Preparing young people to meet emerging contemporary challenges has become a global imperative. Over two decades, there has been a call for students' active participation in the life of school and society, and an important feature of this call is student-led research (SLR). However, this pedagogical and empowering call with many potential benefits…

Since 2006, universities in England that want to charge higher fees to their domestic undergraduates have been required to agree a plan with an access regulator appointed by the government. This article identifies the objective for the regulation as equalising opportunity, then considers its effect, drawing on policy literature, ministerial…

During the past thirty years, student (or pupil) voice has gained attention in education policy especially in many Western countries, accelerated by both the acceptance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990 and an emphasis on accountability in schools. Multifaceted and complex, student voice in schools…

The 'dyslexia debate' is resilient. In the media, a key component of the debate is the notion that dyslexia does not exist, popularised by a series of vociferous commentators. For them, dyslexia is an invention of overly-concerned parents, supported by a clique of private educational psychologists willing to offer a diagnosis -- for a fee -- even…

As the last century closed, and a bright new millennium dawned, the concept of "student voice" within education emerged as something to be "identified" and "captured." In effect, it became reified and driven by a raft of government and institutional policies and strategic initiatives; initially within the compulsory…

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is making it a requirement of all schools within the Emirates (both public and private) to follow a programme of moral education (MEP), at all ages from grades 1 to 13, which is designed centrally. Explicitly secular and humanist in its approach, this is a remarkable development in a country where Islam is the…

Macmurray's distinction between communities, which are positive and personal, and societies, which are negative and impersonal, along with his insistence that schools are necessarily communities, like families and friendship groups, provides the basis for his claim that we may act as though we were teaching arithmetic or history, but in fact we…

The expansion and transformation of Malaysian universities have generated major changes in the nature of academic employment and the structure of academic promotion in higher education institutions. These changes have considerable implications, in particular for the policy and practice of academic promotion in the public universities. We argue…

In recent years concerns about inequality have been growing in prominence within UK policy debates. The many causes of inequality of earnings and income are complex in their interactions and their tendency to reinforce one another. This makes inequality an intractable or "wicked" policy problem, particularly within a contemporary context…

This article aims to shed light on the impact of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on education policy in Europe. The findings are based on a documentary analysis of the published reports of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (the Committee) on the implementation of the education rights in the CRC in every EU…

Under the leadership of Tony Blair New Labour committed itself to raise standards, tackle educational failure and use education to combat disadvantage. This paper examines New Labour's approaches to school improvement, particularly the origins and enactment of "zero tolerance" strategies, the different groups of schools identified as…

In Germany, a remarkable number of young people leave school with the qualification required for entrance to higher education ("Abitur") but do not actually go on to university. Instead, these young people--known in German as "Abiturienten"--start an apprenticeship within what is known in Germany as the "Dual-System".…

This article explores the changing attitudes towards student accommodation in higher education in the United Kingdom since the end of the Second World War. In the first part of this period there was a firm assumption, in universities and teacher training colleges, that the accommodation of students in or close to their university or college,…

Questions of a philosophical nature are central to every significant debate in the field of educational theory, policy, practice and research. Of all disciplines, philosophy is perhaps the one in which "analysis, argumentation and critique" are given most central, systematic and comprehensive attention. In addition, philosophy is…

The 1972 Report of the Government's Committee of Inquiry into Teacher Education and Training (James Report) suggested radical changes, many of which conflicted both with the interests of existing providers and with emerging policies on the organisation of higher education. Its proposals concerning in-service education, whilst generally welcomed,…