The United Nations has set forth an ambitious vision for education systems around the globe: cultivating life-long learning from early childhood through an individual's civic and work life. Schools must support children and youth in basic learning--including crucial socio-emotional, literacy, and numeracy competencies--to contribute to sustainable…

The World Bank's focus on foundational skills requires that issues of language and Language of Instruction be brought to the forefront of education policy discussions. Poor Language of Instruction policies harm learning, access, equity, cost-effectiveness, and inclusion. Yet nearly 37% of students in low- and middle-income countries are taught in…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to demonstrate how adult education enabled the process of economic and social change, and national development in Jamaica through a critical review of two cases of adult education provisions in Jamaica since the country gained independence in 1962. Content analysis of various documents from primary…

This book is the first comprehensive account of developments in open and distance non-formal education in developing countries for over more than 20 years. It includes many instructive and inspiring examples of how international agencies such as UNESCO, FAO, WHO, UNICEF, USAID and the Commonwealth of Learning and national providers are using…

UIL has published a second edition of a collection of case studies of promising literacy programmes that seek to empower women. "Narrowing the Gender Gap: Empowering Women through Literacy Programmes" (originally published in 2013 as "Literacy Programmes with a Focus on Women to Reduce Gender Disparities") responds to the…

This paper explores how literacy learning can support women's empowerment and the development of greater equality, benefitting not only individual women, but families, communities and economies too. It describes and reflects upon some of the most promising approaches to developing literacy and learning for women, who form the majority of the…

In the early 1990s, UNESCO estimated that perhaps 97% of the world's 650 million disabled persons were unable to read or write, leading to significant efforts throughout the developing world to ensure that all children with disabilities attended school through "inclusive education" programmes. But what of the vast majority of persons with…

This paper and the four commissioned works on which it is based are guided by the important question: How can we start valuing practices and outcomes of teaching and learning that are difficult to reduce to numbers? As the process of developing indicators for the Post-2015 education targets unfolds, some of the targets are at risk of being dropped…

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments related to the development of indicators of educational progress in the context of the Post 2015 deliberations to generate a new international architecture for educational investment through to 2030. There have been a plethora of suggestions and several parallel consultation processes…

This report reviews the conceptual debates and existing data sources that relate to three ambiguous and controversial targets included in the post-2015 education framework: Relevant Learning Outcomes; Knowledge, Skills, Values, and Attitudes (for education for global citizenship and sustainable development); and Teachers and Safe, Inclusive, and…

The Quicken Trust has been working in Kabubbu since 2000. In that time it has created a primary school, a health centre and laboratory, teachers' and nurses' housing, community housing, clean water supplies, farming and work initiatives, an adult literacy centre and library, and a secondary school. Over 400 orphaned children are being educated and…

In April, 2000, more than 1,100 participants from 164 countries gathered in Dakar, Senegal, for the World Education Forum sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Participants included teachers, prime ministers, policy makers, executives from non-governmental organizations, and heads of major…

The author discusses four major issues that confront the development of required basic education: the huge number of people needing education; the extreme poverty of these people; the increasing number of those in need of education; and lack of success in past attempts at combating ignorance and illiteracy. Also, a basic education delivery system…

The establishment of the Nigerian National Commission for Nomadic Education in 1989 created wider opportunities for an estimated 9.3 million nomads living in Nigeria to acquire literacy skills. This commission was struck to address low literacy rates among pastoral nomads and migrant fishermen, which put literacy rates at 0.28 percent and 20…

The United Nations' Regional Programme for the Universalization and Renewal of Primary Education and the Eradication of Adult Illiteracy in the Arab States by the Year 2000 (ARABUPEAL) began in 1987. Among the educational problems confronting Arab States are that their educational objectives do not specifically relate to development objectives,…