A country’s education system plays a pivotal role in promoting economic growth and shared prosperity. Sri Lanka has enjoyed high school-attainment and enrollment rates for several decades. However, it still faces major challenges in the education sector, and these challenges undermine the country’s inclusivegrowth goal and its ambition to become a competitive upper-middle-income country. The authors of Sri Lanka Education Sector Assessment: Achievements, Challenges, and Policy Options offer a thorough review of Sri Lanka’s education sector—from early childhood education through higher education. With this book, they attempt to answer three questions: • How is Sri Lanka’s education system performing, especially with respect to participation rates, learning outcomes, and labor market outcomes? • How can the country address the challenges at each stage of the education process, taking into account both country and international experience and also best practices? • Which policy actions should Sri Lanka make a priority for the short and medium term? The authors identify the most critical constraints on performance and present strategic priorities and policy options to address them. To attain inclusive growth and become globally competitive, Sri Lanka needs to embark on integrated reforms across all levels of education. These reforms must address both short-term skill shortages and long-term productivity. As Sri Lanka moves up the development ladder, the priorities of primary, secondary, and postsecondary education must be aligned to meet the increasingly complex education and skill requirements.

This report provides an assessment of Viet Nam's secondary education sector, including technical and vocational education training programs. The report reviews sector achievements and challenges as well as the Government of Viet Nam's strategy and policies. It also outlines how the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other development partners have contributed to the sector. The report provides recommendations on measures to boost access to secondary education and to improve its overall quality and management.

Sri Lanka’s early achievements in education and literacy became well known among the international development community in the middle of the last century and were often used to benchmark progress elsewhere. Development, Education and Learning in Sri Lanka presents an illuminating narrative of changing education fortunes and inequalities, based on half a century of research. This research journey was undertaken in collaboration with Sri Lankan researchers island-wide in myriad communities, schools, classrooms and education offices, through conversations with countless parents, teachers, students, community members, trade union officers, politicians and members of local, national and international development agencies, as well as through extensive documentary analysis. The book delineates the distinctive and changing features of the Sri Lankan education system through comparisons with systems elsewhere, through an understanding of national political, economic and social conditions, crises and upheavals, through changes in education policy and through shifting patterns of opportunity among diverse social groups. These analyses are framed by themes in the international development discourse ranging from modernisation to basic needs to globalisation and sustainable development, some of which themes have been influenced by the Sri Lankan story. The book’s overriding messages are the need to understand education and development in a country’s own terms, and to place learning at the heart of education policy, situating it within broader conceptions of the purpose, values and means of development. Praise for Development, Education and Learning in Sri Lanka 'Through rigorous and comprehensive research and a blend of local and global perspectives, this book offers invaluable insights for academics and policymakers alike.' Tara de Mel, Director, Bandaranaike Academy for Leadership and Public Policy and former Secretary, Sri Lanka Ministry of Education 'Reflecting on a career-long engagement with education and development, Angela Little brilliantly co-locates the personal, political and the theoretical. A privilege to read.' Simon McGrath, University of Glasgow 'This passionate engagement with education reform and development offers very instructive lessons for academics and policymakers in Sri Lanka, and beyond.' Siri T. Hettige, University of Colombo 'Fifty years of personal experience in Sri Lanka from many vantage points. A focus on education and society, rather than education alone. And a concern to understand rather than prescribe. This book has no competitors.' Mick Moore, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex

Human capital is a central determinant of economic well-being and social advancement in the modern world economy. The concept of human capital covers the knowledge, skills, nutrition, and health that people accumulate over their lives, enabling them to realize their potential as productive members of society. Because of the vital importance of human capital for economic growth, the World Bank has launched the Human Capital Project (HCP), which includes the Human Capital Index (HCI). The objective of the HCP is to accelerate human capital development around the world. The HCI is a cross-country metric designed to measure and forecast a country’s human capital. Sri Lanka is a lower-middle-income country seeking to become an upper-middle-income country. Developing human capital to a new and higher level will be central to achieving this development goal. After the country’s 26-year secessionist conflict ended in 2009, Sri Lanka’s economy enjoyed rapid growth at an average rate of almost 6 percent between 2010 and 2017, reflecting a peace dividend and a determined policy thrust toward reconstruction and growth. However, in more recent years there have been signs of a slowdown. The economy is transitioning from a predominantly rural economy to a more urbanized one. In the context of the HCP and the HCI, Sri Lanka Human Capital Development analyzes the main achievements and challenges of human capital development in this East Asia and Pacific island country in health and nutrition—including stunting—and in education—including the challenges posed by Sri Lankans’ low participation in higher education. The report concludes with a look at the importance of building a consensus among the public and other stakeholders to launch an ambitious human capital development program in Sri Lanka.

Zusammenfassung: The anthology offers a distinctive perspective on a European Union-funded capacity-building initiative aimed at enhancing contemporary teaching competencies, with a specific emphasis on Sri Lanka and Cambodia. It discusses the augmentation of pedagogical skills and its consequential effects on both individual and societal levels. Furthermore, the anthology scrutinizes the collaborative efforts in international education, elucidating the strategies adopted to confront the challenges and leverage the opportunities encountered by higher education institutions. The Editor Dr. Sandra Hummel is an educational scientist at the University of Graz and a research group leader at the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (ScaDS.AI) at Dresden University of Technology

Countries that have sustained rapid growth over decades have typically had a strong public commitment to expanding education as well as to improving learning outcomes. South Asian countries have made considerable progress in expanding access to primary and secondary schooling, with countries having achieved near-universal enrollment of the primary-school-age cohort (ages 6†“11), except for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Secondary enrollment shows an upward trend as well. Beyond school, many more people have access to skilling opportunities and higher education today. Although governments have consistently pursued policies to expand access, a prominent feature of the region has been the role played by nonstate actors—private nonprofit and forprofit entities—in expanding access at every level of education. Though learning levels remain low, countries in the region have shown a strong commitment to improving learning. All countries in South Asia have taken the first step, which is to assess learning outcomes regularly. Since 2010, there has been a rapid increase in the number of large-scale student learning assessments conducted in the region. But to use the findings of these assessments to improve schooling, countries must build their capacity to design assessments and analyze and use findings to inform policy.

This handbook provides a frame of reference for the global challenges facing higher education leadership today. Focusing on recommendations and directions for the future rather than simply a recap of measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, the contributors also delve into contexts such as the climate crisis, issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, digitalisation, funding and marketisation, the war in Ukraine and China-Taiwan and Hong Kong tensions. They collate a systematic, global view of higher education systems during the pandemic and beyond, and explore possibilities for the future, providing recommendations for "the new normal". With contributions from across six continents, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of higher education and governance, university leaders, government and accreditation bodies, and anyone else interested in reflecting on the past few years in higher education and the road ahead. Jürgen Rudolph is Director of Research and Learning Innovation at Kaplan Singapore. Joseph Crawford is Senior Lecturer in Management, Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education), University of Tasmania, Australia. Sam Choon Yin is Dean (Academic Partnerships), Kaplan Singapore. Shannon Tan is Research Executive at Kaplan Singapore.