Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

The purpose of the study reported on here was to investigate the role of partnerships in helping in-service teachers overcome the difficulties associated with performing practical work prescribed in the Life Sciences Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), an educational policy intended to transform the South African school curriculum…

Systems thinking (ST) is a holistic leadership approach that puts the study of wholes before that of parts. It focuses attention on how organization members act together in networks of interactions. This is done by researching organization members' mental models, which are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even mental pictures or…

The objectives of this research were to find out implementation challenges of the educational projects and policies, analyze if these policies address the issue of out of school children, and explore the parental preferences for their children's future and concerns about the educational facilities. Cultural audit approach was adopted for…

The purpose of this article is to provide physical education teacher education (PETE) faculty and program directors/administrators with an introduction to stakeholder think tanks as a structured collaborative decision-making approach for conceptualizing the integration of contemporary, practice-oriented issues into university-level teacher…

On April 20, 1999, two Columbine High School students walked into their school midday and killed 12 students and one teacher. Twenty-one other students were injured. All that had been normal came to an abrupt end. Education leaders in Jefferson County, Colorado, quickly realized they were laying the groundwork for a new normal. Colorado's…

Policy implementation at school level is often recognised as transformative enactment. Positioning school leaders as gatekeepers in this enactment is limiting. This study of one Australian school explores the complex contextualised agency of school leaders showing that their role, far more than gatekeeping, can be enabling and transformative.…

Prepared for a Strategic Education Governance learning seminar, this working paper analyses the ways in which the Dutch government tried to reach overarching goals in education, in a system characterised by a high degree of distributed autonomy of education institutions and the participation of multiple actors, and consequently a government highly…

Ten years ago, community college presidents' most valued datum was the number of students enrolled, which drove the colleges' funding. Providing access to higher education for the millions of students without the time, money, or academic preparation to attend a traditional four-year college was (as it always had been) their top priority. Today, a…

This paper analyses how the impact of international student achievement studies and the recent economic crisis in Europe are influencing the development of educational policy transfer and borrowing, from East to West. This is contrasted with education reform movements in East Asia, which have long legacies of borrowing from so-called…

The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is increasingly depended upon by education policy makers to provide reliable measures of their country's education system against international benchmarks. PISA attempts to provide efficient, scientific and technical means to develop educational policies which achieve optimal…

The successful establishment of a purpose-built innovative school designed to support new ways of teaching and learning in the senior secondary years, particularly in the area of science and mathematics, required a comprehensive and research-based professional development policy and program. Planning professional learning opportunities for the…