In 1999 Thailand passed an ambitious national educational law that paved the way for major reforms in teaching, learning and school management. Despite the ambitious vision of reform embedded in this law, recent studies suggest that implementation progress has been slow, uneven, and lacking deep penetration onto classrooms. Carried out ten years…

This paper has two main objectives. First, it aims to analyse the connections between education and poverty established by the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), a central policy tool for the articulation of the Post Washington Consensus. Second, it intends to study how the PRSPs have been consolidated and expanded through different…

In an effort to address social imbalances and equity in Ghana's education delivery and to achieve her Education for All (EFA) agenda, some pro-poor programmes have been introduced. Among these is the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) that aims among others, at providing safety nets for the poor, increasing school enrolment in addition to…

Learner-centred education (LCE) has been a recurrent theme in many national education policies in the global South, and has had wide donor support through aid programmes and smaller projects and localised innovations. However, the history of the implementation of LCE in different contexts is riddled with stories of failures grand and small. In…

The goal of this article is to examine how the provincial education media in China play a role of forging consensus among local actors responsible for the implementation of new centrally-promulgated youth socialization policy. In doing so, it also explores the tension among three of the Chinese state's claims to legitimacy: economic development,…

The reduction of transaction costs is a commonly mentioned yet rarely elaborated goal for aid effectiveness in educational development. The casual use of the concept of transaction costs conceals which costs may be reduced, which costs are required and, indeed, what transaction costs actually are. Examining issues related to harmonizing the…

This article presents a linear-analytical case study on the development of ICT within the educational systems of Chile and South Korea. Through a comprehensive meta-data analysis and bibliographic review, we collected information on both educational systems and their ICT adoption policies. Key differences necessary to understand how both countries…

Who educates teacher educators? How are teacher educators educated and prepared for their roles and tasks? This article uses a review of a two-year full-time Diploma in Teacher Education (DTE) for teacher educators in Uganda to engage with these questions. The article begins with a presentation of the Ugandan teacher education context and a…

This article deals with the politics of aid partnerships in the education sector of Benin following an anthropological policy research approach based on empirical data. I present local debates on primary education and the New Study Programmes, the latest education reform introduced nationwide in 1999. The different perceptions of the reform…

Vocational education and training (VET) can contribute to the attainment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. A key to economic and social progress is the training of better-qualified individuals and skilled enterprise staff who will be more productive, improving goods, increasing incomes and adapting to changing markets. Experts…

With the onset of the Education for All (EFA) agenda in 1990, the international development community has seen new forms of international cooperation forming around the pledge for EFA. This paper analyzes a case study of activities and challenges of a civil society coalition, the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), in pursuing the…

This study addressed one aspect of a national strategic recommendation in South Africa by examining the effectiveness of computer-based outreach programmes in terms of how the programmes were implemented and learners' perceptions of the classes. The role that the computer centres played at two schools was examined and the research endeavoured to…

Access to higher education is a key challenge of the 21st century state. The link between higher education and personal and socio-economic development has intensified the need for ensuring that greater numbers of citizens have expanded access to and have been provided with quality higher education. The article seeks to explore how initiatives for…

One of the conundrums of free primary education (FPE) policy in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa is the "mushrooming" of fee-paying private schools. Several researchers have become interested in studying this phenomenon and have raised the question--does free primary education meet the needs of the poor? Emerging voices among this…

This study examined the extent that a scholarship program operating in Sierra Leone and Djibouti was successful in increasing girls' persistence in basic education. Results of field studies indicated that scholarships could be appropriately targeted and delivered in ways that appear to minimize misappropriation of funds. However, the scholarships…