05 Dec 2014
Avoiding Post-2015 Education Pipe-dreams? By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. This is the last blog in a series of post-2015 reflection blogs (see blog list below); a synthesis review of NORRAG NEWSBite’s post-2015 education blogs over the last couple of years. Alice Albright, the CEO of the Global Partnership for Education, recently commented about the post-2015 education agenda, that ‘not having... Read More
04 Dec 2014
The Countdown to Defining What Counts: Measurement and Education Post-2015 By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. This blog is the 4th in a series of post-2015 reflection blogs (see blog 1, 2,and 3 here); a synthesis review of NORRAG NEWSBite’s post-2015 education blogs over the last couple of years. Improved data and measurement are obviously key to the success of monitoring the post-2015 agenda. The May 2013... Read More
03 Dec 2014
An Open Invitation to the Technical and Vocational Skills Community: It’s Time to Gate-Crash the Post-2015 Party By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. This blog is the third in a series of post-2015 reflection blogs (see blog 1 and 2 here); a synthesis review of NORRAG NEWSBite’s post-2015 education blogs over the last couple of years. Interest in technical and vocational skills has ridden high on the waves of political rhetoric over the last... Read More
02 Dec 2014
Education Post-2015: Recurring Themes By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. This is the second blog in a series of post-2015 reflection blogs (see first blog here); a synthesis review of NORRAG NEWSBite’s post-2015 education blogs over the last couple of years. There is an overwhelming view that the next round of education targets needs to be more ambitious than the 2015... Read More
01 Dec 2014
Education Post-2015: What Destination, Whose Journey? By Robert Palmer
By Robert Palmer, NORRAG. Since NORRAG’s first blog on post-2015 back in June 2012 we have had almost 100 blogs around post-2015/beyond-2015; similarly if we count the articles on post-2015 in NORRAG NEWS (NN) 49 and the forthcoming NN51, there are almost 100 more. NORRAG also has four working papers on post-2015. Over the next... Read More
28 Nov 2014
Transfer of the Dual System of Vocational Education to Developing Countries – Help or Hindrance for Development? Reflections from an Austrian Perspective By Margarita Langthaler
By Margarita Langthaler, Austrian Research Foundation for International Development. Currently, there is much talk about why youth unemployment rates in Austria, as in other German speaking countries, are substantially lower than in the EU and OECD area. Generally, media and politicians point to the existence of the dual system of vocational education as the main... Read More
27 Nov 2014
Education Diplomacy - Towards a Common Understanding By Katharina Hone
By Katharina Hone, DiploFoundation. Many of the participants in the Education Diplomacy Day in Geneva in October pointed out that they were not sure exactly what education diplomacy means. And then they proceeded to talk about their own work – which in each case was a good example of education diplomacy, in one of its many different aspects. The... Read More
25 Nov 2014
The Challenges of Promoting Transfer of the Dual Model of Vocational Training in International Cooperation By Markus Maurer
By Markus Maurer, Zurich University of Teacher Education. In today’s highly globalised world it would be surprising if governments and their experts, whether operating in economically highly or less highly developed contexts, tried to resolve the challenges of vocational education and training (VET) by developing context-specific solutions from scratch. Rather, they virtually always try –... Read More
20 Nov 2014
Without Theory, there are only Opinions By Roger Dale
By Roger Dale, University of Bristol. The phrase ‘without data you’re just another person with an opinion’ which has been frequently uttered by Andreas Schleicher as a defence of the PISA surveys, is – I argue – not only indefensibly dismissive but very misleading. I say this, because I argue that without knowing why and... Read More
17 Nov 2014
Are Brazilians Masochists? Why do they Insist on PISA? By Claudio de Moura Castro
By Claudio de Moura Castro, Positivo, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Kenneth King, NORRAG NEWS’ editor, has asked me why Brazilians insist on participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), despite the terrible results that come out for Brazil every time. In fact, some countries have given up because of their rankings. Do I have... Read More