The paper explores shifts in the nature, volume, trajectory and content of aid to education in the wake of post-9/11 Western preoccupations with the rise of Islamic radicalism. The paper develops a framework for understanding the dynamics of how educational aid appears to be becoming increasingly politicized in strategic conflict and post-conflict…

The absolute priority given by UNESCO to the promotion of universal literacy is understood as a key policy driver shaping the Organization since its inception in 1946. Grounded in human rights, the commitment has taken concrete form in many and diverse ways, but it is as a shaper of ideas that UNESCO's overall contribution is best judged. In…

Increasing globalization, information technology, based on a knowledge economy, and socio-economic changes are rapidly changing the goals, policies, curricula, contents and methods of education. The need to differentiate and re-thinking education and learning, both within and outside the school system, is gaining increased attention among…

In most of the Arab world, the development of a national education system has been a recent process. Currently, one out of every two Arabs can neither read nor write. This paper focuses on how illiteracy has been dealt with in the country of Iraq. A 1947 survey put total illiteracy of those 15 years and older at 89.1%. In the period following the…

This issue of Literacy Discussion explains the joint Arab strategy for illiteracy eradication and reviews Iraq's particular situation. The first of six articles traces literacy development in the Arab World leading up to the adoption of the Arab Literacy strategy at the 1976 Third Alexandria Conference in Baghdad, Iraq. It also presents…