The underlying ambition of fee-free education is to increase school access. This study reflects on decentralisation in the decision-making process and implementation of fee-free policies. We compare two policies at the high school level in Ghana to evaluate the differences and commonalities in how they responded to school access. We used…

Previous comparative research has revealed recent high and rising school exclusion rates in England and a contrasting picture of much lower and reducing rates in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In this paper, we examine findings from new research into school exclusion policies across the four countries of the UK. This interrogates for the…

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a highly influential source of educational policy. CAST, a nonprofit educational organization, created UDL guidelines that they claim have a basis in research on learning, cognitive psychology, and the brain. The purpose of the current research was to evaluate the empirical studies cited on CAST's UDL website…

This paper focuses on contemporary tensions and contradictions in current Norwegian educational policy discourse. Based on critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Norwegian governmental white papers our analysis reveals that contemporary Norwegian policy formulation is torn between an egalitarian and a selection discourse about how to tackle…

In 2015, the governments of United Nations Member States agreed on an ambitious agenda for people, planet and prosperity. Support for the unprecedentedly ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda was obtained, however, on the condition that there would not be any accompanying enforcement or accountability…

This study interrogates how one of the least-studied regional intergovernmental organisations, the African Union (AU), operationalises or recontextualises the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the process of developing its post-2015 education and development strategies. Employing critical discourse analysis and drawing on…

Saudi Arabia, as delineated in its Vision 2030, has made increasing the participation of the private sector the utmost priority in the development. One of the key policies that Saudi is pursuing for greater private sector involvement is the privatization of government sectors. Parallel to this, higher education is no exception to this trend. A…

This conceptual article aims to develop a flexible learning model for an applied science college and institute in Saudi Arabia. Although Saudi Arabia has witnessed a significant revamp of its education policies and practices as part of its Vision 2030 and Human Capability Development Program (HCDP), there remains room for developing a fully…

The rise of political polarization and disagreement within the United States and other democracies indicates an erosion of the social contract, a deterioration exacerbated by the balkanization of social media, that can negatively impact our social relationships. Recent anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) narratives in education provide insights into…

As the Bologna process emerged in the framework of European integration, its objectives are closely linked to the process of voluntary convergence of public policies of members of the European Union. In this context, it can be challenging to understand possible convergence or divergence trends in Bologna member countries that are outside the…

This paper explores the relationship between education and diversity from a different perspective as compared to the current human rights education-based discourse on the subject matter. Instead of portraying education as the means and respect for diversity as the end, the focus rather lies on a concept of education that incorporates diversity as…

Intermediary organizations' (IOs) involvement in teacher education policies has grown in recent years. Apart from advocating for the introduction of alternative routes into the teaching profession, IOs have facilitated the spread of outcomes-based teacher preparation accountability. While previous studies examined the neoliberal market-based logic…

This paper contributes to curriculum theory from the perspective of a fundamental critique of education. Its objective is two-fold: to analyze both traditional and critical approaches to the curriculum and the types of education that flow from them and to propose changes that could result in significant improvements to the curricula through the…

Using the contrast between "formal equality" and "equity," this study employs Amartya Sen's concept of capability to illustrate the relational structure of the distributive principle behind Japan's education system and policies, as well as its problems. In addition, it presents a practical principle and measures for…

Policies of dispersal are increasingly favoured internationally for the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. With forty percent of the world's forcibly displaced people being school-aged children, the dispersal of refugee-background people into regional areas means that rural schools are central sites of community response to refugees.…