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
12 Nov 2014
The Global Influence of the OECD in International Education Policies By Simone Bloem
By Simone Bloem, Université Paris Descartes/University of Bamberg. The OECD is the co-ordinator of what some claim is currently the most important and influential international student assessment: The Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA not only includes the 34 member states of the OECD, but an almost equally large number of so-called partner countries... Read More
10 Nov 2014
Situating Post-2015: the Global Architecture of EFA, GCE, ESD and the World Education Forum By Bong-gun Chung
By Bong-gun Chung, Seoul National University. It is not certain whether those who designed the Education for All (EFA) Goals and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) over a decade ago intentionally – and in a close collaboration – set the same target year of 2015 on purpose. Intended or not, the coincidence of these two... Read More
05 Nov 2014
The Elephant in the Post-2015 Education Room: What about the Global Governance of Education and Training? (Part 2) by Kenneth King and Robert Palmer
By Kenneth King and Robert Palmer, NORRAG. In our last post, we argued that a crucial missing element of the post-2015 education discussions to date relates to the global governance of education and training. This issue is the elephant in the education post-2015 room. But is the global governance of education and training not at... Read More