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This chapter offers a brief comparative and socio-educative overview of Latin America and the Caribbean, elaborated with the purpose of guiding reflection on the diversity of contexts that constitute the region. This overview highlights economic, social, political and cultural aspects that characterize the region and that, consequently, indicate points of departure and arrival for the design and implementation of educational policies aimed at satisfying the socio-historical needs of each of the Latin American countries.

This abbreviated study includes a systematic review and contrast of basic aspects of regional education systems, focused on achieving the formation of an integral citizen, capable of applying the acquired competencies in the resolution of problems that will prepare them for insertion in the labor market once their schooling is completed. In this sense, the countries and dependencies that integrate the Latin American and Caribbean region still face complex challenges closely related to the quality that educational services have achieved, in addition to the conditions of equality and equity so necessary to integrate the broad sectors of the population located on the thresholds of poverty and marginalization, of the secular horizon that has characterized the Latin American socioeconomic reality.

This chapter outlines the enormity of the task of achieving universal primary education in Africa with over 40 million children currently out of school in sub-Saharan Africa. Several questions are addressed with reference to global trends and using World Bank and national enrollment data. For example: Why does Africa seem unable to secure “education for all” for school-age children? Is it simply the relative poverty levels of African countries, or are there grounds for thinking that other factors might be at work? And, what challenges do these countries face in the wake of the HIV/AIDS pandemic? This chapter also notes that some countries are at higher risk of not achieving universal primary completion and gender equality by 2015. What must politicians and policy-makers do to reverse these trends? As observed by Blair's Commission for Africa, the challenges are immense and if Africa continues on its current path then the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for halving poverty, universal primary education and the elimination of avoidable infant deaths in sub-Saharan Africa will not be delivered in 2015 but instead between 100 and 150 years late. The challenge is to find short- and long- term policies and solutions to address this global policy.

For generations, higher education in much of Sub-Saharan Africa has been disengaged from the problems of local communities largely due to the design of colonial education and the later thinking of industrial models of education where knowledge was received from experts at the top of the knowledge ladder. But new knowledge economics, the possibility of building collective learning frameworks and the need to solve globally linked problems that involve local communities is changing this thinking. Globally linked problems such as disease, environment, social and political stability and globalisation manifest locally and create challenges locally in various ways. This chapter explores the leadership of Zambia’s flagship university in serving the needs of local communities’ sustainable development with research and service resources of its graduate education system and its network. Understanding that knowledge is now formed both by collectives of people at the community level that is linked through major networks, it is particularly important that universities take a leadership role in building linkages to local communities. Specifically, leadership in the following community linkage areas are examined: community service schemes, consultancy services, research and project partnerships, community field tours and capacity development.

This chapter draws on the school improvement research of EducAid, a small NGO with schools in Sierra Leone. We review the challenge of school improvement in the context of a low-income country still emerging from the aftermath of civil war, historically low expenditure on education as a per cent of GDP, low levels of trust between people and the government and lack of a reliable evidence base on which to plan school improvement. As predictable consequences of these challenges, the Ministry of Education recognises weaknesses in teacher recruitment and training, resulting in low student attainments. In a critique of adaptations of Hood's (1998) social cohesion/social regulation matrix we argue that it may not provide a coherent framework for understanding the process of school improvement in a low-income country such as Sierra Leone. Specifically, high social cohesion, when focussed on educational improvement, is likely to be necessary for school improvement, but the concept of social regulation is more complex. Although the structure is hierarchical, both at national and local levels, implying high social regulation, lines of accountability seldom work effectively, resulting in low social regulation. The picture is further complicated by evidence that socioeconomic status may be less influential in predicting students' attainments in low-income countries than in those with high and middle incomes. We argue that a professional learning network for head teachers is a necessary starting point for head teachers to stimulate debate on change strategies within their own schools.

