International Education Policy

The Need

In December of 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared that every person had a right to free and compulsory elementary education. In 1960, the General Conference of UNESCO approved the Convention Against Discrimination of Education. In the years following these agreements, educational systems changed dramatically. Countries around the world have supported many programs to attempt to overcome the inequitable opportunities facing children from different races, ethnic groups, genders, or religious affiliations. However, substantial barriers to equity still persist. For example, UNESCO projects that by the year 2010 there will be 152 million children between the ages of 6 and 11 years and 324 million children between 12 and 17 who will not be attending school. Excluded children are most likely to come from poor families and are more likely to be female than male.

The International Education Policy program draws together a community of learners sharing a common interest in critically examining issues of equity cross-nationally. The program is structured to provide an environment for the investigation and discussion of practical approaches for improving the quality of education available to children from all backgrounds.

The Objectives

The curriculum emphasizes the development of analytical skills that will enable participants to analyze policy options to improve educational opportunity and draw lessons from comparative cross-national experience with educational reform.

The curriculum is designed to develop the capacity to think critically and systematically about educational inequality and educational reform, to analyze policy alternatives and to evaluate policies and programs. Graduates of the IEP program will be distinguished by their substantive understanding of educational systems, by their capacity to think about the relationship between educational change and social change, and by their understanding of the relationship between policy reform and school change. They will be able to use comparative and international education research to inform proposals for educational change at the national or sub-national level.

Areas of Interest and Geographic Regions

Learn about the Intensive Preparation for the Study of International Education Program (IPSIE)