Education for All has focused international attention on the goals of universal primary education and improved education quality. However, national indicators related to these goals often mask significant differences among demographic and social groups, as well as among geographical regions within countries. This paper, based on a study…

This case study identifies four targets groups that are specific to the achievement of the EFA Millennium Development Goals in Mongolia: boys, out-of-school children, vulnerable children and minorities, and children of herders. Boys from herder families in remote rural areas are at the greatest risk of drop-out or non-enrollment. The case study…

Positive developments are identified, notably a strong policy and planning environment linked to overall strategy for growth and poverty reduction, leading to vigorous commitment to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Abolition of school fees, and a measure of compulsion, resulted in significant gains in school enrolment, including…

This article explores the extent to which and how non-formal education (NFE) contributes to the development of a more diversified basic education system and thus to the achievement of EFA. It outlines the current nature of NFE, the frameworks provided by the EFA movement, and the evolution of reflection, policies and practices in NFE in relation…

The Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report is six years old and seven reports have been produced (UNESCO, 2000-2008). It is a product of the outcomes of the World Education Forum in Dakar held in 2000. It is designed to track progress towards the realization of the six EFA goals and to hold governments and the international community to…

Gender bias in textbooks (GBIT) is a low-profile education issue, given the 72,000,000 children who still have no access to schooling, but this article argues that GBIT is: (1) an important, (2) near-universal, (3) remarkably uniform, (4) quite persistent but (5) virtually invisible obstacle on the road to gender equality in education--an obstacle…

Numerous epidemiological studies from the early years of the tragic HIV and AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa identified formal education as a risk factor increasing the chance of infection. Instead of playing its usual role as a preventative factor, as has been noted in many other public health cases, until the mid-1990s educated African men…

This article outlines a framework for analysis of teacher focused policy studies within an international and comparative perspective. Using the notion of the professional life cycle of teachers, the article examines examples of key empirical studies that illustrate the impact of policy on addressing such issues as teacher recruitment, education,…

Educational transfer is an important and growing body of literature in the field of comparative education. Work from the last decade has focused on the stages of the borrowing cycle, and the context, causes and rationales for education borrowing. This recent work has contributed to earlier research on the role of multilateral organizations in…

Representatives from more than 20 institutions making up a research and teaching network met to discuss and investigate a web application designed to promote knowledge sharing and understanding. The web application, called Fieldtrip, enables students, professors and researchers to virtually share their experiences and findings from real field…

Both democratic citizenship education and inclusion share a common ethos and language based on concerns for human rights, social justice, and a sense of community. Both aim at the building of democratic relationships. But it is fair to say that for a long time citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion have either spoken past each other, or…

This text gives a structured overview of some of the courses for action that the participants in the UNESCO IBE project worked out together as a group over several months. We went beyond identifying the barriers and difficulties together with the good practices being developed in the several countries and tried to define a broad outline for the…

This text is a guide to the reading and interpretation of the "good practices" that are developing in the countries participating in this project and elsewhere. A systematic approach to the factors making up a "good practice" has enabled us to share our analyses in a more structured manner and to reflect on their potential for learning and change,…

This article discusses the Priority Education Zones project (ZEP) in Mauritius. The original and innovative dimensions of the project are described, together with the difficulties encountered during the setting-up of the ZEP schools. The article covers five main issues: the status of the ZEP project; the minimal conditions for success; the…

The Aid for the Development of the People by the People (ADPP), a non-governmental organization (NGO), in collaboration with Angola's Ministry of Education, has set up a network of secondary schools to train teachers to work in primary schools in the rural areas of Angola. These schools, called Training Colleges for the Teachers of the Future…