The IBSA forum is an important collaboration of India-Brazil-South Africa to address the social developmental challenges of developing countries through South-South Cooperation. All three countries share same colonial history and at present have developing economies and struggling to provide best public services to their citizens through the…

Education transforms lives. It is the surest investment to break down social and economic differences between people, unravel inequalities based on gender and accelerate progress towards the entire vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Yet, despite the world's commitment to ensure every child completes 12 years of quality…

This paper considers the 'hope' and 'disappointments' experienced over time about the results of rapid educational expansion, as well as the research agenda which aims to improve educational outcomes in the developing world and particularly in Africa. Our interest is in the development and nature of policy-oriented bodies of knowledge that address…

India's informal economy accounts for more than half the country's GDP but is characterised by low levels of skills, and considerable barriers to skills development for workers. The Government of India has implemented ambitious policy initiatives for upskilling, designed to catalyse 'formalisation' of the economy, and improve productivity.…

As South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, changes in the political landscape, as well as educational agendas and discourse on both a national and international level, shaped successive waves of curriculum reform over a relatively short period of time. Using South Africa as a germane example of how curriculum and pedagogy can…

Bangladesh has a highly complicated education system with a wide variety of institutions in both primary and secondary levels. The total number of students in primary and secondary level is higher than 25 million. This huge system need to forecast the future for the sake of all stakeholders' students, parents, teachers alike. This study aims to…

Educational policy borrowing is almost the norm in today's policy making, partly because of globalisation, the rise in information and communication technology, and the involvement of external stakeholders in higher education governance. However, the reasons, applications, and results obtained from the adoption and implementation of borrowed…

Although more children than ever are enrolled in school, far too many are not learning. A key factor that affects quality of education is the availability of public funding. Underinvestment in education can result in several conditions that negatively impact how and what children learn. This advocacy brief presents data and analysis on education…

This book argues that the international development sector is in crisis which can be mostly sourced to its side-stepping the dominant development question of our age, the neoliberal growth paradigm. It argues that this crisis can be addressed, at least in part, by the sector's re-engagement with the radical development education process that it…

Throughout the European Union, children from marginalised communities experience an appalling reality of poverty, exclusion, discrimination, and racism. Growing up in poverty and social exclusion shapes the reality of the lived experience for an increasing number of children in one of the wealthiest regions of the world. In the UK, a member of the…

The work reviews the ongoing controversy over work and play within the framework of a constructivist early childhood curriculum. Educators and parents with narrow perception of play view it as mere physical actions of walking, clapping and singing outside class work. However, educators who hold a constructivist epistemological view of child play…

United Nations development goals have consistently placed a high priority on the quality of education--and of learning. This has led to substantive increases in international development assistance to education, and also to broader attention, worldwide, to the importance of children's learning. Yet, such goals are mainly normative: they tend…

Early childhood education has received attention from philosophers, educationists and psycho-analysts such as Plato, Avicenna, Locke, Pestalozzi, Whitehead, Carl Jung, Binet, Piaget, Montessori, Sigmund Freund, Howard Gardner, among others. In Africa, the backdrop of poverty, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in strife-torn countries, among…

World Bank's data indicate 70 per cent of the African population lives in rural areas. Additional evidence made available by the African Development Bank [Africa's own version of the World Bank] suggests 65 per cent of Africa's urban dwellers live in slums. This paper relies on these data to conceptualise Africa's global rurality and issues around…

The primary purpose of this paper is to review and evaluate the causes of educational poverty in less developed countries. The basic intent in carrying out such a study is to define and derive the role of governing agencies in deliberately creating educational poverty in the country, so that the private interest of the rich and powerful ruling…