Focus on textbooks, not class size, poor countries are regularly told as they seek to improve education quality. Yet, at the same time, with strong support from professional educators, the voters of the U.S. state of California approved massive expenditures to reduce the size of classes that in global terms were already quite small. These…

Perhaps because educational achievement often has been associated with elite status, the organization and focus of education nearly everywhere in the modern era reflects international influences, some more forceful than others. In this era, with few exceptions, the direction of influence is from European core to southern periphery. Institutional…

The conjunction of development funding and educational research in Africa and the dominating role of a single agency, the World Bank, have consequences for research and educational policy: structuring of research according to agency constructs and policies, legitimation of poorly supported propositions, lack of critical review, a fixation on…

As the 20th century closes, the general consensus is that education in Africa is in crisis. The challenge is to revitalize education in Africa and to do so in ways that enable African countries not only to close the development gap but also to leap ahead. Pointing out the rich diversity and considering carefully the bounding conditions for each…