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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the progress in the United Arab Emirates towards achievement of Millennium Development Goal (3), “gender equality”, by the target date of 2015.

Demographic, social, and labor force statistics are collected from United Arab Emirates' government reports, the World Economic Forum, and UNESCO. Analysis is conducted to investigate current trends of gender equality in education and employment.

Results for the education of women have been at a consistently high level for some years. Two themes are found for such progress: a government strategy to increase women's access to education; societal acceptance of educated women. Gender equality in employment is slow due to three themes: study choice dictates employment potential; recruitment within a narrow range of occupations; employment more likely within public sector employment. The future of gender equality in the United Arab Emirates will continue to be more positive for women in education than for employment.

A limitation is the paucity of academic study about gender equality in education and employment in the United Arab Emirates. Reliability and validity of the study is somewhat limited by unverified, non‐specific, and older data on education and employment.

Improved strategies to increase study choice are required to enlarge the scope of women's careers. Management of the talent pool of educated females can increase women's share of paid employment in the future.

A faster rate of change is required towards societal acceptance of women in employment to match female educational attainment.

The research is important for two reasons relevant for achievement of MDG (3) by 2015. Remarkable progress has been made on gender equality in education, and awareness is raised on limitations in the future for the employment of women.

Assessing learners with extensive support needs has traditionally been rooted in deficit perspectives, in which student incapacities are highlighted. We start this chapter with an overview of this historical view and identify its shortcomings. Next, we identify alternate assessment and progress monitoring as key efforts for shifting the lens from deficit-oriented assessment toward more grade-aligned, inclusive-, and strengths-based strategies. We also identify strategies for comprehensive assessment that can continue this shift in approach. Finally, we conclude with ideas for future directions in assessing learners with extensive support needs.

The innovations in this volume instill a sense of optimism about how special education professionals might improve outcomes for students with disabilities. Although many interventions illustrate scientific progress toward an evidence-based profession, many special educators may find it challenging to discriminate between scientifically validated innovation and various fads. While innovation reflects the gradual progress of science, fads usually arise suddenly and lack an evidentiary foundation. Some fads may persist over time but without supportive evidence. We present several reasons why we believe special educators adopt fad interventions during an era when scientifically validated special educational practices are readily available. We propose that fads and similar unsubstantiated practices likely will be a persistent problem for special educators. A conservative and judicious approach to adopting “the next big thing” therefore seems important to an evidence-based special education.

In this chapter, we describe the policy and practical decisions one school district and school had to make to implement a progress monitoring and Response to Intervention (RtI) model in an historically low-achieving school with a substantial population of students at risk tfor academic failure – characteristics that are common to many public schools across the nation. We contrast the lofty goals and theoretical orientations of RtI described in a burgeoning literature in special and general education with the “real life” burdens of capacity, resources, time, and school culture in a struggling school.

Europe is comprised of geographically and politically diverse countries, with different cultures and languages, at different stages in their progress towards achieving inclusive education for diverse ranges of learners. This chapter discusses cross-country collaborative work conducted within the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education. The work supports countries in meeting commitments to Sustainable Development Goals in Quality Education, by developing and implementing more inclusive education systems. This collaborative approach is based on a shared vision and evidenced-based key principles to guide policy development. It highlights the challenges alongside the progress achieved in European Country contexts towards SDG 4 targets.

Since the passage of Public Law 94-142, federal law has prioritized the education of students with disabilities with their non-disabled peers in the context of the general education classroom. This chapter examines the progress, and often lack thereof, with regard to educating students with extensive and pervasive support needs in inclusive settings. We examine current trends in placement, factors that contribute to those placement practices, and what IDEA says about the education of students with extensive and pervasive support needs. We examine what the research suggests happens in substantially segregated settings and then, in contrast, examine impacts and outcomes for students with extensive and pervasive support needs who are educated in inclusive settings. We also examine trends resulting from changing paradigms of disability that provide new opportunities for re-invigorating efforts to educate students with extensive and pervasive support needs in inclusive classrooms.

More than five years have passed since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983 by then‐Secretary of Education Terrance Bell's National Commission on Excellence in Education. Those years have seen the publication of an enormous body of both primary material, composed of research reports, essays, and federal and state reform proposals and reports; and secondary material, composed of summaries and reviews of the original reform reports and reports about effective programs that are based on reform recommendations. This annotated bibliography seeks to identify, briefly describe, and organize in a useful manner those publications dealing with K‐12 education reform and improvement. The overall purposes of this article are to bring organization to that list, and also to trace relationships and influences from the federal initiatives to the states and professional associations, and from there to the school districts and individual schools.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the most important initiatives and the strategic framework of the European Union (EU) supporting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This paper also presents an overview of the progress towards the 4th Sustainable Development Goal (quality education) mainly in tertiary and adult education in the EU context.

The adopted research method includes a literature survey, a study of law regulations and strategic documents of the EU and their critical analysis. The main axis of empirical investigation is a comparative analysis. Thematic scope of the analysis embraces indicators such as tertiary educational attainment, employment rate of recent graduates and adult participation in learning.

The results of the comparative analysis confirm the diversity between Member States in achieving the goals of sustainable development. Overall positive trends in the development of quality education can be observed in the EU. However, the gender gaps in tertiary educational attainment and in the employment rate of recent graduates have been widening. Moreover, the EU is not on track to meet its 2020 benchmarks for adult participation in learning.

The paper systematizes knowledge of initiatives of the EU for sustainable development and supplements it with a comparative analysis in the field of statistical data, which allows for a better understanding of the state and the prospects of implementing the idea of quality education at the EU level.

This progress report attempts to chart the main trends in professional education during the 1970s and to identify the major problems facing curriculum planners for the rest of this decade—and beyond. Although the work is based on United Kingdom educational practice, developments in other countries are noted whenever it is felt that a helpful comparison may be made. The citations do not represent a bibliography of professional education: such a compilation has already been accomplished in the researches of Burrell, and to a lesser extent in Clough. Writings on professional education in librarianship and information science tend to date rather quickly; especially if they deal with information technology or technical services. Theoretical problems remain more durable and usually reappear in different guises. Both information science and librarianship are bracketed together whenever they interrelate or overlap, or whenever logic and common sense dictate. In no way is it implied that they are both one and the same thing; the terms denote different areas of professional application and activity.

The quality of an education system or a comparative international assessment refers more and more to quantitative parameters, i.e. “educational indicators”. The paper aims to analyse the structure of several educational indicators and indicator systems and answer the question “What can educational indicators achieve?”

Starting with a general consideration of the term “indicator” the findings are applied to the educational area and the development of educational indicators is analysed critically.

Indicators allow for the illustration of outcomes and of system processes. Beginning in the 1950s, following the empirical turn in research methods, and the growing significance of approaches from economics of education, indicators are now applied in national and international settings. The findings show that the combination of the quantitative and qualitative approach is more successful as the isolated research.

The research is based on secondary analysis. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodology should be undertaken in following the progress of educational systems.

The findings of quantitative research based on educational indicators determine the general public and political discussion and often the discourse in the scientific community. The analysis shows that a critical distance especially when preparing political decisions is a necessary attitude.