How general can a “general” theory of entrepreneurship be? Abstraction is a necessity but is it possible to include venture opportunity variation in a general theory of entrepreneurship building on two contrasting perspectives such as equilibrium economics and disequilibrium economics. Two important boundaries need to be explicated. First, defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new economic activity includes both the creation of new means – ends (cf. Schumpeter, 1934) – as well as optimizing within known means – ends frameworks (cf. Kirzner, 1997). Second, such a theory includes an opportunity – actor nexus because it is the first tangible or intangible evidence of existing venture opportunities. Formal models of entrepreneurship often start with a person and at some point in time an exchange of persons with firms take place which is confusing because both levels of analysis and outcome are mixed with each other. Apparently, there is no such thing as entrepreneurship without actors, but if we want to create knowledge about the creation of economic activity, we need to frame our boundary around the nascent initiative instead of single actors and/or teams of actors because value can only be assessed in relation to the costs of services withdrawn. Analogous to this is, for example, the theory of firm and the theory of organizations with boundaries well beyond single actors or groups of actors. Another factor behind a venture-based theory of entrepreneurship comes from empirical evidence from the Swedish PSED, which suggests that approximately 16% (n=97) nascent entrepreneurs are exchanged during the start-up process. Formal models of entrepreneurship could therefore start with the nexus of venture opportunities and enterprising actors as suggested by Shane (2003) or with resources as suggested by Davidsson (2000) and progress forward in the entrepreneurial process. Entrepreneurship models built around the economic activity itself needs to be dynamic allowing different outcomes and feedback loops because resource combinations alter our perception of value and diffuses information, which may lead to additional resource combinations (Hayek, 1945).

Maps the progress with the introduction of quality (academic) audit and quality assessment in higher education in the UK and discusses issues that have emerged. A future scenario is suggested that would simplify the structures and give greater responsibility for the quality assurance to institutions of higher education.

The legislative progress in India to make education inclusive has shown promise over the past few years. However, the process of implementation does not match up to it. The objective of education is to include students with special needs in regular schools where required preparation and support is not enough. Inclusive practices are seen in physical infrastructure as well as in the curriculum and educational activities. Support means not only financial assistance but also preparing schools, heads of schools, teachers, students, and communities to be inclusive in their minds and actions. In addition, it should be reflected in student outcomes in terms of academic and social participation. To begin with, several positive sparks could be seen in schools in having a special educator, resource rooms, and adaptations in curriculum, teaching methods, evaluations, and an alternative education. Visibility and attendance of students with special needs in schools has increased which is a huge change. However, the question remains about their sustainability and outcomes. This chapter presents insights and practical aspects of inclusive practices, their implementation, and challenges for students with special needs in India.

Does education still serve as a great equalizer today? Does today’s worldwide expansion of schooling foster a global economic convergence? These questions need fresh answers at this time of growing concern over inequality. Past studies have abundantly documented the effects of schooling on within-country inequality, but we know little about corresponding effects on between-country inequality. We fill this gap by drawing on two innovations. The first is to formulate a theory of global inequality that integrates international differences in both the quantity and quality of education. The second, methodological, innovation is to propose and apply a method for decomposing trends in global inequality in GDP in terms of five social forces that include the quantity and quality of schooling. Analyses focus on the 1990–2010 period. The results confirm the continued salience of education: Trends in education account for as much as 80% of the 1990–2010 decline in between-country GDP inequality. However, we find a declining significance of “quantity” over “quality.” In sum, education remains salient as a global equalizer but its salience increasingly depends on bridging international differences in school quality.

This chapter outlines the challenges that research and practice in higher education have faced in measuring students' competences and learning outcomes. Particular attention is given to the systematic and institutional contexts in Germany. Based on the outlined national and international contextual framework, the Germany-wide program “Modeling and Measuring Competences in Higher Education (KoKoHs)” is discussed in terms of its two central working stages, key outcomes and lessons learned. In particular, the central results of the second phase are presented for the first time and integrated into the current state of international research. Based on this analysis, perspectives for further research on student learning in higher education and implications for practice and policy are derived.

This chapter reviews the international literature in order to support ongoing international development work on indicators for measuring inclusive education. Building on previous work in this area, this chapter outlines 13 themes in the international literature that should be considered in the development of a set of indicators for measuring inclusive education and has produced one extra thematic area for consideration.