19 Feb 2015
Education as a Stronghold? The Ambiguous Connections between Education, Resilience and Peacebuilding By Mieke T.A. Lopes Cardozo
By Mieke T.A. Lopes Cardozo, University of Amsterdam. The resilience-hype: the new kid on the education-in-emergencies block In a NORRAG blog-post Roger Dale (2014) convincingly argued how “without theory, there are only opinions”, in response to the seemingly unquestioned belief in ‘big data’ country comparisons and the political implications connected to PISA survey results. This argument,... Read More
16 Feb 2015
The Global Partnership for Education and the Evolution of Engagement in Contexts of Conflict and Fragility By Francine Menashy
By Francine Menashy, University of Massachusetts Boston and Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Official Development Assistance has historically focused on “good performers.” With evidence that aid works better in countries with stronger institutions and more effective policy regimes, good governance has long been a prerequisite for investment. What does this mean for international... Read More
12 Feb 2015
Learning in Africa's Informal Economies, 1965-2015 By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. 50 years ago, in 1965, a young doctoral student called Keith Hart arrived in Ghana to begin his fieldwork exploring the informal economic activities of the northern Frafra migrants in a poor area of the capital, Accra. Through his published work in 1973, Hart became acknowledged as “discovering” the informal sector... Read More
09 Feb 2015
Global and Asian Perspectives on the Post-2015 Discussion By Shoko Yamada
By Shoko Yamada, Nagoya University, Japan. On January 26th 2015 there was an international symposium entitled “Critical Perspectives on Education and Skills in the Emerging Post-2015 Development Agenda” which was hosted by the Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, and the Central Japan Branch of the Japan Society for International Development. It was an... Read More
05 Feb 2015
ASER 2014: Engaging Citizens to Measure Learning Outcomes and Spark Change in Pakistan
By Sehar Saeed, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), Pakistan. Over the past fifteen years, thanks in large part to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on universal primary education, major advances have been made in enrolling millions of children worldwide. However, despite significant progress, those gains have been uneven, and learning levels remain unacceptably low.... Read More
30 Jan 2015
Education in Situations of Urban Violence: Examples from Latin America By Jovana Carapic and Luisa Phebo
By Jovana Carapic, and Luisa Phebo, Conflict, Violence, Education and Training (CV-ET) Programme, NORRAG. The world is facing an unprecedented demographic transition: it is simultaneously becoming younger and more urbanized than at any other point in history. This transition is extremely skewed. Of the estimated 3.1 billion people that are under the age of 25,... Read More
27 Jan 2015
Getting to Grips with Institutional Culture to Improve TVET in Developing Countries: Lessons from the UK By Stephen Vardigans
By Stephen Vardigans, Consultant with Cambridge Education. When I started teaching in the UK I felt confident that because I was on top of my subject area I was therefore qualified to teach it. And yes, I did seem to manage quite well. My students appeared to enjoy the experience, grasp the topics and pass... Read More
21 Jan 2015
Seven Muscat Targets for Education and Skills Post-2015: Is there a Case for an 8th? By Alya Mohammed Al Rawahi
By Alya Mohammed Al Rawahi, Independent consultant, Muscat. Should the Muscat Agreement have included another target on education governance and management? In 2000 the world embarked on an ambitious journey to raise educational access for all by 2015. The logic of this was that better education would help to alleviate poverty, improve health outcomes and... Read More
19 Jan 2015
Global Governance of Education and Training in the Age of Globalization: The Growing Importance of Cross-Border Externalities of National Education Policies by Birger Fredriksen
By Birger Fredriksen, Consultant, Washington (formerly World Bank). Growing interdependence between countries means that national policies increasingly have impact beyond national borders. As a corollary, to stimulate positive – or to limit negative – cross-border effects requires collective actions. This need is easy to understand when it comes to addressing climate change, spread of infectious... Read More
16 Jan 2015
Global Education Governance – How Real? by Manzoor Ahmed
By Manzoor Ahmed, BRAC University, Dhaka. Global education governance – is it something real or figments of the fertile imagination of Kenneth King and Robert Palmer? The duo has drawn attention to it with a two-part blog (NORRAG Blog, 3rd and 5th November, 2014) under the title “The Elephant in the Post-2015 Education Room…” and... Read More