Corporate influence in the Post-2015 process
This working paper examines the role and influence of business actors in the process towards the Post-2015 agenda of the UN, with particular attention to the influence of large transnational corporations.
Low Cost Private Schools: Evidence, Approaches and Emerging Issues
This is a report by Claire Mcloughlin, of the University of Birmingham, for ESP-PEAKS collating substantial evidence on LCPS schools and their implications in terms of equity, quality of provision, educational outcomes, accountability, affordability, cost-effectiveness and financial sustainability. This report primarily includes country case examples from: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, with the aim of providing a deeper understanding into some of the complex debate issues regarding the potential contribution of LCPSs to achieving the EFA goals.
Education Transforms Lives
This publication of bright, informative infographics depicts the different ways in which different groups of people from around the world can benefit from an equal access to quality education. It shows how education connects people and communities at their cores, and therefore how it is able to allevate several different types of societal issues. "Education lights every stage of the journey to a better life, especially for the poor and the most vulnerable..."
OECD Skills Outlook 2013
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has launched its OECD Skills Outlook 2013. This report emphasises that boosting skills is essential for tackling joblessness and improving well-being. The low-skilled are more likely than others to be unemployed, have bad health and earn much less, according to the first OECD Survey of Adult Skills released on 8 October. Countries with greater inequality in skills proficiency also have higher income inequality. The Survey measured the skills of 16 to 65-year olds across 24 countries and looked at how literacy, numeracy and problem-solving is used at work.
The Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on the Budgets of Low-Income Countries
This OXFAM sponsored report by Katerina Kyrili and Matthew Martin of Development Finance International examines, "This report examines the impact of the global financial crisis on the budgets of lowincome countries, especially their spending to reach the Millennium Development Goals. The crisis created a huge budget revenue hole of $65bn, of which aid has filled only one-third. As a result, after some fiscal stimulus to combat the crisis in 2009, most LICs (including those with IMF programmes) are cutting MDG spending, especially on education and social protection...The report urges the international community to make strong new aid commitments at the Millennium Summit in September 2010, funded by financial transaction taxes or other innovative financing; the IMF to encourage LICs to spend more on MDG goals and on combating climate change and to report regularly on such spending; and LIC governments to increase spending on social protection and education; taxation of income; property and foreign investors; and efforts to fight tax avoidance".
EFA GMR Policy Paper: Increasing Tax Revenues to Bridge the Education Financing Gap
The new EFA-GMR new policy paper shows that, if governments in low and middle income countries modestly increased their tax-raising efforts and devoted a fifth of their budget to education, they could fill over half of the annual funding gap for basic and lower secondary education.
Global Learning Crisis Report
The Global Learning Crisis report explores exactly what quality learning means for pre-primary through secondary schools. It reinforces the fact that quality in education needs to be ensure in its delivery, including those recommendations on how to integrate a focus on learning in national and global education initiatives. It addresses questions such as why simply providing access is not enough for the education system - Quality learning, which encompasses those processes through which people may utilize education to take full advantage of their capacity to engage their communities and contribute positive accepting attitude towards their societies.
New GCE policy report on education and disability
The Global Campaign for Education’s new report focuses on disability and education and highlights the profound challenges faced by children with disabilities in realising their right to education. In low- and middle-income countries, children with disabilities are often the most excluded group from education. Even when children with disabilities actually go to school the only education available is often in segregated schools, which acts to further marginalise them from their community. This report synthesises current evidence around the scale of the challenge, highlighting levels of exclusion from education faced by children with disabilities, as well as outlining the common barriers faced in gaining access to a quality education. It also aims to set out the case for inclusive education systems, where children with disabilities are brought into mainstream schools, and classrooms and schools respond and adapt more effectively to their needs. Finally, the report summarises the policy responses which can help bring down the common barriers – from the family, local communities and national government, through to the international community – setting out clear set of areas of action and policy recommendations for governments, donors and the international community.
Eurydice Report: Funding of Education in Europe: The Impact of the Economic Crisis
A 2013 Eurydice report, on the impact of the financial and economic crisis on education budgets across Europe, reveals that investment in education fell in eight out of 25 Member States since 2010. The report analyses trends in education spending in 35 European regional and national education systems between 2000-2012. The analysis covers the developments in education funding from pre-primary to tertiary level and provides an overview of the main trends in the adult learning sector in 31 European countries.
The impact of the economic crisis on higher education: A UNESCO study on Asian and Pacific regional higher education
“In late 2009, the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok, Thailand, established the Educational Research Institutes Network in the Asia-Pacific (ERI-Net) to encourage and facilitate regional cooperation in carrying out analytical studies on tertiary education policy issues in the region.
The first task of ERI-Net was to conduct a study on the impact of the 2008 global economic crisis on higher education. Preliminary findings were shared with policy makers, university researchers and educators from China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Republic of Korea and Thailand at an ERI-Net seminar held in Bangkok on July 2010. Based on the discussion, feedback and recommendation from participants, the case studies were revised and are now available in this 2012 publication.”
Privatisation of Education: Global Trends of Human Rights Impact
As indicated by the Right to Education Project: "This report addresses key impacts of privatisation on the right to education by compiling findings from a human rights based analysis of 18 social research papers that cover Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which were commissioned in 2012 by the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative. Through applying a human rights based analysis to these previously gathered examples of privatisation of education, the report highlight some of the key positive and negative human rights impacts, and identify recommendations for stakeholders, as well as the potential areas for further human rights-focused research on privatisation of education."
Envisioning Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda
The Global Thematic Consultation on Education aims to measure the progress that the EFA and MDGs have made since 2000, as well as the remaining challenges until their completion in 2015. The consultation will be used for the development of the post-2015 agenda. The consultation is co-organized by both UNESCO and UNICEF, with additional support from the Governments of Senegal, Canada and Germany as well as the Flora Hewlett Foundation. "The consultation collectively identified several gaps linked to access, quality and learning, equity and gender equality."
Humanitarian impacts of the economic crisis in Europe
This is a comprehensive report on the more humanitarian aspect of the affects of the economic crisis on societies; this report contains only a portion of educational hinderances accounted for during the European recession that began in 2008. Additional information on the affects on education is also available on this webpage.
"Youth seem to be more divided and there is a worrying development of a growing number of young people with difficulties finding additional training or employment after finishing their compulsory education."
-Finnish Red Cross
UNESCO 2012 EFA Global Monitoring Report
The 2012 UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report focuses on "Youth and Skills". It finds that most countries that accelerated progress towards EFA over the last decade did so by increasing spending on education substantially or maintaining it at already high levels. The report acknowledges the ambition of many countries to reduce or abolish tuition fees, and highlights the importance of removing financial barriers to accessing primary and secondary education.
This year’s report stresses the need to develop young people’s skills for work, noting the fact that governments around the world are grappling with the long-term consequences of the financial crisis and the challenges posed by increasingly knowledge-based economies. EI agrees and insists that governments and development partners should invest in education, including vocational education and training in order to ensure that young people develop to their full potential.
Written by an international group of economists and social scientists, this report sets out alternative approaches and policies for Europe and all countries that rely on government cutbacks and austerity policies to cope with debt problems in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The report argues that continued deflation in developed countries will reduce growth in the rest of the world, worsening poverty among the poorest. The report argues that a recovery 'with a human face' needs to be inclusive: "expanding employment opportunities, sustaining health and education services, and providing social protection support for those below the poverty line, especially women, as a matter of social and economic justice".