27 Apr 2016
Funding Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Can the Momentum be Maintained During the Current Economic Slowdown? By Birger Fredriksen
By Birger Fredriksen, Results for Development Institute. The impact of good quality education on a country’s economic growth is now quite well understood. The inverse relationship – the impact of economic growth on education — is given less attention. This is especially so with respect to the importance of sustained high per capita income growth needed to generate... Read More
21 Apr 2016
International Organizations and the Setting of Educational Agendas: The Case of the Arab Regional Agenda for Improving Educational Quality By Clara Morgan
By Clara Morgan, UAE University There is growing interest among scholars in understanding the internationalization of domestic policy and the important role international organizations (IOs) play in setting educational agendas.[1] With IOs such as the World Bank, UNESCO and the OECD positioning themselves as designers of universal educational solutions, political authority in education has gradually... Read More
14 Apr 2016
Reflections from Geneva – Vocational Education in the Context of Violence Extremism By Tara Noronha
By Tara Noronha, Mercy Corps. A few weeks ago, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) – supported by NORRAG – convened a workshop in Geneva that brought together key practitioners, donors, policymakers, and researchers for thoughtful, honest discussions on vocational education in the context of violent extremism. The world as we know it... Read More
11 Apr 2016
Countering Violent Extremism – can Education and Vocational Training Play a Role? By Martine Zeuthen
By Martine Zeuthen, The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). European specialists in Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) and education programming gathered in Geneva last month, to discuss the role of education and vocational training in CVE programming. I was invited as a CVE practitioner. I run an EU-funded CVE programme in the Horn of Africa which... Read More
07 Apr 2016
Preventing Violent Extremism: What Role for Education and Training?
By Laetitia Houlmann, Consultant SDC Education Network and Aude Mellet, NORRAG Sadly, a more than topical issue Even if it’s not a new phenomenon, the prevention of violent extremism (PVE) is – sadly enough – a highly topical issue in light of the tragic events that the world has been facing lately. As it is... Read More
05 Apr 2016
Thinking about the Education Think Tank Phenomenon By Velibor Jakovleski
By Velibor Jakovleski, NORRAG and the Graduate Institute, Geneva. Gone are the days when the main sites of knowledge production were universities and specialized government agencies. Technological advances, together with the increasing reliance on data to inform policy-making, have resulted in an almost industrial production of research. Since the 1960s and 1970s in particular, the... Read More
22 Mar 2016
China’s New Pledges with Africa: 2016-2018 Multi-dimensional Support to Human Resource Development? By Kenneth King
By Kenneth King, Editor NORRAG News. President Xi Jinping’s opening speech to the FOCAC Summit of December 2015 in Johannesburg had ‘five major pillars’, ‘three bottleneck issues’, and ‘ten cooperation plans’. Human resources development (HRD) with Africa is a part of each of these perspectives, as it has been in all the previous five FOCAC triennial events. But, significantly,... Read More
21 Mar 2016
Education in Star Wars: Any Lessons for Our Planet? By Rémy Jaillat
By Rémy Jaillat (age 14) Editor’s Note: This light-hearted blog is to mark the occasion of the UN ‘International Day of Happiness’ (20th March). Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away… A very different education system is said to have ‘existed’ in the mythical Star Wars saga: the Jedi education system. Nowadays, our... Read More
11 Mar 2016
Through Aditi’s Eyes: The Importance of Early Grade Assessment in Tracking Children’s Learning By Hannah-May Wilson
By Hannah-May Wilson, PAL Network Secretariat. Meet Aditi. Aditi is 11 years old. Aditi lives with her mother and younger sister Didi, who is 7 years old. They live on the outskirts of Mumbai, in a waste-picking community. Aditi and Didi have lived here ever since they were born. Every morning, their mother leaves very... Read More
02 Mar 2016
Vocational Training – Crucial, But Not Everything By Karina Veal
By Karina Veal, Asian Development Bank. “You can’t fix in three months what the education system hasn’t fixed in 12 years,” says Manish Sabharwal. As cofounder and CEO of TeamLease, an Indian company that currently employs one new worker every five minutes for the past five years (and which turns down 95% of those who... Read More