Education is a provincial responsibility in Canada, but there is a sharing of expenditure and strong support of public education, health and other welfare programs between the provinces and the federal government. Although the federal policy of multiculturalism has been aimed at making Canada a "just" society, the implementation of this policy in…

Peace education has been recognized as an important aspect of social education for the past three decades. The critical literature as well as official documents, however, have given little attention to its philosophical foundations. This essay explores these foundations in the ethics of (1) virtue, (2) consequentialism, (3) aesthetics, (4)…

Late school entry prevails in many developing countries, and a brief international comparison suggests it has a general negative impact on school retention rates. Yet this widespread phenomenon has received little attention. This essay investigates late school entry in one of the larger countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Mozambique, for which data…

This article describes the course and causes of the expansion of higher education in the UK since the 1960s. The number of university students from modest social backgrounds has increased, but they comprise much the same proportion of the university population as they did 40 years ago. Though personal rates of return from higher education are…

Over the last 20 years, the voice of business and its impact upon Australian vocational education have transformed. These changes comprise the reluctance of enterprise to be involved; industry determining what is taught and assessed, and how; the principles for administering vocational education; and attempts to use vocational education to reform…

The government, through several White and Green Papers, has promoted the 'Skills Revolution'. This requires central direction and coordination of a wide range of policies, practices and partnerships. But there are several difficulties: the impossibility of micromanaging the complex social and economic system; the dominance of the rather limited…

Developing learning programmes to enhance the formation of generic skills is an international concern in education and training policy. This paper provides a broad survey of the development of generic skills policy in England from 1975 to 2002, drawing on both the economic and educational literature. It demonstrates that, despite an evident demand…

In the past decade employers, market and private sector influences have had a marked impact on vocational education and training (VET) policy. This article critically examines the effect of such impact on the relationship between employers, state and education in England. It is argued that largely unfettered de-regulation practices have gifted…

This paper argues for a broader-based approach to vocational education (VET) and the concept of skill, one that is capable of extending responsibility for improvement to society as a whole, rather than expecting change to come from a single constituency, that of employers. By reclaiming the important roles which vocational education and practical…

This article examines the cyclical nature of government policy vis-a-vis work-related learning. First, it looks at the purposes and types of work-related learning which exist in the 14-19 educational phase. Second, it describes the policy history surrounding work-related learning, highlighting policy emphasis on recurring themes such as enterprise…

In this paper, we examine the methods by which candidates are selected for the Oxford Medical School in the light of the literature on assessment in general and candidate selection in particular. We review changes in the process that attempt to capture the best of evidence-supported practice while preserving or enhancing the features identified as…

UK government policy has increasingly emphasised the importance of learning in the home; and commercial companies have not been slow to respond. There is now a growing demand for out-of-school learning products and services, including study guides, early learning materials, educational web sites and private tuition. However the commercialisation…

The core idea of action research is that there should be an intimate relationship between inquiry and practical or political activities. A challenge to this idea based on an influential ancient Greek hierarchy between theoria and praxis is examined. The contrary, pragmatist, notion that all inquiry arises out of human activity is accepted, but not…

Drawing upon a programme of comparative studies in three European countries, England, France and Denmark, this paper discusses some of the particular issues and problems that can arise in comparative research. It outlines some ways in which the research has attempted to resolve these and to shed light on the complex interplay of factors--personal,…

The evidence discussed in this paper was gathered in a one-year study of how student teachers learn about learning in primary schools. In examining mentoring we pursued three research questions in order to increase our understanding of how mentoring processes were helping student teachers to work responsively in classrooms with pupils. The…