The report offers policy options to support developing countries and transition economies in adapting their secondary education systems to the demands arising from the successful expansion of primary education and the socio-economic challenges presented by globalization and the knowledge-based economy. The work is the result of an extensive consultative process that involved education specialists worldwide.

Expanding opportunities and building competencies for young people: a new agenda for secondary education

Second language teacher education (SLTE) has undergone considerable change over the past 25 years. The question of how language teaching is learnt and how programmes of professional preparation can contribute to this process now elicits quite different answers. A new agenda of theory and practice has emerged as SLTE has incorporated many of the ideas and practices of reflection (Schon 1983). At the same time, it has drawn increasingly on feeder fields of research and practice such as teacher cognition and professional cultures. These have augmented, and to some extent displaced, the original roots of SLTE in Applied Linguistics and Psychology, and a new knowledge base (Freeman & Johnson 1998) has been established, contributing to the formulation of theory about language teachers' learning-to-teach, and its practices. The focus of this review is on the extent to which the new agenda has influenced SLTE practices in recent years. It examines accounts of activities teacher educators and student teachers engage in during SLTE programmes in formal learning experiences. The paper identifies a thriving practitioner research culture in SLTE but argues that much more research is required to establish the true extent to which new conceptualisations of the process of learning-to-teach second languages guides SLTE practice.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0261444810000030

Second language teacher education: Review of recent research on practice

The significance of issues concerning finance, training and regulation has been a continuous thread in South African policy discussions about the development of the country’s small, medium and micro-enterprise (SMME) economy for more than a decade. Better access to finance, skills and leadership training and more flexible regulations are identified as key strategic elements in supporting the three national pillars of promoting entrepreneurship; strengthening the enabling environment for SMMEs; and enhanced competitiveness and capacity at the enterprise level. The monitoring of research on the SMME economy in South Africa is viewed as a critical issue of high policy relevance. Against this backcloth, the aim is to provide a synthesis of existing research in South Africa concerning the three important themes of: (1) finance; (2) training and skills acquisition; and (3) the regulatory environment for SMME development. Several research gaps are identified for further analysis.

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Tracking SMME Development in South Africa: Issues of Finance, Training and the Regulatory Environment

This paper reports research on the initial teacher training and continuing professional development of teachers in six African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda). The focus of the research was on the teaching of early reading and mathematics. The curriculum of both these areas was analysed in terms of (i) implementation by providers such as Colleges of Education, and (ii) impact in schools. The study found that there were many and deep gaps in the curriculum taught and consequently in teacher knowledge and skills in these two crucial subject areas. The paper sets out a series of recommendations for addressing this problem including an overall alternative approach to teacher education that emerges from the research findings as a whole.

Rethinking teacher preparation and professional development in Africa: an analysis of the curriculum of teacher education in the teaching of early reading and mathematics

This Program states that larger investments in agricultural research, extension, and education systems are required to achieve the targeted increase in agricultural output of 6 percent a year over the next 20 years.To enhance the quality and productivity of Agricultural Education and Training (AET) in Africa, the case for improving its agricultural education capacities is compelling in view of their seminal role in agricultural development elsewhere in the world. AET development was an integral part of strategies of countries that grew agriculture successfully, such as Brazil, India, and Malaysia. The analytical work carried out on AET in Africa identified some priorities as key to modernize agricultural education in Africa These priorities are: 1 Political will must be generated in support of agricultural development by educating the public about its role in economic growth and poverty reduction, creating capacities for lobbying, joining forces with other stakeholders, and sustaining these efforts over two or three decades.(2) It is desirable to assess and re-balance AET enrollment profiles away from secondary level vocational training towards diploma, degree, and post-graduate levels (3) It is essential to replenish human capital by strengthening and expanding national Master of Science programs, laying the foundation for Ph.D. programs, and tackling the conundrum of incentives for staff retention.(4) Finances must be managed proactively by making more efficient use of existing resources, mobilizing non-public resources, and persuading donors to finance operating costs.(5) Much better gender balance must be achieved among AET graduates. African universities and other institutions of higher learning ultimately will be responsible for replenishing the stock of human capital in national research and extension services, and for providing them with the broader set of skills necessary to grow agriculture in the 21st century.

Cultivating Knowledge and Skills to Grow African Agriculture

by Janet Stuart, Kwame Akyeampong and Alison Croft, Oxford, Macmillan Education, 2009, 237 pp., $26,88 (paperback), ISBN 978‐1‐4050‐7999‐0 In a recent analysis of teachers in the top‐performing cou...

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Key issues in teacher education – a sourcebook for teacher educators

Book reviewWhere has all the education gone in Africa? Employment outcomes among secondary school and university leavers, Samer Al-Samarrai, Paul Bennell (Eds.), Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton (2003), (pp. 118, price not given), ISBN: 1-85864-501-8

Globalisation, enterprise and knowledge: education, training and development in Africa: Kenneth King & Simon McGrath, Symposium Books Oxford, 2002, ISBN 1 873927 49 5, 230 pages, Cost not given

Getting the Message Across: The Mass Media and the Response to AIDS, UNAIDS. UNAIDS, Geneva (2005), (p. 56, free of charge from Publications UNAIDS), ISBN: 92 9 173465 9

Book reviewEmerging Voices—A Report on Education in South African Rural Communities, Human Sciences Research Council, HSRC Press, Cape Town, South Africa, ISBN:0-7969-2089-3, 2005 (163pp.), downloadable free on www.hsrcpress.ac.za

Terry Allsop

Papers

Key issues in teacher education – a sourcebook for teacher educators

Book reviewWhere has all the education gone in Africa? Employment outcomes among secondary school and university leavers, Samer Al-Samarrai, Paul Bennell (Eds.), Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton (2003), (pp. 118, price not given), ISBN: 1-85864-501-8

Globalisation, enterprise and knowledge: education, training and development in Africa: Kenneth King & Simon McGrath, Symposium Books Oxford, 2002, ISBN 1 873927 49 5, 230 pages, Cost not given

Getting the Message Across: The Mass Media and the Response to AIDS, UNAIDS. UNAIDS, Geneva (2005), (p. 56, free of charge from Publications UNAIDS), ISBN: 92 9 173465 9

Book reviewEmerging Voices—A Report on Education in South African Rural Communities, Human Sciences Research Council, HSRC Press, Cape Town, South Africa, ISBN:0-7969-2089-3, 2005 (163pp.), downloadable free on www.hsrcpress.ac.za