In neo-liberal times educational policy and practice is being realigned more closely to the shifting imperatives of the market with damaging effects on the lives of young people. Whilst the rhetoric suggests that schools are safe, welcoming and caring environments for the benefit of all, the veracity is very different for significant numbers of…

Teachers for the Future is a regional report that draws together and analyses research findings from a study commissioned by the European Training Foundation (ETF) in seven countries in the Western Balkans region, namely, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. The overall…

The establishment of positive relationships between home and school has long been recognised as a desirable state which can have a significant bearing upon the success of students both academically and socially. By contrast, when relationships between schools and parents or carers falter, the consequences can be detrimental to all parties and in…

It is argued that the social control function of education and training is becoming increasingly explicit in England and France. Education and training can be viewed as a form of custody for young people, with enforced participation post 16 planned in the near future in England. Compulsory education for this age group is not currently planned in…

In a recent publication, Fitzgerald (2003) inquired if the educational system in the Republic of Ireland was catering adequately for the less able learners and/or those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper responds to the question by providing an overview of educational inequality in the Irish context with a particular focus on what are…

Australian governments at both federal and state levels have collaborated for the past 15 years to lift Indigenous students from their position as the nation's most educationally disadvantaged group. The introduction in 1989 of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Plan was accompanied by an ambitious target of achieving…

Liberia's emergence from 15 years of tremendous upheaval has left it with an unsettled domestic security situation, a disrupted formal economy and a virtually destroyed national infrastructure. Faced with a burgeoning school-age population and the growing demand for education, Liberia's new National Transitional Government--composed of rebel,…

This article argues that despite such large-scale international programmes as Education for All, backed by UNESCO and the World Bank among others, enrolment and retention rates in Africa will continue to decline as pupils, parents and employers realise that formal schooling does not deliver what it has promised. Although much attention has been…

Shortly after coming to power, Tony Blair's New Labour government expressed its strong commitment to tackling the problem of school expulsion. The Treasury's 1998 Spending Review included the bold target to achieve "a reduction by one third in... exclusions (from 12,500 to 8,400 permanent exclusions a year) by 2002". This article gives an overview…