Large-scale school/university partnerships for the enhancement of teacher professionalism and teacher professional learning have been part of the teacher development landscape in Australia for the past two decades. This paper takes a historical perspective on Australian school/university partnerships through detailing three national projects over…

Women's Campaign School (WCS) is a non-partisan, non-formal three-day educational programme held annually in Vancouver, to empower and inspire women to enter politics and as a means towards socio-political change. Our findings show the WCS provides excellent practical and tactical skills and an experiential learning opportunity that is highly…

This article describes how Wayne State University's TechTown is helping revive Detroit's hard-hit economy. TechTown got its start when then-Wayne State President Irvin Reid and a small group of business leaders in the city and state officials decided Detroit needed to embrace the business incubator idea that had been so successful in other regions…

The Lifelong Learning Imperative (LLI) project was initiated to assess current practices in lifelong learning for engineering professionals, reexamine the underlying assumptions behind those practices, and outline strategies for addressing unmet needs. The LLI project brought together leaders of U.S. industry, academia, government, and…

The past year has demonstrated how vulnerable adult learning is to political intervention. In England, people are now living with the consequences of the Equivalent or Lower Qualifications (ELQ) policy, introduced in September 2007 by ministerial diktat. More recently, the consultation on informal adult learning intimates an overthrow of existing…

As education systems in many countries respond to demands for higher standards, they face the challenge of how to achieve equity. Put simply, how can systems continue to raise overall levels of achievement whilst reducing the gap between higher and lower performing groups of learners? This paper reflects on evidence collected as a result of a…

This paper discusses certain developments in education policy in the European Union since the implementation of the Lisbon strategy. Greater focus on lifelong learning as a means of increasing the competitiveness of the European Union, and establishment of several new, efficient policy tools (above all the "open method of coordination")…

Social movements at universities have recently flourished as a response to the Bologna Process and austerity measures at universities, but studies on learning within these movements are still scarce. Our goal is to describe one movement which started at the University of Gdansk in 2009 and aimed at democratising the university and implementing…

This article presents a horizontal perspective on the dynamics of governance sites currently active for the European of Knowledge and places the Bologna process in this wider European level context. It introduces two dynamics of change in political organisation: (a) institutional differentiation and specialisation and (b) the interaction between…

In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), one of the German states, catchment areas for part-time vocational schools were abolished in 2008. With the intention to foster competition between schools in order to improve school quality, training companies now may freely choose the school of their choice. NRW is the first German state to take this step. In the…

In this article, policy and research on teacher induction in Portugal are examined. The lack of a formal induction system (despite recognition of its relevance in legal policy documents) and the mismatch between national regulations and practice are also discussed. The authors argue the need for a coherent and sustained induction and support…

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that are leading the way in ensuring children receive a continuum of care starting at birth and extending throughout childhood so that they can move seamlessly from home to child care to preschool to school, and then from grade to grade. That means children have to be ready for school. It also means that…

This article talks about the Australian Government "Summer School for Teachers" programme which was announced as part of the 2007-08 Budget Package: "Realising Our Potential." Funds earmarked for this initiative totalled some $102 million over four years, and it was sold to the Australian public as something that would both…

This paper presents the history of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT). The origins of the specialist schools programme lie in a meeting to address high levels of youth unemployment held at the House of Lords in January 1986, the result was the establishment of 100 technology schools to meet the skills needs of new business. In the…

This paper describes a project aimed at helping children and their families achieve their potential. It is based in an area of high social disadvantage. The authors explain how parenting classes held at a community college (a comprehensive school with provision for adult education), have led to the development of a suite of courses leading to…