I use unusually detailed data on schools, teachers and classrooms to explain student achievement growth in rural Guatemala. Several variables that have received little attention in previous studies--including the number of school days, teacher content knowledge and pedagogical methods--are robust predictors of achievement. A series of…

We explore how two community-based reform models align with the World Bank's "World Development Report 2004" accountability framework. Using a qualitative case study of rural Guatemalan primary schools, we examine local governance through interviews with a range of stakeholders. While both reforms appear appropriate according to the…

The focus of research in technology education has evolved throughout its history as the field changed from industrial arts to technology education (Spencer & Rogers, 2006). With the move to technology education, the field has begun to broaden its focus to better understand the teaching, learning, curriculum, and policy implications of preparing…

A dual mode institution provides educational courses by both the conventional, on-campus mode and by distance education. This article discusses the challenges encountered during introduction of distance education at the University of Botswana (UB). At the UB, introduction of distance education was piecemeal and left the Distance Education Unit…

A decade ago, when "Current Issues in Comparative Education" ("CICE") published its first issue "Are NGOs Overrated?" both academic debates and development policy discussions were focused on the expanding role played by NGOs in the developing world. Today the language has changed--and so too, in some ways, has…

The unprecedented degree of attention given to the learning and skills sector in England by successive New Labour governments has led to a significant increase in what is expected of the teaching workforce. To help meet these expectations, a "step change" in the quality of initial teacher training for the sector is promised, alongside…

In our attempts to track changes in geological practice over time and to isolate the source of these changes, we have found that they are largely connected with the germination of new geologic subdisciplines. We use keyword and title data from articles in 68 geology journals to track the changes in influence of each subdiscipline on geology over…

As the teacher education in China gradually evolves from the closed one into an open one, and with the greater pressure from the competition among universities, the transformation of normal universities is an inevitable choice. The problems that normal universities need to face up to are the proper goal orientation and the setting of appropriate…

This article explores the extent to which funding is used to steer the public higher education sector towards meeting the social, political and economic imperatives of post-1994 South Africa. It argues that the design of the funding framework influenced the direction of higher education after 1994, and that funding mechanisms explicitly or…

This issue and the winter 2007-2008 issue (vol. 39, no. 4) of "European Education" address the implications of competition for the future of European higher education. Studies bear on the initiatives taken over the past few years in Europe to enhance the harmonization of European higher education systems and particularly the Bologna…

Of the classic documents addressing issues in higher education, few have provoked as much commentary as the Yale Report of 1828--and perhaps fewer still have been subject to such undeserved infamy. Today, the document requires a thorough new reading. Since the late 1960s historians of higher education have been trying to overturn the traditional…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the open day at grammar schools in Slovenia (a post-socialist country) from two perspectives, namely from that of marketisation and commodification of education and from the point of view of marketing education. Slovenia, as have many countries around the world, undertook the restructuring of public schools…

UK continuing education is moving from credit-earning, taught continuing medical education (CME) to a continuing professional development (CPD) system that explicitly links education to change in practice, managed and monitored through mandatory peer appraisal. Alongside multisource feedback and consideration of issues of poor performance,…

A general overview of the scope of evaluation in education. (HB)