The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity report was presented to the United Nations on September 18, 2016…
Google to help George and Amal Clooney educate Syrian refugee children in Lebanon
George and Amal Clooney are launching an ambitious initiative to educate Syrian refugee children in Lebanon – and they are getting started with a big injection of cash and brain power from Google…
Six ways to turn education spending into investments with high returns
Last month, I joined a group of former education ministers and experts for a consultation on the key challenges facing ministries of education and how to formulate an appropriate curriculum. I told my fellow participants that the returns to education are high and that education matters now more than it ever did. Every year of schooling raises earnings by 10 percent. This rate of return is, in fact, higher than alternative investments, including bonds, stocks, deposits, and housing. To turn education spending into investment with high returns, an education system needs to focus public investment on the poor, put an emphasis on the quality of learning, and expand higher education through alternative financing mechanisms. Education systems reforms are needed in many countries. There are six ways they can do this…
Papua New Guinea: In my tribe, we go to a different type of school
I know that Westerners are busy and that you are always looking at your watch so I will be quick. I will only take five or six minutes of your time. I’m called Mundiya Kepanga. I’m the chief of the Huli tribe in Papua New Guinea. I am sure lots of important people…
Myanmar: Upper house votes against ethnic literacy proposal
Burma’s upper house of parliament on Monday voted down a proposal by former house speaker Khin Aung Myint of the Union Solidarity and Development Party to adopt a special plan to eradicate illiteracy in ethnic regions, enable ethnic people to pursue higher education…
Unchecked inequalities could threaten the Global Goals
The report warns that unchecked inequalities could jeopardize the sustainability of economies, societies and communities, undermining efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030…
Chinese colleges climb world rankings
The release of the QS World University Rankings for the academic year 2016-17 – the 13th edition of the internationally respected indicator of higher education quality – presents good news for universities from emerging nations, and China in particular. Four Chinese mainland universities are in the world’s top 100, the positions often used as a key promotional message and mark of global credibility…
Most kids in America aren’t on track for success
In May, a new organization called Learning Heroes released a survey with a startling finding: 90 percent of parents believe that their children are performing at “grade level” or higher in their schoolwork. Setting aside the debate over what “grade level” even means, by any reasonable definition many of these parents, if they are being frank with the pollsters and themselves, are sorely misinformed. Consider that only about a third of U.S. teenagers leave high school ready for credit-bearing college courses…
This synthesis report on the Integration of Education and Peacebuilding across four country case studies is part of the work of the Research Consortium on Education and Peacebuilding, which was co-led by the Universities of Amsterdam, Sussex and Ulster, and supported by UNICEF’s Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy (PBEA) programme. This two-year partnership with UNICEF (mid 2014 – mid 2016) sought to build knowledge on the relationship between education and peacebuilding in conflict-affected contexts…
Coping with Change: International Differences in the Returns to Skills
Expanded international data from the PIAAC survey of adult skills allow us to analyze potential sources of the cross-country variation of comparably estimated labor-market returns to skills in a more diverse set of 32 countries. Returns to skills are systematically larger in countries that have grown faster in the recent past, consistent with models where skills are particularly important for adaptation to dynamic economic change…
Can OECD’s data guide the world towards better education systems?
What do we have to do to ensure that all children and adults around the world get the best possible education? This question is important not only for individuals’ futures, but also for the fate of the planet. The outcomes of education will determine whether mankind will be able to face the many challenges ahead, from climate change to migration, from peace to economic growth and social progress. At the same time, the question is also tremendously difficult to answer. Historically, education systems have developed at different paces, under varying social, religious and cultural conditions. In a diverse and fragmented world, there are many definitions of “good education”…
5 ideas for moving the needle on literacy
Being illiterate is like wearing unseen shackles. It not only limits an individual’s ability to escape poverty and reach their full potential, it also limits a person’s ability to stand up for and advocate for one’s self. And yet more than 780 million adults (age 15 and over) globally still lack basic reading and writing skills. Women account for nearly two-thirds of illiterate adults. Youth literacy statistics are not much more inspiring: Approximately 126 million aged 15-24 are still unable to read worldwide, accounting for 10.6 percent of the global youth population…
The second edition of the book Impact Evaluation in Practice by Paul Gertler, Sebastian Martinez, Patrick Premand, Laura Rawlings and Christel Vermeersch is now available. For free online “The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation.”
Education, economics and public policy 