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This paper analyzes a relatively neglected facet of the complex debate regarding human capital – higher (or tertiary) education. It addresses five broad questions examining higher education in developing countries. One, are the economic effects of higher education on developing countries different from those in industrialized countries, with its links with labor markets of lesser… Read more
Returns to investment in education based on human capital theory have been estimated since the late 1950s. In the 40-plus year history of estimates of returns to investment in education, there have been several reviews of the empirical results in attempts to establish patterns. Many more estimates from a wide variety of countries, including over… Read more
This report explores the challenges to education and training systems that the knowledge economy presents. It outlines policy options for addressing these challenges and developing viable systems of lifelong learning in developing countries and countries with transition economies. It addresses four questions: 1) What does a national education and training system, including its formal and nonformal… Read more
New technologies, globalization, the information revolution, and labor market changes have affected the world economy on an unprecedented scale. As a consequence, the demand for a skilled workforce has increased, world trade and migration have intensified, and the divide between the haves and have‐nots has vastly widened. While many developed countries have by now gone… Read more
This presidential address argues that there is a pressing need in the UK to build educational research capacity at system level and to do so collaboratively. It advances three main arguments for doing so. These are (i) the increasing concentration of research resources; (ii) the dangers of increasing separation of research and initial teacher education;… Read more
Globalization and internationalization are related but not the same thing. Globalization is the context of economic and academic trends that are part of the reality of the 21st century. Internationalization includes the policies and practices undertaken by academic systems and institutions—and even individuals—to cope with the global academic environment. The motivations for internationalization include commercial… Read more
An interrogation under way is whether policies for widening participation in sub-Saharan Africa are working. That was one of the key questions addressed by the research project Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard. Research teams—at the Universities of Sussex, UK; Cape Coast, Ghana; and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania—found… Read more
This book explores the benefits of secondary education for girls and the need for greater investment in girls’ secondary education. It highlights the challenges and barriers to education faced by girls. It also examines the social benefits of girls education to the whole society, and links girls secondary education to reduced infant mortality, increaseg childhood immunization and nutrition, reduced… Read more
This article examines the commodification of education, and it’s positive and negative implications for how we think about schooling and the university, the ownership and transmission of knowledge, and the role of citizenship in modern society, both for nations and for the globalization and internationalisation of education. Underlying this discussion is a conviction that education at all levels is not… Read more
This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. The comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best… Read more
This report is a follow-up to the 2008 study published by the World Bank, Accelerating Catch Up—Tertiary Education for Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, which spelled out the case for more knowledge-intensive growth in Africa and described the critical role of higher education in this endeavor. It examines current practices in financing higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa, taking… Read more