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Since World War II, the United States has played a leading role in development assistance in both volume of funds and role. Though the largest bilateral development agency, USAID is somewhat of an outlier in modes of operation, scope and nature of activities, and place within government. This chapter examines the development and character of U.S. foreign assistance. Like others, the United States provides foreign aid for multiple reasons – to relieve suffering and promote long-term economic and social development, to gain favor with allies, to open markets, to help ensure national security. Security and diplomacy do play a large role in U.S. foreign aid, even in basic education. In the context of U.S. internal politics, both humanitarian/development and diplomatic/security rationales have been necessary to sustain public and government support for foreign aid. Still neither rationale has prevailed; the budget is split nearly in half. The need for a humanitarian rationale may be characteristic of U.S. foreign assistance along with the emphasis on democracy. Yet these programs have sometimes been distorted by the diplomatic rationale and the security needs of the state. Many of these tensions and the constant need to justify foreign aid likely derive from the perennial periodic isolationist thread of U.S. politics, the particular adversarial institutions of U.S. policymaking, and the transparency which leaves these processes open. Even so, U.S. development assistance has played a prominent role in the trajectory of international development post-World War II, and has worked to address many of the great challenges of the times.

We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the functioning of university students with disabilities using assistant support services in Poland. The study aims to (1) reveal the role existing university-based assistant services play in students' lives and (2) examine the impact of the pandemic on assistant services by students with disabilities.

We gathered and analyzed 25 interviews with students with disabilities from across Poland, from public and nonpublic higher education institutions.

The assistant support service at universities introduced in Poland proved to be fragmentary and limited only to the educational process, which resulted in the exclusion of people with complex disabilities and those requiring support in self-care activities. The pandemic has exacerbated previously observed dimensions of segregation and inequalities leading to disproportionate isolation of students with disabilities. It also highlighted the limited understanding of personal assistantship functioning in the academic context and the need for urgent development of universal access to assistance services across Poland. At the same time the forced move to distant, internet-based learning, at least for some students, gave them a sense of self-reliance and independence.

This research adds to the understanding of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for students with disabilities in the case of Poland. It also calls for a reexamination of what personal assistance should mean in the context of higher education and beyond.

This paper provides an overview of the Post 9/11 GI Bill and outlines the steps that the Obama administration has taken to provide for the educational and training needs of veterans and other eligible dependents.

This paper offers a policy analytic review of the extant literature on veterans’ education and regulations pertaining to the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

It is found that although the Post 9/11 GI Bill was enacted with the right intentions, several changes had to be made to protect both veterans and tax payers as well as the integrity of the GI Bill.

To help educators understand the role that the Obama administration has played in advancing veteran education and training.

Due to the armed conflict in Syria that commenced in 2011 and is still ongoing while writing this article, Armenia has experienced a massive inflow of Syrian-Armenian refugees. The state was not prepared to provide the appropriate legal and logistical assistance to manage such a large flow of refugees and returning Armenians. It was also ill-prepared to ensure their resettlement and proper integration into Armenia's society. As a result, in 2012, the government put forward immigration and resettlement policies specifically designed to deal with the Syrian-Armenians fleeing the Syrian conflict. This chapter aimed to capture the results from a conceptual framework we developed to document and assess the Syrian-Armenian integration experience. The framework is based on expert interviews, in-depth interviews and document analysis. Main findings: Syrian-Armenian refugees experience different challenges and choose different ways to overcome them. The older age group tends to experience increased difficulties in integrating into their host communities, while the younger generations adapt easier to their new environment. The younger generations are better equipped for social and economic changes and are less stuck in poverty. For Syrian-Armenian women, their new environment seems safer. Most feel at ease regarding public attitudes towards them and are, for the most, satisfied with their employment choices. Those with a high school education tend to seek lower paying jobs, and the outliers from the highest and lowest socioeconomic status tend to leave Armenia. Many return to Syria as the conflict winds down in certain areas or decide to travel to another country.

This chapter analyzes major trends in rural public libraries, beginning with a discussion of changes in service offerings since the advent of the Internet. These outlets are now better able to help patrons with their employment, education, and civic engagement needs than they have been at any point in the past. However, rural public libraries still lag behind their peers in broadband speeds, technological infrastructure, and various forms of service and training offerings that use these technologies. The difference in public offerings is not only due to problems of technology, but also limited funding for staff, aging and small buildings, and a lack of state and regional support to allow these libraries to achieve economies of scale. As libraries nationwide shift to focus more on public programming and digital offerings, these factors will be barriers to rural outlets keeping up with modern trends in the field.

This study uses Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Digital Inclusion Survey data to analyze trends among rural public libraries. The authors returned to the original data sets from these studies to find nuance between types of rural outlets, primarily dividing this information based on libraries’ distances from more densely populated areas. These statistical data are supplemented through qualitative interviews with professionals in the rural library field. Key findings include:

• Rural public libraries have made major strides in improving broadband quality and increasing related service offerings since the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s.

• Rural libraries still lag behind those in more populated areas in terms of technical infrastructure and training offerings, and this becomes more acute among those located farther from population centers.

• As the public library field places a greater emphasis on public programs, rural libraries’ small and aging buildings will likely be a barrier to them keeping up with their peers.

• The lack of regional consortia and strong state libraries in some parts of the country limits rural libraries’ abilities to achieve economies of scale and negatively impacts the range of services they can offer their patrons.

Rural public libraries have made major strides in improving broadband quality and increasing related service offerings since the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s.

Rural libraries still lag behind those in more populated areas in terms of technical infrastructure and training offerings, and this becomes more acute among those located farther from population centers.

