Education for Rural Development


Book Description

An international joint study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) was conducted on education and rural development to review the status of the topic from the standpoint of public policies and the conceptual frameworks on which they are based and also to shed light on what may be called "good practice." The findings of the study are meant to serve not as models, but rather as points of reference for all those who are seeking ways of developing education in rural areas and contributing more effectively to rural development. Chapter I, "Education and Rural Development: Setting the Framework" (David Atchoarena and Charlotte Sedel), provides a contextual and theoretical introduction to the new rural development and poverty reduction thinking, as well as a discussion on the contribution of education to rural development. In Chapter II, "Basic Education in Rural Areas: Status, Issues and Prospects" (Michael Lakin with Lavinia Gasperini), the book reviews in depth the provision of basic education in rural areas and offers some policy directions for improvement. Further exploring a particular dimension of basic education, Chapter III, "Making Learning Relevant: Principles and Evidence from Recent Experiences" (Peter Taylor, Daniel Desmond, James Grieshop and Aarti Subramaniam), devotes specific attention to strategies linking the formal school teaching with students' life environment, including agriculture, and to garden-based learning. The intention is to provide updated information and new insights on much-debated aspects which are often associated with rural areas although their application is much broader. Chapter IV, "Strategies and Institutions for Promoting Skills for Rural Development" (David Atchoarena, Ian Wallace, Kate Green, and Candido Alberto Gomes), shifts the analysis from education to work and discusses the implications of the transformation of rural labor markets for skill development. A particular concern is the rise in rural non-farm employment and the need to enlarge the policy focus from agricultural education and training to technical and vocational education for rural development. This debate is taken further in Chapter V, "Higher Education and Rural Development: A New Perspective" (Charles Maguire and David Atchoarena), which considers higher level skills and the contribution of the tertiary education sector to rural development. Special attention is given to the reform of higher agricultural institutions and lessons based on case studies are provided to document good practice in institutional reform. Finally, Chapter VI, "Main Findings and Implications for Policy and Donor Support" (David Atchoarena with Lavinia Gasperini, Michael Lakin and Charles Maguire), concentrates on the main findings of the study and discusses policy implications and possible responses for donors and countries. (Contains 28 tables, 14 figures, and 64 boxes.).




World Development Report 2018


Book Description

Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.




School Management and Effectiveness in Developing Countries


Book Description

This book is quite different from existing 'Western' books on school effectiveness. It describes and analyses the way in which schools operate in developing countries and also tries to explain why they are as they are. Examining them at three levels - the macro, the meso and the micro - the authors use a theoretical framework that they have termed 'post-bureaucracy.' The book has four interlinked sections. First the authors examine the existing economic and theoretical contexts around school effectiveness, including an analysis of the causes of economic crisis and its impact on school management. In the second section the analysis of schools as bureaucratic facades is proposed. The reality of school life, from which any theory of school effectiveness must derive, is illustrated by an ethnographic account of the job of the headteacher in developing countries. The third section explores different ways to understand this reality, operating on three levels: global relationships, national and community cultures, and individual agency. In the final section Haber and Davies draw these levels and realities together. They argue for the democratization of schools as the only way forward for effective education fordevelopment.




Developing Rural School Leaders


Book Description

Developing Rural School Leaders combines a focus on rural education and school leadership development to illustrate how the teaching and learning conditions in rural schools can be enhanced through transformative leadership coaching. By unpacking literature related to rural school leadership development and using case studies to authentically illustrate the complexities involved in rural school leadership development, this book explores how leaders can develop their abilities to increase data-informed instructional decision making, create a culture that supports teaching and learning, and develop other leaders. Ultimately, this important book concludes with an exploration of the opportunities and challenges of developing rural school leaders.




Rural Education Across the World


Book Description

This book brings together authors from United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, China, Canada and Australia to provide insights and case studies from across a range of contexts to explore the interplay between the notions of rurality, innovation and education. The book reveals a hopeful and resilient approach to innovative rural education and scholarship collectively and provides important evidence to speak against an often deficit view of rural education. Three patterns are revealed, namely: the importance of place-attentive strategies, the importance of joined up alliances to maximise resources and networks and finally, the need to utilize alternative methodologies and frameworks that have a starting point of difference rather than deficit for any rural initiative or approach. By drawing from international examples and responding in innovative ways to rural education challenges, this book provides an opportunity to share international insights into innovations, interventions and partnerships that promote and support rural education in its broadest sense.




Improving Primary Education in Developing Countries


Book Description

This study presents policy options for improving the effectiveness of primary schools in developing countries. It examines problems common to most developing countries and presents an array of low-cost policy alternatives that have proved useful in a variety of settings.




The Rural World


Book Description

First published in 1976, this book examines the issue of rural education, an all-important problem for the less developed countries in the world. Louis Malassis proposes that all citizens should be made aware of the role of agriculture in the economy and that, instead of placing rural education in a special category, education should be related to the rural world.




Multigrade Schools


Book Description

This book addresses a problem crucial to the implementation of education for all. In sparsely populated or remote areas classes where a single teacher is responsible for several grades can make a big contribution and countries in Europe and North America were able to achieve universal primary education largely through multigrade schools. Many countries in Latin America and Asia are achieving success with this approach, which is increasing enrolment, improving performance and reducing absenteeism in rural areas. In India, two thirds of primary schools are multigrade. However, while multigrade classes could be a solution for educating rural people in many African countries, governments tend to focus on improving conventional schools, often leaving the development of multigrade schools to local initiative. For this reason, multigrade schools in rural Africa tend to show poor results, which in turn give them a negative image.