An enduring tenet of the comparative education tradition is the significance of cultural context, of the distinctive features that characterise a society or social group. The close link that has been established between culture and development has prompted Caribbean leaders to place more emphasis on an appreciation of the region's cultural assets,…

In this paper I argue that literacy, as an aspect of language, is closely related to power. With the example of Karagwe, I show that different literacy practices relate differently to power. In Karagwe dominant literacies that are officially prescribed and standardised have a main function to sort people and maintain authority. As they are spread…

Tucked between South Africa and Mozambique, and usually "gowned" in green, Swaziland is one of the smallest countries in Africa, but it has great variation in landscape, geology, and climate. It also has great diversity of fauna and flora. In recognition of the importance that sound environmental management plays in the course of…

This article presents an interview with James E. McGreevey, Governor of New Jersey. In this interview, Gov. McGreevey discusses workforce and economic development in New Jersey and how he plans to expand higher educational opportunities.

While Article 128 of the Treaty of Rome very clearly states that a common policy for vocational training should be developed, this policy has never come to fruition. This is largely due to resistance from Germany and France, which already possessed highly developed vocational training systems. But the failure can also be attributed to the clash…

Calls for sustaining and increasing investment in higher education are often made on the basis that higher education is a "public good". The idea of higher education as a public good is frequently conceptualised in terms of its contribution to economic development. If more people participate in higher education then society as a whole…

This article examines the relationship between globalization and national education reforms, especially those of educational systems. Instead of exploring the much debated issues of how globalization affects national educational systems and how the nations react by what kinds of systemic education reform, however, it focuses on what such a method…

The reports seem contradictory. With about three billion dollars per year in new loan commitments, the World Bank has become the single largest source of development capital in the field of international education. These resources help expand educational opportunities for young women in South Asia and rebuild primary schools following civil…

In spite of the rich variety of natural resources in Nigeria, the country is still very much underdeveloped. Within and outside Nigeria, analysts are of the view that the country clearly has the potential to be prosperous. As Nigeria attempts without much success to pull itself out of the quagmire of underdevelopment, the inevitably persistent…

There is an evident bi-directional causality relationship between education investment and economic growth based on an analysis of statistics from 1952 to 2003 released by the State Statistics Bureau. A generalized difference regression model is set up to investigate the relationship between the two. Studies show that the rate of contribution of…

How much is hegemony and how much is self-determination in the higher education systems in Southeast Asia? This paper argues that while the question of centre and periphery is still relevant to the analysis of international university systems, the analytical frameworks from which it has arisen may lose viability in the long term. Southeast Asian…

Improving science education is often regarded as a priority for developing countries in order to promote longterm economic development. Thus initiatives, both government and foreign-aid sponsored, aimed at improving science education in developing countries abound. However, all too often the focus of such initiatives is limited to the development…

There is limited recent research on the strategies that rural local governments are employing in the face of changing intergovernmental relationships, especially in relation to local economic development. This paper draws on data from a survey of local governments in the Ohio River Valley Region that includes a mix of localities on the urban-rural…

Midway through the first decade of the 21st century, New England innovation and creative capacity are being challenged by other regions of the nation and the world. New England needs foresight to understand what its emerging economic sectors need to thrive in a changing demography. The region is losing 20- to 34-year-olds and seeing a growing…

Over the past ten years there have been signs in Russia of a dangerous widespread tendency to underrate the creation of a whole set of conditions necessary for expanded reproduction of the country's science potential. Russia has fallen farther and farther behind technologically, its ability to compete in the world markets of science-intensive…