After WWII, the economic prospects of the Philippines, then the second-largest economy in Asia, were viewed positively, but by the mid-1970s it had become Asia's developmental puzzle for its failure to sustain economic growth. In contrast during the same period, regional neighbours, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, achieved previously…

The aftermath of the international financial crisis of 2008/2009 and current economic downturn in the world economy has unsurprisingly put publicly-funded higher education (HE) systems under immense pressure in most parts of the world. Added to measures of the past 20 years, aiming at introducing cost effective management approaches imported from…

This article compares the power spaces occupied by both donors and the Ministry of Education in the formulation of Ghana's Education Strategic Plan (ESP). It shows that the formulation of the ESP was more donor-led than Ministry-led due to the donor-initiated global policy frameworks also referred to as the non-negotiables. Consequently, donors…

Most secondary school students in Egypt enrol in private tutoring in almost all subjects throughout the school year. A large proportion of students have stopped attending school altogether due to their reliance on tutoring. This study of how educational markets are perpetuated at school level finds that in the technical track catering to the…

Schooling is widely considered to be vital to the development of modern nation-states, yet little is known about how teachers might go about transmitting national culture within schools. Using the case of history-geography "lycee" teachers in the French overseas department of Martinique, this article makes the argument that teachers' professional…

Studies to date show how low-fee private (LFP) schools, including unrecognised ones, have gained practical legitimacy and continue to increase in number. However, little explanation is offered regarding the legal legitimacy of such unrecognised LFP schools. This paper intends to fill this gap by examining the legal legitimacy of unrecognised…

Coherence of national education and training systems is increasingly tabled in European policy debates. Leaning on literature about the emergence and consolidation of national education systems, this article explores the rationale for VET reforms in Norway and Spain by scrutinising attempts to strengthen the coherence of their VET systems.…

Past research has addressed the disparities in educational achievement for primary year seven school leavers in Uganda but it did not take into account the multidimensional perspectives: those on poverty (as reported by the poor) and on educational inequalities between and within regions, particularly with regard to the impacts of the 1997…

Schools in Greece particularly in inner-city areas, have seen a considerable increase in the number of migrant students over the past two decades. In this article, we discuss the intercultural education policy, which was introduced in 1996, in response to the migration and diversity the country has seen since the mid-1980s. We explore how…

Despite the state's unrelenting efforts to enforce compulsory basic education, schooling in rural ethnic China remains an elusive ideal that leads to massive dropout and prepares many only for factory sweatshops. Based on 16 months of ethnographic research, this article examines the disjuncture between the official education policy known as the…

This paper contrasts the notion of "independent learning" as perceived by two informant groups at a UK institution of higher education: (1) teachers, educators and providers of education and (2) their students or "consumers" of education. Both informant groups are staff and students studying in a culture different to that of their first education.…

Due to the broad acceptance of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other comparative studies as instruments of policymaking, its accuracy is essential. This article attempts to demonstrate omissions in the conceptualisation, and consequently in calculation and interpretation, of one of the central points of PISA 2006 and…

This article aims to report a single case study of how an Islamic boarding school ("pesantren") in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, prepared students for a multicultural Indonesia. Despite negative portrayal by the Western media about increasing Islamic radicalism in some "pesantren", many "pesantren" are in fact transforming into modern Islamic…

This article considers the status of indigenous knowledges as forms of knowledge in the multicultural context of Sudan, through exploration of Sudanese adult education teachers' perceptions of culture, language and knowledge in education. Drawing on critical and poststructural theoretical concepts, cultural discourses in education are shown to…

This paper argues from the standpoint that embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in Australian curricula occurs within a space of tension, "the cultural interface", in negotiation and contestation with other dominant knowledge systems. In this interface, Indigenous knowledge is in a state of constancy and flux, invisible and…