two years. As part of a school renewal project, the computer laboratory was introduced as an "innovative" way to improve the skills of teachers and children in information and…

In both policy and research contexts, internationalisation in African higher education is welcomed for its potential to strengthen local capacity and cautioned against for its potential to extend long-standing asymmetries of power in international partnerships. This paper examines two sets of developments which seek to re-orient…

The UNESCO "World Declaration on Education for All" from 1990 sets in motion the new agenda for educational reform that provides basic education for all disadvantaged children and adults in the global context. Since its formulation, a set of consecutive policy texts has been issued by international agencies to monitor, evaluate, and strengthen the…

This article proposes lifelong learning as a socio-personal process and a personal fact. As such, it is conceptually distinct from an educational provision, which constitutes one kind of institutional fact. In making this distinction, this article seeks to elaborate a major flaw in the precepts for conceptualisation and enactment of the report…

This review analyses the report "Learning through Life" from the point of view of the sustainable development theme and from a "South" perspective. The review recognises that the report is written to influence UK policy-makers and practitioners; it has captured the results of a broad-based inquiry, and it therefore has had to…

This essay discusses the linguistic and cultural factors that have acted as impediments to Nigeria's breakthrough into the knowledge era. It identifies language deficit in English by most Nigerians, under-developed state of most Nigerian languages, absence of creative education and the presence of certain cultural taboos which stifles the…

Following international trends during the last decades of the 20th century mechanisms of marketization, freedom of choice, and competition were introduced into the Swedish compulsory school system, thereby transforming it into one of the most de-regularized in the world. The overall aim of the pilot study presented here is to shed light on a…

In recent years, Malaysia has emerged as an unexpected contender in the world market for international students in higher education. Recognizing this sector as a potential new source of growth and export revenue, Malaysia aims to become a regional hub for higher education. In view of this, the objectives of this paper are to profile the pattern of…