Education, economics and public policy

Status of Early Childhood Health and Development in Northern Lao PDR  A recent study provides an in-depth picture of the status of children’s health and development, of the social, demographic and economic contexts in which children in northern Lao PDR are growing up, and of how all these factors are having an impact on children’sContinue reading “News and Research 46: Early Childhood Development”

Happy and Smart Kids: Three Lessons from the Netherlands  I just read The Happiest Kids in the World: Bringing up Children the Dutch Way by Doing Less by Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison. It turns out that by relaxing more you can raise happy, well-adjusted, bright children. It’s great parenting advice. Dutch children are globally rankedContinue reading “News and Research 45: Happy and Smart Kids”

[From HuffPost] I just read The Happiest Kids in the World: Bringing up Children the Dutch Way by Doing Less by Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison. It turns out that by relaxing more you can raise happy, well-adjusted, bright children. It’s great parenting advice. Dutch children are globally ranked Number 1 in happiness. Also,Continue reading “Happy and Smart Kids: 3 Lessons from the Netherlands”

Autonomous higher education

  Learning for all: shared principles for equitable and excellent basic education systems  More than 200 participants – including government officials, policymakers and education experts from over 20 countries gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the global conference Learning for All: Shared Principles for Equitable and Excellent Basic Education Systems.  The conference addressed themes related to improvingContinue reading “News and Research 42: Shared principles for equitable and excellent basic education”

In 1980 China’s GDP per capita was $193. Lower than that of Bangladesh, Chad and Malawi.  This means that average food consumption was below basic nutritional standards.  But 30 years later, China is the world’s second largest economy, the world’s largest exporter and GDP per capita jumped 30-fold to $6,091 – at the same timeContinue reading “How China Escaped the Poverty Trap”

  China to make high school compulsory Move expected to raise enrollment ratio, support children in less developed areas. The country is to extend the current nine-year compulsory education to encompass high school students nationwide by 2020, according to a guideline recently released by the Ministry of Education and other three ministries. The Guideline forContinue reading “News and Research 41: China to make high school compulsory”