03 Jun 2013
Skills, Work and Development: Initial Reactions to the High Level Panel’s Post-2015 Vision
By Simon McGrath, University of Nottingham. My overall sense of the HLP proposals is a positive one, notwithstanding my wider scepticism about global development goals. The Report starts well from its title: “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development”. Rhetorically powerful, yes, but also pointing to a larger development vision... Read More
31 May 2013
Thank Goodness! Education has Made it to the Finishing Line in the Global Post-2015 High Level Panel Olympics
By Kenneth King, NORRAG and University of Edinburgh. Relief all round!! The report of the High Level Panel (HLP) on Post-2015 has just gone public. The International NGOs, think tanks, development agencies and policy makers who have been concerned about whether ‘Education’ would make it to the HLP finishing line can relax. Education... Read More
29 May 2013
Future Education - Global Mega -Trends and the Post-2015 Agenda for Education
By Desmond Bermingham, Save the Children. Global ‘mega-trends’ are having an impact on education: Slowing population growth and an ageing population; the continuing and growing threats resulting from climate change; the eastwards shift in the economic centre of gravity; and the exponential growth in access to mobile communications technology are changing the world we live... Read More
27 May 2013
Technical and Vocational Skills and the Post-2015 Agenda: Let’s Take the Bull by the Horns
By Robert Palmer, Independent Education and Skills Consultant. 2012 saw the release of numerous high level global reports on work and on technical and vocational skills development, as was noted in NORRAG NEWS 48; these included, for example, the likes of UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report, McKinsey’s World at Work Report, OECD’s Better Lives Skills Strategy, the... Read More
16 May 2013
NORRAG News 48 on "2012: The Year of Global reports on TVET, Skills & Jobs - Consensus or Diversity?" NOW ONLINE
This issue of NORRAG News looks at the many different meanings of skill in these reports: high, medium, low, foundation, transferable, technical and vocational skills, as well as life-skills. It looks also at the state of skills in both urban and rural areas, and considers skills-for-poverty-reduction as well as skills-for-growth. The reports cover skills in... Read More
10 May 2013
The UNESCO World TVET Report
By Simon McGrath, University of Nottingham. Amidst the current wave of international reports on skills, the most striking aspect of the Shanghai preview of the UNESCO WTR is the emphasis on a human development perspective on skills that stands in clear contrast to the economistic rationale of most of the reports. It must be acknowledged that... Read More
06 May 2013
Post-2015 Global Thematic Consultation on Education: What Role for, and What Voice of, the South in the E-Discussions?
By Robert Palmer. The Post-2015 Global Thematic Consultation on Education included a series of e-discussions Dec 2012 – Mar 2013 (on access, quality, skills, finance), which have been neatly summarised into overviews. But what can we say about the role of the South in these e-discussions? Who participated? And what has been the voice of... Read More
02 May 2013
The Meaning of Skills in Global Reports
Peliwe Lolwana, University of Witswatersrand The sudden interest in skills development by global and large research agencies is contributing to a very active debate on the relationship of education to the labour market. Central to this debate is the notion that skills have become the ‘global currency of the 21st century’. There is currently an... Read More
29 Apr 2013
If Data is Not Wisdom, then Non-Data Certainly is Not
Karina Veal, Asian Development Bank. Where hide the wise answers to questions vexing TVET policy makers and practitioners in developing countries today? They ask, for example: will benefits outweigh costs of building a National Qualifications Framework. What works best to engage the most marginalized youth in skills training? How can one measure learning outcomes from... Read More
24 Apr 2013
Don’t Get Lost – Focus on Quality
Eric A. Hanushek, Stanford University. UNESCO has done both a service and a disservice to those concerned about global development. GMR 2012, Youth and Skills: Putting Education to Work, brings its analytical attention to bear on the relationship between skills and economic development. The power of the idea of Education for All has been to... Read More