News items : (i) Book Awards won by Peter Mayo and Leona English (ii) Flagging 2014 special issue ‘Knowledge production… Reflective dialogue between activists and academics’ with guest editor Nisha Thapyial.

These news items describe: (1) a book award won by Peter Mayo and Leona English (2) the theme of the next issue of 'Postcolonial Directions in Education', and (3) two conference visits made by the author: 'Quality in the classroom', in Kathmandu, Nepal, 2013, and the AERA conference in San Francisco, 2013

In-service teacher education in Grenada, 1981-1983: Case study of a problem solving strategy

This study examines aspects of Grenada's National In-Service Teacher Education Programme (NISTEP), 1980-1983. NISTEP is analysed in the historical context of the social and educational changes which occurred in Grenada during this period. The writer first describes the strategies and innovations used by the People's Revolutionary Government to establish the programme as a comprehensive,national teacher training approach for all unqualified Primary school teachers. This replaced the inadequate system that had left Grenada with the problem of having a large proportion of its teachers untrained for their profession.NISTEP is then described from the perspective of its aims, its component sub-systems, and how it operated

Biennial Conference of the Australian Association for Caribbean Studies

The 12th conference of the Australian Association for Caribbean Studies (AACS) was hosted by the Australian National University in Canberra, from 9th to 11th February, 2017. The conference does not focus on education, but I am reporting on it in this journal because of the postcolonial ethos that characterises the meeting. It is an example of a gathering that investigates, discusses and celebrates the culture and society of the Caribbean as a postcolonial region.peer-reviewe

'International education : emergences and future possibilities'. Report on a University of Fribourg workshop, 4-7 May, 2015.

An exploratory workshop with the theme: ‘International Education: Emergences and Future Possibilities’, was held at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland from 4-7 May 2015. The workshop, organised by the university’s Department of Educational Sciences, was made possible when the head of department Professor Edgar Forster and lecturer/PhD candidate Ms. Rose Eder applied for and won a grant of 24,810 CHF (Swiss Francs) from the Swiss National Science Foundation. Participants in the workshop included a number of invited global scholars of international education from universities in Canada, the USA, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Vietnam, as well as graduate students in Education and their supervisors from the University of Fribourg, some from the transdisciplinary postdoctoral program ‘Migration and Postcoloniality meet Switzerland’.peer-reviewe

'For the socially responsible university'. Reflections on Universidad 2014, Cuba's 9th international higher education congress, in Havana, Cuba, 10-14 February 2014

Abstract in Portuguese by Anne Hickling-Hudson included.Every other year Cuba holds a conference on Higher Education. It attracts thousands of academics and other educators from Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries, and it also brings together representatives of all Cuban tertiary institutions, including those affiliated with different ministries. The theme for the 2014 conference, ‘For the Socially Responsible University’, was refreshingly welcome in an age when many universities are becoming increasingly corporatized seekers of profitable ventures and high student fees. The closing ceremony of the conference summed up the importance of the week of academic and cultural exchange. Cuba’s 1st Vice Minister for Higher Education, Dr. Jose Ramon Saborido, reminded delegates of the key role of the university in changing the status quo by providing valuable knowledge throughout society.peer-reviewe

Towards Caribbean 'Knowledge Societies': Dismantling Neo-Colonial Barriers in the Age of Globalisation

This paper discusses what it would take for Caribbean societies to move towards becoming 'knowledge societies' that would support a higher standard of living and more equitable social relations for all the people. It calls for a research agenda for postcolonial development and asks: what sort of learning is needed to transform problematic social landscapes? It puts forward a scenario of how the Caribbean region might look by 2050 if it were to be restructured on the foundations of higher levels of education and the ethical application of knowledge promoting a creative, culturally confident, productive and dynamic regional society. What kind of Caribbean people will achieve such a scenario, and what kind of education systems will help to produce such people? The article explores this by discussing the multiple challenges to be overcome in the currently dysfunctional education system. It advocates utilising a socio-political analysis of 'literacies' in order to probe the stratification of knowledge, power and prospects, the better to challenge the conservative norms and privileges that maintain a deeply unequal status quo

South-South Collaboration: Cuban Teachers in Jamaica and Namibia

Cuba has concentrated more than most developing countries on building a sound educational system, and as a result, it has been able to collaborate with other countries in their efforts to improve educational planning and practice. Based on recent research in the field, this paper examines the work of Cuban teachers in schools and sports programmes in Jamaica and Namibia. It carries out a qualitative analysis, from a postcolonial perspective, of the significance of this programme which is viewed as an example of South-South collaboration. Participant decolonizing countries benefit from Cuba’s contribution to building their teaching capacity, and Cuba in turn benefits from developing the linguistic and professional expertise of its educators through this internationalist work. The article contributes to a multi-level style of comparative education analysis based on micro-level qualitative fieldwork within a framework that compares cross-cultural issues and national policies

Multicultural Education and the Postcolonial Turn

This paper considers how postcolonial rethinking might lead educators and students to change traditional contexts and conservative, Eurocentric curricula. The paper discusses multicultural contexts such as those in Australia, and how postcolonial curricula would extend conventional multicultural education by challenging the colonial legacies of European-derived discourses of education. Postcolonial theory is explored as a valuable approach for thinking through not only these goals of change, but also different ways of conceptualising intercultural education and the difficulties of changing the Western-derived models of schools and universities which have become global