Education Links: International Resources

Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA)
ADEA focuses on developing partnerships between Ministers of Education and funding agencies in order to promote effective education policies based on African leadership and ownership.

CLE-Literacy
A project of the Literacy Committee of Rotary International, this website is designed to promote and publicize the group’s campaign to alleviate mass illiteracy across the developing world; to explain the nature of Concentrated Language Encounter (CLE) literacy programs and the Lighthouse Literacy Strategies that are being used to develop and spread them; and to enable interested people, within and outside Rotary, to find out about and perhaps become involved in Rotary literacy projects in developing countries.

Colorín Colorado
Reading Rockets is pleased to announce a new, bilingual Web site for Spanish-speaking parents! Colorín Colorado provides information, activities, and advice on helping children learn to read and succeed.

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
The COL is an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. COL works with Commonwealth nations to improve access to quality education and training.

Department for International Development (DFID)This UK Department’s main aim in relation to the formal education sector is to promote more effective and widespread teaching of development issues in schools. Another important part of its work involves ensuring that teachers have access to development education resources.

Education Advisory Service
The World Bank’s Education Advisory Service can help you access information about the World Bank and Education. It can assist in locating education-related documents, good practice examples, statistics, and project information. When appropriate, it can put you in touch with education experts and provide guidance on utilizing online resources. Before you send a request, please visit the World Bank Education website.

Education for All
1,100 participants at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, April 2000, adopted the Dakar Framework for Action, reaffirming their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015. This UNESCO site helps you keep abreast of—and participate in—their progress.

Education International
Education International is a worldwide trade union organization of education personnel, whose members represent all sectors of education from preschool to university.

Education Today newsletter
Education Today is a quarterly newsletter on trends and innovations in education, on worldwide efforts towards Education for All, and on UNESCO’s education activities. It is published in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish, and Russian. All articles are free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided credit is given.

elearningeuropa.info
Dedicated to improving the quality of learning through Internet use and other technologies, this portal provides access—in 11 European languages—to technology learning articles, projects, research, and events information. Descriptions of ICT implementation in schools are provided, as well as online forums for sharing experiences, opinions, and questions.

Global Campaign for Education (GCE)
The GCE believes that free, quality basic education for every girl, boy, man, and woman is not only an essential right, but an achievable goal. Each year of schooling gained by each child increases his or her chance of escaping from poverty, contributes to economic growth, and strengthens the fabric of democracy.

Global Learning Portal (GLPNet)
The GLP harnesses the power of the Internet to help teachers, teacher trainers, curriculum specialists, school administrators, and policymakers improve the quality of education for all.

Go Girls! Education Campaign
Go Girls! Education for Every Child is UNICEF’s public outreach campaign to raise awareness, generate public support and mobilize resources for girls’ education in countries around the world.

International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA)
The broad purpose of IAEA is to assist educational agencies in the development and appropriate application of educational assessment techniques to improve the quality of education. IAEA believes that this is best achieved through international cooperation and seeks to facilitate the development of closer ties among relevant agencies and individuals around the world.

International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY)
IBBY represents a worldwide network of people dedicated to promoting international understanding through children’s books and encouraging the publication and distribution of quality children’s books, especially in developing countries. Information and links to national sections are available.

International Bureau of Education
The IBE has three main lines of action: organizing the sessions of the International Conference on Education as an international forum for dialogue on educational policy; collecting, analyzing and disseminating educational documentation and information, in particular on innovations concerning curricula and teaching methods; and undertaking surveys and studies in the field of comparative education.

International Days
This page of the UNESCO site features links to information on the following: International Mother Language Day (February 21); International Literacy Day (September 8); and World Teachers’ Day (October 5). There is also an area devoted to ILD on the IRA website.

International Development Coordinating Committee
This International Reading Association committee strengthens partnerships worldwide to expand access to literacy for all, facilitate the development of international projects, and identify and/or support professional development projects in the regions. The committee also supports regional IDCs in promoting IRA membership and council development. Click on links below for information on regional IDCs: their charges, members, and, where available, websites and other resources.

International Development in Africa
International Development in Asia
International Development in the Caribbean
International Development in Europe
International Development in Latin America
International Development in North America
International Development in Oceania

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
IFLA is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession.

International Literacy Institute (ILI)
The mission of the ILI is to provide leadership in research, development, and training in the broad field of international literacy and development, with an emphasis on developing countries. The ILI organizes regional and international conferences, disseminates the ILI newsletter, and is involved in a number of significant research, development, training, and networking activities around the world.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
ISTE is a nonprofit professional organization dedicated to the improvement of education through computer-based technology.

Kids and Reading
KidsAndReading was formed to offer a unique reference point on encouraging and helping kids to read. This site explores how kids learn to read and the different methods involved. It also provides tips and advice on how you can help your child to learn to read.

Kids to Kids International
Kids to Kids International (KTKI) is a nonprofit program that fosters communication among children around the globe. Children create picture books and KTK sends those books to countries such as Afghanistan and China. One goal of the program is to create pathways of understanding.

Literacy Decade
The United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012) aims to extend the use of literacy to those who do not currently have access to it. The Decade will focus on the needs of adults with the goal that people everywhere should be able to use literacy to communicate within their own community, in the wider society, and beyond.

