09 May 2014
The Post-2015 EFA Agenda: The Role of UNESCO By Maren Elfert
By Maren Elfert, University of British Columbia. Since the inception of UNESCO in 1945, there have been differing views on the role of the organization. While some stressed its intellectual role, others propagated a limited functional mandate for the organization. The tension between these two positions runs like a thread through the history of UNESCO.... Read More
07 May 2014
Re-envisioning Research on Teachers’ Work in South Africa By Nyna Amin & Rubby Dhunpath
By Nyna Amin & Rubby Dhunpath, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In post-apartheid South Africa, the scenario of relative certainty in education has changed to chronic instability. Approximately twenty five years ago, teaching in South Africa was a relatively stable profession. Teachers were trained with the certainty of knowing exactly what was required, who was... Read More
06 May 2014
The Central Role of Teachers in the GMR2013-14 By Beatrice Avalos-Bevan
By Beatrice Avalos-Bevan, University of Chile, Santiago. Teachers have never been absent in the past Global Monitoring Reports, especially in the Quality Imperative one, simply because no education subject can be handled without referring to one of its key actors. However, for the first time, the current Report presents a complete and thorough analysis centred... Read More
05 May 2014
Four GMR Strategies to Provide the Best Teachers: What’s Missing? By David Hawker
By David Hawker,Institute of Education, University of London. The 2013/4 EFA GMR focuses, appropriately enough, on teaching and learning, given that this is what education is all about. It paints a rather gloomy picture of the current state of the teaching workforce in many countries – there are not enough teachers, they are poorly trained,... Read More
30 Apr 2014
Who Owns Learning? By Hugh McLean
By Hugh McLean, Open Society Foundations, London. Teaching about learning and learning about teaching I worked for an NGO in South Africa in the 1980s called Learn and Teach.[i] It was an adult literacy organisation inspired by Freire and based on the insight that understanding the interconnections between learning and teaching is fundamental to good... Read More
28 Apr 2014
New Pedagogy, Old Practice: Conflicts of Culture in Teaching and Learning By Ruth Naylor
By Ruth Naylor, CfBT, Reading. Working as a teacher in Tanzania at the turn of the millennium, I was struck by the resilience of the incumbent culture of teaching and learning in the face of an onslaught of teacher training, new curricular materials and other interventions all promoting the adoption of “participatory teaching methodology”. Teachers... Read More
22 Apr 2014
From Teaching and Learning to Teachers and Students: The Real Story of Educational Cultures and Contexts By NORRAG
By NORRAG. The last few years with their global focus on education post-2015 and review of Education for All (EFA) have emphasized the failure of LEARNING. Despite all the discussion of Learning Goals, and of Learning for All, the real storyline was that students were not learning, or not learning enough. There has, of course,... Read More
14 Apr 2014
A NEET Indicator for Post-2015? Let’s be More Precise By Enrique Pieck
By Enrique Pieck, Academic Researcher, Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Mexico. When trying to ensure an effective youth transition to the labor market, it is important to consider the diversity of youth and to define precisely what it is understood by labor market and educational enrollment. When considering to adopt an indicator for NEETs (those... Read More
10 Apr 2014
NEETS is Not a Neat Concept By Kenneth King
By Kenneth King, University of Edinburgh and NORRAG ‘Ensure that all youth transition effectively into the labour market’, was one of the draft Post-2015 targets proposed by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. This target is surely wild! How can a target aim for all youth to transition effectively into the labour market? What does effectively... Read More
07 Apr 2014
Will Skills Training Get Short-Changed in the Post-2015 Agenda? By Claudio de Moura Castro
By Claudio de Moura Castro, Positivo, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Looking at the draft collection of Sustainable Development Solutions Network Post-2015 indicators, each reader will likely find that his own area is insufficiently covered. That is to be expected. Hence, considering my past interest in training, it should be no surprise that I find that the... Read More