Over the last two decades, the rapid growth of learner enrolments in schools in most countries, including South Africa, has brought many challenges, such as a high learner-educator ratio (LER). The purpose of the study reported on was to explore an LER policy that can enhance learner academic achievement in physical sciences. Effective learning…

A number of studies on rural students have addressed the issue of discernible school dropout; however, information on hidden dropout is relatively obscure. To fill this gap, this study examines the data of 2045 rural adolescents (regular students: 1770, hidden dropouts: 275) in Chinese middle schools. This study also theoretically differentiated…

This paper focuses on a study conducted in two historically disadvantaged schools (deep-rural and semi-urban) in South Africa where the rising access to mobile technology implies that the long-standing promise of mobile learning is becoming accessible despite the lack of recent research. This research aims to investigate the relationship between…

Prompted by the challenges faced by teachers in balancing grammar and content in English classes, coupled with the poor English proficiency of rural Odia medium school students, the study aimed to devise an intervention that could balance content and grammar, thereby enhancing the grammar competency and content comprehension of eighth-grade…

This article explores how academic buoyancy, a concept from the educational psychology literature, can be used to understand the experiences of Indigenous secondary students' schooling. Academic buoyancy refers to students' ability to overcome everyday challenges of schooling. In this project, 11 Indigenous secondary students in a remote school…

In this paper we review the professional learning and development (PLD) needs of teachers in rural and remote schools, focusing on the Australian context. We argue that online PLD is an emerging alternative to face-to-face arrangements for the continuing education of teachers, which can connect to rural contexts through attending to considerations…

This paper provides a case study of teacher retention in rural Uganda focussing on the importance of rural experience and cultural connections. We argue that this study illustrates how rural parents and teachers reciprocally influence each other, and that homegrown and culturally-similar rural teachers bridge parents with the school both…

Based on different geosocial contexts - rural and centre -- the current study was aimed at exploring the experiences of teachers who performed internal migration to a rural region, focusing on their considerations regarding the migration process, and the challenges they confronted. Using the phenomenological qualitative approach, eighteen teachers…

Innovative techno-blended teaching methodologies are needed for 21st-century classrooms. This paper reports on the introduction of a techno-blended device for mathematics teaching in South African senior secondary classrooms. The research sample included 12 third-year mathematics education student teachers from a rural university. A qualitative…

While originally not designed for academic purposes, the use of social networking tools has gained popularity in academia. The purpose of this study was to explore student and lecturer views, experiences, and beliefs on using social networks for teaching and learning in a rural context. Utilizing the mixed-methods approach, a questionnaire and…

Coursebooks are substantial components of English lessons for facilitating learning. However, cultural differences may require a course material to be adapted to meet students' needs, interests and wants. This qualitative action research study aimed to improve an English language teaching process at a rural school in a socioeconomically deprived…

This study demonstrates the richness of traditional children's games as an instructional tool for promoting holistic child development at the early childhood development (ECD) level. The study examines traditional children's games from rural Zimbabwe. Valuable insights were drawn from different dimensions of indigenous knowledge systems, ranging…

Semaumaq means "return home" in the Paiwanese language. This article explored and described the efficacy and journey of a research team in facilitating culturally appropriate family dyadic interactions in a Paiwanese community in Taiwan using a shared book-reading program. This program was implemented in a rural…

Collaboration among students is fundamental for knowledge building and competency development. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of student collaboration depends on the extent that these interactions take place under conditions that favor commitment, trust, and decision making among those who interact. The worldwide pandemic due to COVID-19 and the…

Children, and the adults who are responsible for their education, demonstrate an increasing lack of environmental understanding and knowledge. This is important because the development of societal environmental literacy will be key to the responses that we make to the current climate crisis. Many teachers perceive themselves to lack the skills,…