Free and compulsory primary education remains a priority area in the international policy perspective, starting from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 to the formulation of Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Under the impact of globalization, an impressive expansion in the access to primary education has been observed in recent…

Using an equity perspective, this article compares the education systems of the United States and the Netherlands. Existing data examining student demographics, the organizational structures, curricula, funding, and student outcomes are examined. The Netherlands appears to be getting a "bigger bang for their buck." We make the case that…

Education for All (an international movement of governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society and the media) set objectives in Jomtien (1990) and reaffirmed in Dakar (2000) that, among other things, work towards all children having access to free, compulsory, good quality primary education by 2015. School dropout may hinder the…

In the second of a two-part series, this paper looks at the global spread of school dropout and at the factors that keep elementary school-aged children outside education. In order to have a more complete picture of the dropout problem, it necessary to take into account pupils who do not continue their education beyond primary education or who…