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, and 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 of inadequately prepared and poorly motivated teachers, struggling to deliver a rapidly changing curriculum without sufficient support, and often using outmoded teaching methods in over-crowded or dilapidated classrooms. Education Quality and Social Justice in the 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 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.

Learner-Centred Pedagogy in the Global South: Pupils and Teachers’ Experiences shines light on learner-centred pedagogy (LCP), which has gained popularity within global and national governments, albeit resulting in puzzling and inconsequential appropriation. Nozomi Sakata draws on award-winning research on learner centred pedagogy conducted in Tanzania that looks to shift the focus from teachers and teaching to students and learning. The recent spread of LCP through global policy discourse meets Tanzania’s historical and contemporary (in)compatibility in local schools. The book explores how pupils’ perceived classroom experiences are formed through pedagogical elements beyond the classroom. It also enquires into how observable LCP activities and/or pupils’ perceptions of classroom practices relate to their academic performance and learning attitudes. The book highlights the multidimensionality of pedagogy and the need to consider multiple viewpoints from both teachers and pupils and to consider the historical and socio-cultural contexts in any pedagogical research. This book will be of value to researchers and students interested in pedagogy, policy transfer and education reforms in the global South. The Chapters 5, 6 and 8 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Education and Disability in the Global South brings together new and established researchers from a variety of disciplines to explore the complexities and dilemmas encountered in providing education to children and young people with disabilities in countries in South Asia and Africa. Applying a range of methodological, theoretical and conceptual frameworks across different levels of education systems, from pre-school to higher education, the contributors examine not just the barriers but also the opportunities within the educational systems, in order to make strong policy recommendations. Together, the chapters offer a comprehensive overview of a range of issues, including a nuanced appreciation of the tensions between the local and global in relation to key developments in the field, critiquing a globalized notion of inclusive education, as well as proposing new methodological advancements in taking the research agenda forward. Empirical insights are captured not just from the perspectives of educators but also through engaging with children and young people with disabilities, who are uniquely powerful in providing insights for future developments.

This book provides a decolonial critique of dominant global agendas concerning teacher professionalism and proposes a new understanding based on UNESCO-funded research with teachers based in Colombia, Ethiopia (Tigray), India, Rwanda and Tanzania. Outlining from a teacher's perspective how teacher professionalism may be conceptualized, this book critiques dominant global narratives and conceptions based on deficit discourses. The authors argue that a decolonial lens can help to contextualize the perspectives, experiences and material conditions of teachers in the global South, and the value of such a framework for informing global debates and decision-making in education.

The past thirty years have seen a rapid expansion of testing, exposing students worldwide to tests that are now, more than ever, standardized and linked to high-stakes outcomes. The use of testing as a policy tool has been legitimized within international educational development to measure education quality in the vast majority of countries worldwide. The embedded nature and normative power of high-stakes standardized testing across national contexts can be understood as a global testing culture. The global testing culture permeates all aspects of education, from financing, to parental involvement, to teacher and student beliefs and practices. The reinforcing nature of the global testing culture leads to an environment where testing becomes synonymous with accountability, which becomes synonymous with education quality. Underlying the global testing culture is a set of values identified from the increasing literature on world culture. These include: education as a human right, academic intelligence, faith in science, decentralization, and neoliberalism. Each of these values highlights different aspects of the dialogue in support of high-stakes standardized testing. The wide approval of these values and their ability to legitimate various aspects of high-stakes testing reinforces the taken-for-granted notion that such tests are effective and appropriate education practices. However, a large body of literature emphasizes the negative unintended consequences – teaching to the test, reshaping the testing pool, the inequitable distribution of school resources and teachers’ attention, and reconstructing the role of the student, teacher, and parent – commonly found when standardized, census-based tests are combined with high-stakes outcomes for educators or students. This book problematizes this culture by providing critical perspectives that challenge the assumptions of the culture and describe how the culture manifests in national contexts. The volume makes it clear that testing, per se, is not the problem. Instead it is how tests are administered, used or misused, and linked to accountability that provide the global testing culture with its powerful ability to shape schools and society and lead to its unintended, undesirable consequences.

This edited volume examines inclusive education and disability in the global South. Presenting four qualitative research studies conducted in Malaysia, Bhutan, Philippines and Belize, the authors examine the implementation of inclusive education and disabled children’s participation in the education system: contexts on which very little is known. Thus, this book provides a unique opportunity to access rare context-specific information concerning this region of the world; and to reflect on the particular challenges some countries face in the realization of full participation of all children within education. Authored by researchers who are also teaching professionals with experience and understanding of the complexities of the real world, this book reminds us that researchers and policy makers must listen to all voices and perspectives: especially those that have remained silenced and ignored.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) lies at the heart of global, regional and national policy agendas, with the goal of achieving socially and environmentally just development through the provision of inclusive, equitable quality education for all. Realising this potential on the African continent, however, calls for radical transformation of policy and practice. Developing a transformative agenda requires taking account of the ‘learning crisis’ in schools, the inequitable access to a good quality education, the historical role of education and training in supporting unsustainable development, and the enormous challenges involved in complex system change. In the African continent, sustainable development entails eradicating poverty and inequality, supporting economically sustainable livelihoods within planetary boundaries, and averting environmental catastrophe, as well as dealing with health pandemics and security threats. In addressing these challenges, the book: explores the meaning of ESD for Africa in the context of the ‘postcolonial condition’ critically discusses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as regional development agendas draws on a wealth of research evidence and examples from across the continent engages with contemporary debates about the skills, competencies and capabilities required for sustainable development, including decolonising the curriculum and transforming teaching and learning relationships sets out a transformative agenda for policy-makers, practitioners, NGOs, social movements and other stakeholders based on principles of social and environmental justice. Education for Sustainable Development in the Postcolonial World is an essential read for anyone with an interest in education and socially and environmentally just development in Africa.

This book focuses on how politics shapes the capacity and commitment of elites to tackle the learning crisis in six developing countries. It deploys a new conceptual framework to show how the type of political settlement shaptes the level of elite commitment and state capacity to improving learning outcomes.

This book is a comprehensive introductory text for those beginning their studies of the complex yet fascinating area of education and international development. It sets out an overview of the main theories, ideologies and issues of education in developing countries, always with an eye to the contextual and practical realities of life in schools and other educational institutions. The book takes a balanced yet critical approach and examines both positive and negative aspects of the many relationships between education and development. It will be of use to undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students as well as to staff in higher education who teach on courses concerned with education and development and those who work in international institutions and non-governmental organisations.

There are many expert teachers working in the global South and we can learn a great deal from them. Neither of these claims should be surprising, yet to date there has been almost no research conducted on expert teachers working in Southern contexts. Instead, the huge sums of money invested in attempting to improve teacher quality in the South have frequently been directed towards introducing exogenous practices or interventions that may be culturally inappropriate, practically infeasible and ultimately unsustainable – often failing as a result. In this pioneering book, Jason Anderson provides an authoritative overview of the practices, cognition and professionalism of expert teachers working in low-income contexts. By drawing upon both systematic reviews of teacher expertise and effectiveness research, and his own fieldwork in India, he argues that without an understanding of expert teachers working in all contexts worldwide, we cannot truly understand expertise itself.