It is now 10 years since the "European Declaration on the Health of Children and Young People with Intellectual Disabilities and their Families: Better Health -- Better Lives" was adopted by the World Health Organization. Through discussions with key informants and an online literature review, we reflect on actions and progress made in…

Skills-based education can provide a way forward to sustainable development in a developing country. It is a hopeful scenario that more than 60% of the population of Pakistan is less than 30 years of age and almost half of them are under 15 years of age. It is important for the policymakers and planners to learn from the societies where human…

Vocational education and training (VET) systems around the world serve many aims, the most important of which can be grouped into three main aims: economic, social and educational aims. These different aims find their roots in different socio-cultural and economic contexts and their importance in the functioning of the systems evolves according to…

Swiss Vocational Education and Training (VET) is based on national legislation which was introduced in the 1930s and renewed in the 1960s (as well as in the 1970s and in 2002). At first, the goal of the national VET legislation was to further Vocational Education and Training in order to support small and medium enterprises; however, later, it…

This paper explains how heating and ventilation systems as technical artefacts shaped the historical meaning of Swiss school buildings between 1830 and 1930 by analysing official and legal documents, sources regarding the World Exhibitions, and minutes at the Zurich cantonal and city archives. It exposes the theoretical assumptions of heating and…

While their authority for program approval may vary from state to state, state boards of education should ensure that the secondary school career and technical education (CTE) programs are part of a continuum that prepares students for further education, training, and the workplace. By expanding apprenticeship programs, state boards can give…

Following a pause, with a relatively flat rate, from 1998 to 2008, the long-term trend of university patenting rising as a share of all patenting has resumed, driven by the internationalization of academic entrepreneurship and the persistence of US university technology transfer. The authors disaggregate this recent growth in university patenting…

During the past two decades, there is a global growing interest in the field of extended education. Countries in both the East and the West alike have been investing in developing systems to support student learning after the traditional school hours. This paper examines the similarities and differences in this trend of development in Taiwan and…

Educational policies and practices are influenced by cultural, political, and economic factors, and this is also true of specialized educational approaches such as gifted education. Factors such as a country's cultural tendency toward egalitarianism or meritocracy, whether the political system is centralized or decentralized, and the degree to…

Research on evaluation has mainly focused on the use of evaluation and has given little attention to the origins of evaluation demand. In this article, I consider the question of why parliamentarians demand evaluations with parliamentary requests. Building on the literature of delegation, I use a principal-agent framework to explain the origins of…

Following a well-established tradition going back to the 1980s (cf. Volterra 1987/2004), the authors use the name Lingua dei Segni Italiana (Italian Sign Language [LIS]) for the language used by Italian deaf people (and by Swiss deaf people living in the Ticino canton). LIS is becoming more and more visible, and its status as a minority language…

Over the years, American students consistently have ranked below those from Finland, Canada, Japan, and at least a dozen other industrialized nations on international tests of mathematics, science, and reading. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has done nothing to close this gap. And the authors suspect that the law may be making matters worse.…

Vocational training in Switzerland uses the dual system in which apprentices receive employer-sponsored training coupled with classes at government-supported vocational schools. Trainees must pass final examinations to receive a credential for employment or advanced training. (SK)

The booklet reports on the results of a meeting of 10 nations held, under the auspices of the European Bureau of Adult Education, to make determinations about the present and future states of legislation which affects adult education. The 10 nations represented were: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,…

This article compares the occupational safety and health systems of Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, looking at the origins of their legislation and its effects on occupational safety and health, with a view to determining what lessons may emerge, particularly for developing countries. (Author/SSH)