Examines the conceptual underpinnings of charter schools, their appeal to reformers, and the resistance to their implementation. The charter-school movement seems promising but will probably founder, due to inadequate financial support, special interest groups' lobbying efforts, and lack of an entrepreneurial spirit among educators. (11…

Turkey is a country where individual rights and freedom of people are improving. It is known that a free market economy is in its infancy. There is a strong relationship between developed human resources and the production sector. In this sense, vocational and technical education is very important. It cannot be said that the efforts for…

Summarizes a study examining the dynamics of a set of (British) education markets over a 39-month period. Secondary schools in three adjacent local education authorities served as laboratories for researching choice and competition. The market's disciplinary effects are clear. The education market reinforces opportunity advantages of middle-class…

Describes a plan to introduce and achieve a national awareness of agility (and easy entry into the world market) for Albania through the relatively stable higher-education order. Agility's four strategic principles are enriching the customer, cooperating to enhance competitiveness, organizing to master change and uncertainty, and leveraging the…

Perhaps one of the most remarkable events of the 20th century was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ground zero was positioned in what are now Russia and all of the new nation-states that formerly constituted the Soviet bloc. Few new nation-states believed the transition from a totalitarian and closed state to an independent, open, and…

Discusses Vietnam's educational reform efforts from 1945 to the present, focusing on current goals to restructure the national system, develop semiprivate and private schools, create closer linkages between secondary and vocational education, increase minorities' education opportunities, and improve educational quality. Reforms are comprehensive…

Summarizes a study examining the impact of England's 1988 Education Reform Act on a group of 138 parents whose children (first-year students) would be most affected. The success of Britain's educational reform is debatable. Although parents are happy with their children's schools, they have reservations about governmentally imposed changes. (19…

This case study of the commercialized teaching profession in Costa Rican higher education urges circumspection; the term "efficient and productive change" camouflages the state-sanctioned commodification of the instructional enterprise. Courses are becoming proprietary courseware, machinery for selling intellectual capital is emerging,…

Discusses decentralization and parental choice as the two central elements of the current wave of reform. Argues that the introduction of competition to schooling affects schools' need to increase their attractiveness and does not necessarily correspond with pedagogical considerations. Discusses some possible consequences of quasi-market…