NAFSA: Association of International Educators
NAFSA promotes the exchange of students and scholars to and from the United States. The Association sets and upholds standards of good practice and provides professional education and training that strengthen institutional programs and services related to international educational exchange. Additionally, they house publications on U.S. institutions of higher education and other sources that offer financial aid and possible sponsorships.

New Readers Publishers
New Readers Publishers (also known as New Readers Project) is a non-profit publishing project in South Africa that focuses on the development of readers for newly literate adults and second language learners. The aim of the project is to contribute to an increase in adult literacy and the promotion of a reading culture.

People to People International’s School and Classroom Program
The School and Classroom Program connects teachers and their students with similar-age classrooms in other countries. Students collaborate on educational projects as simple as writing letters or as complex as examining recycling systems. Interaction between classrooms occurs offline and online and employs various audio and visual tools. Two classrooms may form a private "classroom partnership" or multiple classrooms may contribute to a single project. All School and Classroom Program projects aim to better students’ understanding of another culture and help them form friendships with peers abroad. Thousands of students in countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America have participated in the School and Classroom Program.

Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)
PIRLS is an international assessment being conducted by the International Study Center at Boston College (ISC) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IAEA). 35 countries are participating in this study, which measures reading literacy achievement of fourth-grade students (ages 9 and 10) and gathers information about home and school factors associated with learning to read.

Reading for All—A Pan-African Voice for Literacy
Reading for All is a pan-African strategy that aims to influence the ongoing reform of literacy education and strengthen the professional network across Africa. It includes initiatives such as Reading for All pan-African conferences and teacher educator workshops in Tanzania. It has also provided services to projects in Lesotho, Tanzania, and South Africa.

Reading for All Children
Reading for All Children is the mission of the Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT), a visionary child literacy program which brings best practices in reading education to more than 500,000 children, 15,000 teachers and 1,800 primary schools in disadvantaged communities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Rural Education and Development (READ) in Nepal
Since 1991, this nonprofit organization has launched a grassroots attack on illiteracy in Nepal by creating a network of rural libraries—30 to date and five more in the planning stages for 2004. With seed funding and technical support from READ, villages throughout Nepal are able to design and build centers of learning and community to suit their particular needs. By helping rural villages to help themselves, READ is realizing its dream of building literacy and communities through libraries.

RWCT International Consortium
This group provides professional development opportunities for educators dedicated to shaping highly motivated and well educated citizens capable of critical thinking, setting and achieving their own and community goals, and bearing social responsibility. The consortium promotes the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking Program (RWCT), started in the spring of 1997 by IRA and OSI to help teachers learn and try out methods of teaching for active learning and critical thinking. RWCT has reached more than 50,000 educators in more than 30 countries around the world. The Consortium also offers subscriptions to Thinking Classroom, a peer-reviewed international journal in English with a parallel Russian-language version, Peremena. The journals serve as a forum for teachers and faculty interested in promoting democratic teaching practices.

SIL International
The purpose of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is to work with language communities worldwide to facilitate language-based development through research, translation, and literacy.

SONEGOS
SONEGOS, an acronym of the Russian phrase for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), provides information and links to the CIS library community.

South Africa Partners, Inc.
South Africa Partners (SA Partners) facilitates the development of mutually beneficial partnerships between organizations and institutions in the United States and South Africa in the areas of health, education, and economic development. Its programs include Libraries For South African Schools, which supports the establishment of libraries in under-resourced urban, township, and rural schools, and Masifunde Sonke: Let Us Read Together, which promotes children’s literature from South Africa as a way of engaging a new generation in the joy of reading.

Teachers Talking About Learning
Teachers can integrate what’s available on this UNICEF site with their professional development goals. The three main branches of the site mirror preferred learning styles: Explore Ideas (if you learn best on your own), Discuss Issues (if you learn best by talking with colleagues), and Take Action (if you learn best by doing).

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
UNICEF’s goal in education is to support all children to fulfill their right to education, meet their basic learning needs, realize their full potential, and participate meaningfully in society. Programs aim for rights-based, child-friendly learning environments.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
UNESCO’s action in education is shaped around promoting education as a fundamental human right; improving the quality of education; and promoting experimentation, innovation, and the diffusion and sharing of information and best practices as well as policy dialogue in education.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
USAID’s efforts in education focus on providing field support, technical leadership, and research to help nations and field missions improve education and training and to help develop stable, democratic countries. Online, you can also access the Global Education Database.

World Bank
Since its education funding began, the World Bank has provided some US$31 billion in loans and credits, and it currently finances 158 education projects in 83 countries. The Bank works closely with national governments, United Nations agencies, donors, nongovernmental organizations, and other partners to help developing countries in their efforts to reach the goals of Education for All.

World Class
NetAid’s online game teaches kids about poverty and access to education. Both young people and educators can visit to learn more about poverty issues, ways to take action, and more.

World Schoolhouse
Through the combined efforts of corporations, individuals, and other organizations, NetAid’s World Schoolhouse provides access to quality education for the world’s poorest children. The site provides opportunities to learn, donate, and sponsor projects.