Much of the scholarship around the workings of education policy has focused on the global West and has taken for granted the state's limited abilities in the control of policies as both text and discourse. Drawing upon policy texts from the Singapore Ministry of Education and ethnographic data collected in a Singapore school, this paper explores…

All countries in the EU Neighbourhood and Central Asia have been hit by the COVID-19 outbreak to a greater or lesser extent, with overall lower infection numbers compared to some of the EU Member States, although issues of under-reporting may impact on the reliability of data. All countries, apart from Belarus and Turkmenistan, made similar…

Countries that have sustained rapid growth over decades have typically had a strong public commitment to expanding education as well as to improving learning outcomes. South Asian countries have made considerable progress in expanding access to primary and secondary schooling, with countries having achieved near-universal enrollment of the…

The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The "state" itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people--bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader--and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students…

A growing number of national and local governments view child development accounts (CDAs) as an innovative policy tool for social and economic development. This article reviews the global landscape of CDAs, presents three CDA policy cases from Asia, analyzes main themes and discusses potential implications for China. (Contains 1 table.)

The United States has admitted more than 1 million Southeast Asian refugees since 1975. The impact of these refugees on language and literacy education has been profound; many innovations in adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) education have derived from efforts to meet their language and literacy needs. The first wave of refugees in the…

Examines family policy from an international vantage point outside the particular context of United States family policy and reveals how women involved in parenting and a career, and their children, fare in the international economic arena. The pros and cons of the state serving as a support system are illustrated. (GR)

This discussion of the development of information technology in developing nations is based on case studies of seven Asian countries. The experiences of the countries are compared in terms of the infrastructure development, organizational processes, applications, human resources development, and public awareness. (CLB)

This review of child poverty in rich countries finds that the proportion of children living in poverty in the developed world has risen in 17 out of the 24 OECD nations for which data are available. No matter which of the commonly-used poverty measures is applied, the situation of children is seen to have deteriorated over the last decade. UNICEF…

The current state of rehabilitation for persons with disabilities in the Asia and Pacific Region is outlined in a series of national or regional descriptions. The descriptions focus on such aspects as the incidence of disabilities, education, demographic and economic factors, attitudes, government policy and initiatives, non-government initiatives…

In February 1993, a regional workshop on alternative ways of working with parents, brought together 50 senior officers from both government and nongovernmental organizations from 16 Asian countries. Following the welcoming remarks of Khoo Kim Choo, this report presents the following addresses, presentations, and discussions: (1) "Parent…

This literature survey analyzes the process of industrial restructuring as it is occurring in the Republic of Korea, Japan, Singapore, and the United States. It looks in particular at how various agents of education and training in these countries--the school system, public and private education and training institutions and firms--are responding…

Most female workers in developing countries do not have wage jobs. However, the preponderance of female workers in non-wage jobs is not consistent across all developing countries. It is highly likely that the proportion of non-wage female workers in developing countries is greater than is suggested by the statistics. Consequently, mothers in the…

In 2000, approximately 877 million adults worldwide were illiterate and 113 million children did not attend school. More than two-thirds of those individuals lived in East and South Asia, and two-thirds were females. Functional illiteracy remains high in developed and developing nations alike. The reasons include weak training in how to teach…

Adult education and the economic development of the countries of Asia and the Pacific was discussed at a UNESCO conference held in Bangkok in November-December, 1980. The conference was opened by Raja Roy Singh, who emphasized the crucial significance of adult education in national development. He said that development is no longer construed only…