In this article, ambassadors of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Open Educational Resources (OER) Advocacy Committee (OERAC) provide a snapshot of regional and global Open Educational Resources (OER)initiatives. This committee has been active since 2017 with membership renewed biannually. The ambassadors work to…

Qualifications frameworks are tools for describing qualifications of an education or training system by classifying them into levels. Each level provides a clear description of what the holder of a qualification knows, understands and is able to do. They are important tools for making qualifications transparent and comprehensible, within and…

Across OECD countries, the increasing demand for evidence-based policy making has further led governments to design policies jointly with clear measurable objectives, and to define relevant indicators to monitor their achievement. This paper discusses the importance of such indicators in supporting the implementation of education policies.…

Education is a public health issue. Poor educational outcomes are correlated with many health and social ills. To improve the quality of education, it will be necessary to take advantage of the leverage points of policy, evidence, and implementation science. The idea of evidence informing policy may be non-controversial, but a closer examination…

Learning study has been used by many to develop exemplary teaching in school, and this approach has recently been adopted for use in kindergarten as well. When using such approaches in different settings than they were intended for, several challenges potentially arise. This article discusses the implementation of a learning study approach in a…

As national qualifications frameworks in Europe move closer to operation, policy integration becomes a key challenge. Introducing qualifications frameworks based on learning outcomes is now a global phenomenon. According to the recent joint publication by Cedefop, ETF and Unesco, frameworks are either established or being developed in 142…

Why do some schools fail to improve even after taking knowledge-based improvement initiatives? In this article, we argue that some schools do not improve because their staff members have an individual learning belief. An individual learning approach to school improvement will disrupt development processes. Whereas, as we argue, a social learning…

The report aims to help education authorities in Norway and other OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries to understand the importance of lower secondary education and to find approaches to strengthen this key education level. It provides an overview of the structure of lower secondary education and the main…

Drawing on experiences from anti-bullying programmes in Norway and Ireland, our primary objective in this paper is to present and discuss similarities and differences in national contexts, delivery strategies and strategies at school level for implementation of the ABC (Ireland) and Zero (Norway) anti-bullying programmes. Both programmes are…

One of the aims of the implementation of a two-tier degree system was that the new Bachelor's degree should serve two functions: as a basis for further studies (Master's level), and at the same time to qualify for the labour market. This twofold function may be present to a different degree in various countries, but was an explicit policy…

The article is based on a research and development work project (R&D project) conducted in a Norwegian lower secondary school. The purpose of the text is to describe the researchers' and teachers' roles during the initial phase of such a project, and what this phase and the close cooperation between the researcher and teachers mean for the…

In 1981, the Norwegian parliament established an Ombudsman for Children to promote children's interests. This book describes the ombudsman's efforts to serve children, both in the past and the present, in 6 chapters. In Chapter One, a brief history of changes in families, children and society in Norway in the twentieth century is followed by…

School buildings designed in Norway during the early 1970s were frequently of the open plan type. This document briefly describes problems faced in the designing of open plan buildings and planning and implementation of educational activities appropriate to the new facilities. In anticipation of future elementary school construction, the document…

The increasing institutionalization of teaching has been a central aspect of educational developments in education in Norway because important teaching functions, previously preserved informally in the home and in the local community, have been gradually replaced by formal education. The school-community network has been weakened because few…