As the public library field places a greater emphasis on public programs, rural libraries’ small and aging buildings will likely be a barrier to them keeping up with their peers.

The lack of regional consortia and strong state libraries in some parts of the country limits rural libraries’ abilities to achieve economies of scale and negatively impacts the range of services they can offer their patrons.

Rural libraries have often been combined together in statistical analyses of their service offerings. This chapter shows nuance between these outlets, demonstrating that libraries that are distant and remote from population centers face more difficulties than those on the fringes of cities and suburbs. Likewise, while much of the advocacy surrounding rural libraries has focused on the need for improved broadband and technological infrastructure, this study moves on to study how building infrastructure, low staff funding, and a lack of mechanisms for collaboration will hinder libraries’ abilities to keep up with modern changes in the field.

This study examines the cost-effectiveness of reintegrating ex-combatants from armed groups in Colombia. After an ethnographic exploration of the challenges of reintegration that ex-combatants face, I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the reintegration program operated by the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization (Agencia para la Reincorporación y la Normalización, ARN), the government agency that handles the reintegration of ex-combatants from all armed groups in Colombia. I analyze the agency's approaches (past, current, and proposed) toward reintegrating ex-combatants from various armed groups, comparing the financial costs against outcomes. The ARN has been successful at achieving two of its primary goals: minimizing recidivism and maximizing employment of ex-combatants. Only 10% of ARN program participants rejoin criminal groups and 93% find employment across both the formal and informal sectors (informal employment is widespread in Colombia and Latin America). The ARN has been unsuccessful at providing adequate security for ex-combatants. Approximately 6% of ex-combatants enrolled in the ARN program have been murdered since 2001: approximately 3,000 program participants have been assassinated. Next, I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of both the ARN's overall program and its outcome across different regions and demographics of the participant population. Finally, I suggest ways that other countries facing the challenge of reintegrating populations of ex-combatants can learn from the Colombian experience, as well as ways that Colombia can improve its own reintegration cost-effectiveness.

This chapter presents an analysis of evidence-informed teaching practice in the context of Chilean formal education. The concept of evidence-informed practice (EIP) is tackled from the use of data from standardized assessments of learning by agents of the educational system in Chile, analyzing the relationship between the use of standardized assessments and the institutional characteristics of the educational system.

First, the Chilean educational system is characterized according to its regulation and cohesion, utilizing the Hood's matrix (2000). With the current predominance of accountability regulation with high stakes, the Chilean system presents a high degree of regulation and low cohesion. Then, the main uses of assessments in Chile are described based on the available evidence, with emphasis on the National Assessment System (SIMCE) a high-stakes assessment and an alternative assessment system (SEPA) of low stakes. Thirdly, the institutional theory is applied to analyze the factors that facilitate and obstruct EIP in schools. Finally, the chapter concludes by providing some implications for educational policy and practice.

As the sole Asian country in the DAC donor community until South Korea joined in 2010, Japan has been struggling with the pressure to align with the norms and modalities of the community, while having a different history of aid from Western donors and desiring to be unique. This chapter untangles the domestic and international factors that have affected policy making and implementation of the Japanese Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), particularly in education, at different times in its history. The philosophical foundations of Japanese aid policies are examined in the changing political, economic, and social contexts from the 1950s up to the present.

As the Education for All paradigm took the stage, Japanese education ODA has shifted from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s to primary education from technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education. However, in the post-2015 process, the policies have swung back to give equal emphasis to TVET and higher education as to basic education, reflecting the global trend to make the agenda more comprehensive. While the convergence with the global trend is clear in Japanese ODA, the hesitant desire to be unique always forces Japanese ODA officials and scholars to discuss and try to demonstrate the “Japanese model” of development and aid.

The chapter also points out that the increased presence of other Asian donors in recent years has made Japanese ODA policies driven more by national interests than by global humanitarianism, which is clearly seen in the Development Cooperation Charter adopted in 2014.

The main challenge of special education in Norway, as in other Nordic countries is to implement the inclusive school in practice. Even if there is a strong commitment to the idea of full inclusion in a one-track system, there are still several indications of segregation tendencies in the schools. The long-term goals of Norwegian school reforms to promote an inclusive school with high-quality special education and assistance do not seem to match the practical realities in the municipalities and local schools that are responsible for putting the ideals into practice. There are disagreements about how to create a good balance between the general and the specific or between adapted and special education. According to special education research, there are ideological, organizational, financial, and practical obstacles in the process of including students with special needs. One of the promising research based approaches to the inclusion of special needs students, and particularly those who are difficult to include, is the model of school-wide positive social and academic learning support and intervention. This model has been implemented and evaluated in Norwegian elementary schools with encouraging results.

The promotion of Education for All (EFA) in today's globalized world is an important responsibility to be borne by the international community as a whole. International cooperation in education is being undertaken in many developing countries under collaborative arrangements of “Actors” with varying positions. Essential as the backbone of such cooperation is a mutually complementary partnership between the public (governments and official aid agencies) and private (civil society). Without this, international cooperation in education is exceedingly difficult to implement. Thus, led mainly by international agencies, the mechanisms for global governance for the promotion of international cooperation in education have been created.

This paper sets out to analyze the mechanisms of governance on a global level as led by international agencies. Moreover, it attempts to elucidate the role of civil society, which has gained in importance as a partner of governments and international agencies, leading to a study of public and political dimensions in international cooperation in education. Furthermore, to see how the international community might close the four critical gaps in the areas of “policy, capacity, data and financing” and assist developing countries in promoting EFA, the paper analyzes an example of a recent international initiative called the EFA Fast-Track Initiative (FTI).