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\"There are no doubts that our world is becoming increasingly more connected through digital technologies. For meaningful participation in this environment, our children need to be digitally literate. Yet there are many children in developing countries who have yet to touch a computer because of social disadvantage. For these children, schools are the only place where they can build this capacity. However, many schools in these communities are under resourced. They do not have library books, let alone digital resources. As a consequence, teaching and learning strategies have remained unchanged for decades. The field of critical pedagogy evolved through the initial work of Paulo Freire. This theory is underpinned by critical thinking about societal issues followed by action and reflection. When citizens are armed with such knowledge and skills, they can positively impact on the lives of the underprivileged. However, critical pedagogy is still struggling to find its meaningful place, particularly in higher education. This is largely due to the lack of effective models and critical educators. This book is an auto-ethnography which presents accounts of the initiatives that were undertaken to promote print and digital literacy in rural and remote schools in eight developing countries. It highlights the experiences of school leaders, teachers, university staff and students, and globally minded citizens working alongside the local communities to enhance the quality of education for 15,000 to 20,000 children in these schools. The book showcases how critical pedagogy can unfold in the real world and how we can collaboratively make a difference\"-- Provided by publisher.

Education for All (EFA) has been a top priority for governments and intergovernmental development agencies for the last twenty years. So far the global EFA movement has placed its principal focus on providing quality universal primary education (UPE) for all children by 2015. The latest addition to The Open and Flexible Learning series, this book addresses the new challenges created by both the successes and the failures of the UPE campaign. This book advocates new approaches for providing access to secondary education for today’s rapidly growing population of children and young adults and examines: the creation and expansion of Mega-Schools, which combine distance learning and community support and have a proven track record of increasing access at scale how to prepare the ten-million new teachers that are required to achieve Education for All by 2015 by focusing on classroom-based in-service training strategies for using technology to scale up distance education cost-effectively the creation of a twenty-first century educational ecosystem that integrates open schooling and teacher education with communities and their school systems successful examples of open schools and teacher education programmes operating at scale around the world. Readers will be delighted to find that Sir John Daniel, bestselling Routledge author of Mega Universities and Knowledge Media , delivers another insightful and practical book on educational technology. Mega-Schools, Technology and Teachers will be of interest to all who are concerned by the central educational challenge of our times: providing secondary education to tens of millions of young people around the world. Series Editor's Foreword Acknowledgements Glossary of Acronyms Introduction 1. Education for All – Unfinished Business 2. Seeking a Silver Bullet 3. Technology is the Answer – What is the Question? 4. Open Schools and Mega-Schools 5. Teacher Education at Scale 6. Strategies for Success Appendix 1: Profiles – Selected Open Schools and Mega-Schools Appendix 2: Programmes and Mechanisms for Expanding Teacher Supply Sir John Daniel has been president and CEO of the Commonwealth of Learning since 2004 after previous appointments as assistant director-general of UNESCO and vice-chancellor of the UK Open University.

The Millennium Development Goals, adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, are the world's targets for dramatically reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions by 2015 income poverty, hunger, disease, exclusion, lack of infrastructure and shelter while promoting gender equality, education, health and environmental sustainability. These bold goals can be met in all parts of the world if nations follow through on their commitments to work together to meet them. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals offers the prospect of a more secure, just, and prosperous world for all. The UN Millennium Project was commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to develop a practical plan of action to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As an independent advisory body directed by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, the UN Millennium Project submitted its recommendations to the UN Secretary General in January 2005. The core of the UN Millennium Project's work has been carried out by 10 thematic Task Forces comprising more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the private sector. This report lays out the recommendations of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality. The Task Force recommends seven strategic priorities: strengthen postprimary education for girls while ensuring universal primary education; guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights; reduce women's and girls' time burdens; guarantee property and inheritance rights; eliminate gender inequality in employment; increase women's participation in government; and significantly reduce violence against women. Action on these priorities will enable countries in every region of the world to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment by 2015.

This autoethnography highlights the experiences of school leaders, teachers, university staff and students, and globally minded citizens working alongside local communities to enhance the quality of education for children in rural and remote schools in eight developing countries.

This book debunks the argument that quality in education can only be achieved by limiting, or trading off, equality. The quality of schooling is a major issue for Third World nations across the globe. However there is no single measure which is universally accepted. Whether it is, as some economists might argue, an issue of the number of desks per classroom or one of national sovereignty is widely disputed. Defining equality in education becomes increasingly difficult in an era of globalization in which there exists a wide gap between rich and poor, both within and between nations. In the context of an international move towards New Right politics and neo-liberal economic ideologies, both the quality and equality of education are imperiled. This book argues that any worthy definition of quality education must include the interests and participation of the underprivileged.

How we understand education quality is inextricably linked with perspectives on social justice. Questions of inclusion, relevance and democracy in education are increasingly contested, most especially in the global South. Improving the quality of education - particularly for the most disadvantaged - has become a topic of fundamental concern for education policy makers, practitioners and the international development community. The reality experienced by many learners continues to be one of inadequately prepared and poorly motivated teachers, struggling to deliver a rapidly changing curriculum without sufficient support and often using outmoded teaching methods in overcrowded or dilapidated classrooms. Education Quality and Social Justice in the Global South includes contributions from leading scholars in the field of education and development. The text draws upon state of the art evidence from the five-year EdQual research programme, which focuses upon raising achievement in low income countries, and demonstrates how systems of high quality universal education can be sustained. By exploring recent research initiatives to improve education quality, the importance of supporting local policy makers, educators and parents as agents of change - and students as active inquirers - is highlighted, and the challenge of taking successful initiatives to scale is explained. The book is divided into three main parts: Framing education quality Planning and policies for quality Implementing quality in schools. Education Quality and Social Justice in the Global South argues that implementing a high quality of education using theories of social justice can inform the understanding of inclusion, relevance and democracy in education. The book should be essential reading for both students and researchers within the fields of international and comparative education, along with educational policy, poverty and development studies.

Persuasive evidence demonstrates that gender equality in education is central to economic development. Despite more than two decades of accumulated knowledge and evidence of what works in improving gender equality, progress on the ground remains slow and uneven across countries. What is missing? Given that education is a critical path to accelerate progress toward gender equality and the empowerment of women, what is holding us back? These questions were discussed at the global symposium 'Education: A Critical Path to Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment', which was sponsored by the World Bank in October 2007. 'Girls' Education in the 21st Century' is based on background papers developed for the symposium. The book's chapters reflect the current state of knowledge on education from a gender perspective and highlight the importance of, and challenges to, female education, as well as the interdependence of education and development objectives. The last chapter presents five strategic directions for advancing gender equality in education and their implications for World Bank operations. 'Girls' Education in the 21st Century' will be of particular interest to researchers, educators, school administrators, and policy makers at the global, national, regional, and municipal levels.

A number of countries committed themselves to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at eradicating extreme poverty, and improving the welfare of people by the year 2015. The book assesses whether universal primary education can be achieved by 2015. The study focuses on the largest low-income countries that are furthest from the goal, home to about seventy five percent of the children out of school globally. By analyzing education policies, and financing patterns in relatively high-performing countries, the study identifies a new policy, and financing framework for faster global progress in primary education. The authors use a simulation model to show how adoption of this framework, could accelerate progress in low-income countries, currently at risk of not reaching the education MDG. The study however, makes it clear that worldwide attainment of universal primary education by 2015, will necessitate an even stronger combination of political will, deep and sustained reform, faster dissemination of best practices, and intensified financial effort than has been marshaled to date.