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Worlds of Education

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Education transforms the world. Education is our world, as rich and diverse as the voices speaking out on the pages of Worlds of Education.

Worlds of Education is a platform for teachers, unionists, activists, and academics to share their insights into the issues affecting the education workforce and community around the world. The aim is to encourage a global conversation, to reflect, mobilise, and take action for education everywhere.

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Thematic Series

Recent Posts

  1. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 1 June 2017

    Teacher union renewal: developing the power of the profession

    Howard Stevenson

    The challenges that face teachers often look very similar around the world. Global league tables are often behind the relentless pressure to drive test scores up, whilst the forces of global economic competition explain a race to the bottom on teachers’ working conditions. Teachers experience ever rising workloads, but perhaps...

    Teacher union renewal: developing the power of the profession
  2. Trade union rights are human rights 31 May 2017

    Re-thinking Disability

    Tania Principe

    Over the last 50 years, attitudes toward disability have changed. Whether viewing disability as a medical condition, through the prism of human rights or forms of exclusion, the understanding of disability has dramatically evolved. One could argue that we now know more than ever about disability.

    Re-thinking Disability
  3. Leading the profession 31 May 2017

    Constructing Teachers’ Professional Identity – learning from seven countries

    Philippa Cordingley

    Early stages in research projects are always a mix of aspirations, exploration of the research literature and growing clarity about key questions. In a research project that is as important as the one funded by Education International, to explore how national policies and cultural factors influence the development of teachers’...

    Constructing Teachers’ Professional Identity – learning from seven countries
  4. Fighting the commercialisation of education 29 May 2017

    Pearson and the Neo-Liberal Global Assault on Public Education

    By Alan Singer ([email protected]) Powerful forces are at work shaping global education in both the North Atlantic core capitalist nations and regions historically referred to as the Third World. Neoliberal business philosophies and practices promoted by corporations and their partner foundations, supported by international organizations, financiers, and bankers, and welcomed,...

    Pearson and the Neo-Liberal Global Assault on Public Education
  5. Equity and inclusion 19 May 2017

    Women Teachers in Africa

    Nelly P. Stromquist

    A balanced representation of men and women teachers in the classroom creates a healthy environment, where children and youth have access to the wisdom and guidance of adults with varying experiences, attitudes, and skills. The presence of women teachers in two regions of the world, however, is quite weak. In...

    Women Teachers in Africa
  6. Fighting the commercialisation of education 5 May 2017

    Big Data or Small Data: What’s the key to unlocking learning opportunities?

    Pasi Sahlberg

    Some say that schools don’t change. Many things may have remained the same but one thing is new: data. Today the walls of principals’ offices display performance results and data walls in teachers’ lounges highlight whether students have accomplished their learning targets. Data has become hot currency in school reforms.

    Big Data or Small Data: What’s the key to unlocking learning opportunities?
  7. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 4 May 2017

    Building human rights education through global teacher networks

    John Heffernan

    A few years ago, calling for a more robust worldwide embrace of human rights education by invoking the Holocaust, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra'ad said in a speech given at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: “Eight of the 15 people who planned the Holocaust in 1942...

    Building human rights education through global teacher networks
  8. Standards and working conditions 3 May 2017

    It’s time to look carefully at where testing fails to make the grade

    Steffen Handal

    Teacher unions have for a long time expressed concern about the growing scope of international tests. In this post, I will point out some of the reasons why Union of Education Norway is especially critical to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). I will also point to some alternative...

    It’s time to look carefully at where testing fails to make the grade
  10. Standards and working conditions 3 May 2017

    Review. The Global Education Race. Sellar, Thompson and Rutkowski. Brush Education Inc 2017.

    Martin Henry, John Bangs

    The number of countries which take part in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is now well over double the number of OECD member countries. If there is one thing which demonstrates just how far PISA has pulled in front of other global assessments of education, it is...

    Review. The Global Education Race. Sellar, Thompson and Rutkowski. Brush Education Inc 2017.
  11. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 29 April 2017

    Education’s Promise for Gender Equality (2/2)

    Gender equality is a stand-alone goal under the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but is also a key aspect of the SDG 4 Quality Education. In light of the forthcoming 2018 World Development Report (WDR) and the influence of the World Bank in shaping global narratives on education...

    Education’s Promise for Gender Equality (2/2)
  12. Fighting the commercialisation of education 28 April 2017

    Education: A Choice or a Right?

    by Frank Adamson, PhD The United Nations has identified “free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education” by 2030 as a goal for sustainable development. This goal reaffirms the right to education guaranteed by countries in multiple U.N. declarations over the last half-century.[i] Although these treaties reflect a general consensus...

    Education: A Choice or a Right?
  13. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 24 April 2017

    Education’s Promise as a Universal Human Right (1/2)

    In 2018, the World Bank will release its first World Development Report to focus exclusively on education, Realizing the Promise of Education for Development (working title). The 2018 WDR Concept Note is available on the World Bank website, and the Report co-directors have been conducting focus-group type consultations seeking feedback...

    Education’s Promise as a Universal Human Right (1/2)
  14. Fighting the commercialisation of education 19 April 2017

    PPPs - a Voice of Reason

    By Jim Baker, Education International  Gerd Schwartz, deputy director at the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development argues for the vital importance of a professional civil service. He also calls the use of private-public partnerships to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals a model that is “particularly risky”.

    PPPs - a Voice of Reason
  15. Fighting the commercialisation of education 15 April 2017

    Fast policy: reform first and ask questions later?

    By Anna Hogan and Steven Lewis Education is increasingly positioned as a problem in need of fixing. And, with the rise of new governance trends, and associated demands for increased accountability and transparency in public policymaking, the solutions to these problems must now be informed by ‘evidence’.

    Fast policy: reform first and ask questions later?
  16. Fighting the commercialisation of education 13 April 2017

    The expansion of private schooling in Latin America: A regional phenomenon with multiple causes and faces

    By Antoni Verger, Mauro Moschetti and Clara Fontdevila Latin America is the world region where education privatization has experienced the greatest and most consistent growth over the last two decades. The region exhibits not only the highest rate of private enrolment in primary education, but also an exceptionally steady rise...

    The expansion of private schooling in Latin America: A regional phenomenon with multiple causes and faces
  17. Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 12 April 2017

    March for Science

    Rob Copeland

    On April 22 a series of rallies and marches (known as the March for Science) are planned for Washington, D.C. and other cities across the world. Education unions can play a key role in the campaign, particularly in pushing for increased public funding for science, greater protection for academic freedom...

    March for Science
  18. Union renewal and development 12 April 2017

    Teachers: The unsung heroes of Brazil’s million-worker general strike

    When there is no data on violence against teachers, nobody has to react - that seems to be the opinion of politicians all over Germany. But the Verband Bildung und Erziehung (VBE) were no longer willing to remain silent and commissioned the German forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical...

    Teachers: The unsung heroes of Brazil’s million-worker general strike