This book is quite different from existing 'Western' books on school effectiveness. It describes and analyses the way in which schools operate in developing countries and also tries to explain why they are as they are. Examining them at three levels - the macro, the meso and the micro - the authors use a theoretical framework that they have termed 'post-bureaucracy.' The book has four interlinked sections. First the authors examine the existing economic and theoretical contexts around school effectiveness, including an analysis of the causes of economic crisis and its impact on school management. In the second section the analysis of schools as bureaucratic facades is proposed. The reality of school life, from which any theory of school effectiveness must derive, is illustrated by an ethnographic account of the job of the headteacher in developing countries. The third section explores different ways to understand this reality, operating on three levels: global relationships, national and community cultures, and individual agency. In the final section Haber and Davies draw these levels and realities together. They argue for the democratization of schools as the only way forward for effective education fordevelopment.

Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.

Almost any economist will agree that education plays a key role in determining a country’s economic growth and standard of living, but what we know about education policy in developing countries is remarkably incomplete and scattered over decades and across publications. Education Policy in Developing Countries rights this wrong, taking stock of twenty years of research to assess what we actually know—and what we still need to learn—about effective education policy in the places that need it the most. Surveying many aspects of education—from administrative structures to the availability of health care to parent and student incentives—the contributors synthesize an impressive diversity of data, paying special attention to the gross imbalances in educational achievement that still exist between developed and developing countries. They draw out clear implications for governmental policy at a variety of levels, conscious of economic realities such as budget constraints, and point to crucial areas where future research is needed. Offering a wealth of insights into one of the best investments a nation can make, Education Policy in Developing Countries is an essential contribution to this most urgent field.

This book considers a number of key epistemological, ontological and methodological questions exploring the effectiveness of school leadership and management development training programmes for school leaders in a range of settings and for a range of people. Consideration is also given to practical concerns associated with this topic, such as the importance of management and Leadership Development programmes supporting school leaders to become effective leaders supporting school effectiveness. Effectiveness of School Leadership and Management Development in Cameroon addresses key methodological issues including the rationale for adopting a qualitative mixed-methodology research approach with elements of literature and documental analysis; surveys; ethical considerations and challenges with sampling techniques in considering the impact that school leaders in Cameroon have on researchers’ findings; and the production of knowledge. In addressing such topics, it answers important questions about how reliability can be ensured, how rigour can be safeguarded and what impact documental analysis and school leaders’ views have on the validity and interpretation of research findings. This book is the first of its kind to combine practical leadership theories in developing leadership development frameworks reflections with clearly presented recommendations about how the approach can be used. It will be invaluable to academics, practitioners and other agencies wishing to adopt participatory research methods which place school leaders and their schools at the centre of this research. This book is also an essential read for academics and students with an interest in qualitative mixed methodologies on leadership development of school leaders, and will become a key text for school leadership research methods courses, given its concern with practical leadership models as well as more complex leadership development theories.

This collection of 11 original in-depth accounts of qualitative research and evaluation in developing countries argues that such innovative methods offer considerable advantages over traditional methods. With examples drawn from Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean, each chapter focuses upon a specific method-such as qualitative interviews, fieldwork or document analysis-and considers related theoretical and practical issues. Key issues addressed include the identification of appropriate research questions; access; research ethics; practitioner research; case study evaluation; North-South collaboration and the potential of qualitative research for policy-making and theory.

This volume brings together eight case studies which describe a variety of initiatives to create more effective schools for children of poverty, especially in the Third World. The initiatives reviewed published and unpublished documents and both qualitative and statistical studies were examined. Countries include Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Ghana, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the United States. Each initiative was developed independently to address unique challenges and situations but taken as a group, the features of the approaches described in this volume can be viewed as a basis for considering the development of effective schools strategies in other contexts.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2016-2030) set by the United Nations in 2015 restated the importance of universal primary education for all, and specifically discuss quality, equity, and inclusion in basic education. To achieve this, the role of community has been emphasized and participation has become a "buzzword" in international development over the past several decades. Despite the growing attention to community participation in school management, previous literature has shown mixed results in terms of its actual practice and its impacts on quality, equity, and inclusion in education. This book deepens the contextual understanding of community in developing countries and its involvement in schools in general, and its impact on quality, equity, and inclusion of school education in particular. By presenting various case studies in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and a post-conflict state in Europe, the book analyses commonalities and differences in the ways communities are involved and cast their impacts and challenges. The book contributes knowledge on the ways in which community involvement could work in developing countries, the detailed processes and factors that make community participation work in different dimensions, and remaining challenges that scholars and practitioners still need to be concerned and mindful in the field. This book will appeal to both researchers and practitioners who are concerned about the community participation approach for the SDGs.