For more than six decades, UNESCO has dedicated itself to be the international agency leader in literacy, even though other aspects of educational development have received greater attention and resources by the broader international community. Resources for UNESCO's literacy work have not increased, and its programmatic activities have been…

This paper argues that key aspects of UNESCO's organizational culture are a major impediment to the realization of its important educational agenda. Drawing upon sustained observations over a four-year period, the paper describes the nature and consequences of UNESCO's highly ritualized and "inward-oriented" work activities, especially the weak…

The two decades from 1950 to 1970 were a crucial period of educational reorganization in Malaysia that stemmed from the decolonization after the Second World War. This educational reorganization sought to address the perennial issue of nation building via educational language policy. The development of Chinese education was under severe threat as…

This article considers the challenge of sustainable change and development in education from the perspective of complexity theory. Complexity theory's concept of emergence implies that, given a significant degree of complexity in a particular environment, new properties and behaviours emerge that are not necessarily contained in the essence of the…

At the end of the 30th volume of IJED and in the year that the journal published its 1000th paper, it is appropriate to look back at the journal's development. In doing so, this article will discuss a series of important issues regarding the future of the field of international education and development and how it engages with development studies.…

Headteachers working under conditions of severe hardship in Africa face tremendous challenges, often exacerbated by a sense of hopelessness and lack of agency to effect improvements within their school. This paper focuses on notions of leadership agency and "social justice" within an African educational context, with a specific focus on…

This article begins an investigation of the educational system of Morocco and its context of language diversity. It examines the Moroccan cultural environment and the ways the multilingualism and education of its people has been and continues to be influenced by geography, colonization periods, religion, and history. The effects of the Educational…

Since the late 1980s sex education has been widely promoted in the PRC, but this is not the first time in China's modern history that attempts to develop sex education have been made. The present essay traces the development of sex education debates over the last century, identifying the historical, political and social contexts in which they…

In marginal regions of Mexico, grass roots educational innovations have often provided what the official system has not: basic education that responds to the cultural particularities of such populations while satisfying the national curriculum's requirements. The way these have developed, the article argues, offers valuable lessons for a new…

Recent expansion of tertiary education in the Caribbean via the creation of two new universities invites reflection on what impedes the creation of research culture, and what enables it. We contend that research culture in the Caribbean comes up against the strictures of post-colonial dependence, university education in the region being largely a…

A learner-centred view of education argues that the learner's needs must be understood and the learner must be engaged within the learning process. Governments advocate "learner-centred" approaches whilst introducing national strategies and systems to reach agreed standards and competencies, often globally determined. There are…

The paper sets out a theoretical approach for understanding the quality of education in low income countries from a social justice perspective. The paper outlines and critiques the two dominant approaches that currently frame the debate about education quality, namely, the human capital and human rights approaches. Drawing principally on the ideas…

The right to education has an established legacy in international agreements and debates, but has nonetheless proved difficult to achieve across the countries of the world. This paper explores why this might be so. It begins by locating the current architecture of rights in Enlightenment philosophy and the political and legal formations of…

In July 2005, President Mbeki announced the launch of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), a new development strategy designed to help the South African state meet the ANC's 2004 election pledges, namely: (1) halve unemployment; (2) halve poverty; (3) accelerate employment equity; and (4) improve broad-based…

The challenge of maximizing student learning has been paramount in many societies. This issue has become especially salient in the context of drastic social and political changes that have taken place in countries such as Kyrgyzstan. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, teachers and students are confronted with new ways of thinking, which are…