26 Feb 2016
Workplace-Based Learning in South Africa: Towards System-Wide Implementation By Ronel Blom
By Ronel Blom, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Workplace-based Learning (WBL) has been practiced in various forms in South Africa for years. However, these practices, to a large extent, have taken place in a policy vacuum. The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), published the White Paper on Post-School Education and Training in 2013,... Read More
23 Feb 2016
Expanding the Conception of Vocational Education and Training: Why the Reorganisation of South Africa’s Post-Schooling System offers New Opportunities By Volker Wedekind
By Volker Wedekind, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg In the context of the creation of a distinct Ministry of Higher Education and Training and a recent White Paper on Post-School Education and Training, South Africa is busy reconfiguring the entire post-school system. One of the features of the new landscape is a much greater role... Read More
22 Feb 2016
The Glass is Half Full! Technical and Vocational Education and Training and the Sustainable Development Goals By Salim Akoojee
By Salim Akoojee, International Research Associate and Consultant, South Africa and Hong Kong. After the dust has settled on the somewhat arduous Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) setting process, we have finally arrived at a point at which the Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has begun its ambitious journey. As unwieldy, unrealizable,... Read More
18 Feb 2016
Emerging Donor Finance to Technical and Vocational Education and Training By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. Anyone that has tried to explore the nature of DAC donor support to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as captured in the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System (CRS) will understand the challenges of interpreting its multiple codes and multiples uses of the same term ‘training’. However, the even greater challenge... Read More
15 Feb 2016
ASER 2015 Results from Pakistan: Making the Invisible Visible By Sehar Saeed
By Sehar Saeed, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), Pakistan. The recently launched ASER Report 2015 is a testament to civil society evidence-based activism that has drawn irreversible attention to the crisis of learning, both locally and globally. As we move forward towards the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are reminded that the... Read More
11 Feb 2016
Syria Donors Conference: A ‘Vision of Hope’ for the Next School Year? By Hiba Salem
By Hiba Salem, University of Cambridge. “Never has the global community raised so much money in a day”, states Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, referring to the $10bn pledgeduring the Syria Donors Conference, which took place in London a week ago today on the 4th of February, 2016. The one-day conference I previously discussed invited world leaders... Read More
08 Feb 2016
Measuring Learning: the Cost of Ignorance By Silvia Montoya
Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics Let’s be honest. For the past few months, we – the international education community – have been celebrating the victory in getting governments to adopt the ambitious Sustainable Development Goal 4 to provide inclusive and equitable quality education for all. But the party is over and now we face... Read More
02 Feb 2016
Why the Syria Donors Conference Matters Globally By Hiba Salem
By Hiba Salem, University of Cambridge. With Syria entering its sixth year of conflict, the Syria Donors Conference – scheduled for 4th February in London – has never been more important. A few days are left before the conference tackles the challenging statistics of the millions of Syrians living in dire conditions and the vastly... Read More
29 Jan 2016
Refugees, Displaced Persons and Education: New Challenges for Development and for Policy
When the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) of 2011 focused on The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education, its focus was not principally with refugees at all, but with the massively deleterious effect of conflict on education. Arguably, the refugee crisis now affecting Europe has made this hidden crisis dramatically more open for... Read More
18 Jan 2016
What does the UK Aid Strategy mean for Education and Development? By Simon McGrath
By Simon McGrath, University of Nottingham. The UK Government has released a new aid strategy. That is, a government-wide strategy for aid, not a DFID strategy. The potential advantages and disadvantages of this have been raised elsewhere, as has the stress on “the national interest” throughout the document. However, here the focus is on what... Read More