The OECD is extending the participation of low- and middle-income nations in its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). To explore how PISA can be made more relevant to these contexts, a pilot study, PISA for Development (PISA-D), was launched. Translating PISA into PISA-D required the development of instruments that had relevance…

This paper identifies OECD's shifting agendas and approaches to education since inception and distinguishes three time periods. Each of these periods reflects shifting geopolitical and economic realities that shaped OECD's priorities and modes of operation. They also demonstrate the adaptive capacity and expansionist nature of OECD's education…

The year 2015 was significant for the arena of international development, as UNESCO's "Education for All" agenda was replaced by "Education 2030", which would identify minimum standards of education quality. The OECD had been working on extending its existing PISA assessment into low- and middle-income countries through PISA…

In the aftermath of the World War II, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched an ambitious campaign to improve access to education and to fight illiteracy worldwide. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 had legitimised international action to raise educational and living standards in the…

A decade has passed since participants in the World Education Forum committed themselves to achieve, by 2015, the six Education for All (EFA) goals under the Dakar Framework for Action. Despite significant progress, some of the goals are likely to be missed by a large margin. Besides the absence of a well co-ordinated multi-donor approach in…

This paper critically examines the impact of global development agendas upon the nature and direction of educational development in small states. This generates a critique of the international transfer of western policy trajectories and related research modalities, identifies the strategic importance of small states, and explores possible ways…

The goal of Education for All (EFA) is in jeopardy, and the cause is widely perceived to be a lack of political will. But we lack an accurate definition of political will. In this article, I offer a definition that determines beforehand whether a government will have political will. In contrast to current academic work and popular discourse, which…

This article traces the construction of the educational dimension of the global development agenda over the period 1990 to 2006. It argues that the multilateral agencies, and notably the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and UNDP, played vital roles in designing the architecture of this world agenda, supported at a key stage by the Development Assistance…

Norwegian official development assistance to education has been profoundly shaped by the political and ideological attitudes of successive national governments. Yet successive coalition governments of highly-contrastive kinds can alike be seen to have been strongly influenced by the policy content, language and underlying assumptions of World Bank…

Argues that in the more commonly used approaches to comparative education there has been lacking an adequate theoretical base upon which any country could with confidence know how to learn from another country's educational experience what would be useful for its own development. (Author/RK)

Suggests that both broad policy analyses and country case studies are needed to illuminate relationships between international aid agencies and recipient nations and to delineate the impact that agency educational policies have on international educational development. Part of a theme issue on aid to Third World education. (SJL)

The author suggests that observing the difficulties and failures of plans and programs for educational development over the last two decades makes it easy to become a sceptic about the fact that the age of innocence underestimates the extent and complexity of the knowledge base needed for sound choices in educational policy. (KC)

Article considered what can be done to relate education to social and economic needs. (Author/RK)

The author reacts to the World Bank's 1980 Education Sector Policy Paper, highlighting changes in emphasis from the Bank's 1974 report. Part of a theme issue on the World Bank Paper and on aid to educational development in the Third World. (SJL)

Discusses some areas of particular interest in the study of education in the South Pacific islands: educational development in small, recently decolonized nations; mismatch between policies of donors of international aid and the needs of developing nations; importance of understanding the context of education; and misapplication of educational…