This article addresses the gradual introduction of arrangements for validation of non-formal and informal learning in Europe. While the debate on how to identify, assess and recognise learning achievements acquired outside formal education and training institutions has been going on for several decades, we can now observe that these approaches are…

The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general "decline in moral values". There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like "ubuntu," communalism and the like; and humankind's increasing…

This article presents the author's response to Randy Garrison's article titled, "Implications of Online and Blended Learning for the Conceptual Development and Practice of Distance Education." Garrison's article seems to have missed many important developments relating to distance education and obscures the evolution of distance…

Environmental ethicists have focused much attention on the limits of utilitarianism and have generally defined "environmental ethics" in a manner that treats utilitarian environmental ethics as an oxymoron. This is unfortunate because utilitarian ethics can support strong environmental policies, and environmental ethicists have not yet produced a…

Basic principles and analytical methods of economics are used to conduct a preliminary study of state policies for private education in China. It is evident that if public policy is to exert a positive effect on private education, the government must formulate policies at a higher level for private education and give equal attention to choice,…

In recent years, procedures have been established in Flanders for "Prior Learning Assessment" (PLA) outside the formal learning circuit, of which the portfolio is a regular component. In order to maximize the possibilities of acknowledgement of prior learning assessment, the Flemish government is looking for a set of common criteria and…

This article presents a brief analysis of teacher education in five European countries: Italy, Germany, England, Sweden and Finland. In the post-industrial world, the sense of teaching has profoundly changed, influenced by a rapidly evolving socio-economic context. The responses given by each country are different, but two tendencies emerge: on…

This paper discusses the results of a case study exploring perceptions of selected administrators and instructors at a Ukrainian state institution regarding the effectiveness of the Bologna Process at their institution. Data were collected from focus group interviews with five volunteer instructors involved in the implementation process. The…

Modernity has imposed on many of us, and perhaps especially on academics, a habit of silence with regard to what John Rawls called deeply held "comprehensive" moral beliefs. According to Rawls and his many disciples, the survival of liberalism depends upon the bracketing of comprehensive beliefs whenever we step into the public sphere. And in the…

In this paper I argue that there is a need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education, particularly in the light of a recent tendency to focus discussions about education almost exclusively on the measurement and comparison of educational outcomes. I first discuss why the question of purpose should always have a place in our…

While political philosophers have paid a great deal of attention to providing a theory of secession for cases of nations breaking away from nation-states, little has been said about perhaps the most common type of secession--school district secession. I argue that while there is no principled prohibition against school district secession, there…

The article will argue that Charles Sanders Peirce's concepts of the "Dynamics of Belief and Doubt", the "Fixation of Belief" as well as "habits of belief" taken together comprise a theory of learning. The "dynamics of belief and doubt" are Peirce's explanation for the process of changing from one belief to another. Teaching, then, would be an…

Perhaps the most pressing issue concerning teacher education and training since the end of the Second World War has been that of the role of theory--or principled reflection--in professional expertise. Here, although the main post-war architects of a new educational professionalism clearly envisaged a key role for theory--considering such…

Identity is a contemporary buzzword in education, referencing the individual and the social, the personal and the political, self and other. Following Maggie MacLure, we can think of identity in terms of teachers "arguing for themselves", or giving an account of themselves. Yet in the wake of poststructuralism's radical de-centering of the subject…

First-year university students are a diverse group of individuals with various abilities and needs. Failure of the university and its teaching faculty to meet the needs of first-year students may result in abandonment of the pursuit of a degree. This project informs instructors about the practices that strengthen a learning-centred approach and…