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Having a disability can be one of the most marginalizing factors in a child's life. In education, finding ways to meet the learning needs of children with disabilities can be challenging, especially in schools, districts, regions, and countries with severely limited resources. Inclusive education--which fully engages all children in quality education, including children with various types of disabilities or other learning challenges--has proven particularly effective in helping all children learn, including those with disabilities. This guide provides strategies and recommendations for developing inclusive classrooms and schools. We specifically address the needs of Sub-Saharan African countries, which lack the resources for implementing inclusive education. However, our strategies and recommendations can be equally useful in other contexts where inclusive education practices have not yet been adopted.

Expanding and rethinking the nature of secondary education in Sub-Saharan African countries, traditionally reserved for elites and few others, are becoming crucial to successful individual and national participation in the global economy. As governments and donors turn their attention increasingly to secondary education, policies are being established to create more widely accessible, more relevant, and higher quality secondary education. This presents a particular challenge, since secondary education sub-systems are unlikely to be infused with large amounts of additional funding in the near future. Improving the quality of secondary education, therefore, must include policies that use current resources creatively and more effectively. Teachers and principals are the most expensive and, possibly, the most critical components in establishing quality in education systems. New and more effective approaches to the preparation, deployment, utilization, compensation, and conditions of service for teachers, accompanied by more effective school leadership, are therefore needed to achieve higher standards of secondary education in Africa. This study used an extensive literature review and subsequent field studies in Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda to identify current trends, challenges, and opportunities in the recruitment, retention, and retraining of secondary teachers and principals in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study also suggests ways of attracting teachers to the profession, retaining teachers and principals in the profession, and providing support to strengthen teachers' and principals' effectiveness. Insufficient data and information that differentiate lower and upper secondary education is a limitation of the study, especially in the context of the present growing interest in the lower or junior secondary level. There is a similar dearth of information in the literature on secondary principals and on gender issues as they relate to secondary teachers and principals. The findings of the study and the recommendations are intended to provide policymakers and other stakeholders with material for policy development and for the development of strategies for increasing the quality and effectiveness of secondary teachers and principals. (Contains 17 tables and 9 figures.) [This paper was written with Elizabeth Leu and Karen Bryner. It was prepared for the World Bank through the Academy for Educational Development and funded by the Irish Trust Fund.]

Helping children outgrow war is an overarching goal of educational reconstruction in post-conflict settings, but responses must be highly adaptive and informed by insights gained from interventions elsewhere. This guidebook offers seven examples of successful interventions in post-conflict settings internationally, situating them within a framework that emphasizes the ecology of children's well-being and learning. To facilitate navigation of the guidebook, cases are organized according to post-conflict phases, including emergency, recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. These phases indicate the stability of government and the health of civil society, important parameters for guiding programmatic choices. The cases illustrate many of the key dimensions of a comprehensive approach to helping children overcome violence and rebuild their lives. Following each case study is a discussion of critical theoretical issues and a set of questions regarding practical considerations for project design. While not intended to serve as a training manual per se, the guidebook contains elements that can be extracted for use in training workshops or policy discussions. Following the Teacher Emergency Packages (kits which enable teachers to begin instructional activities in a war-ravaged context), cases are as follows: (1) Child Soldiers (exploitation of child fighters in Africa); (2) Butterfly Garden (Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, has a garden dedicated to creative play for war-affected children); (3) Children's Participation (illustrates challenges of children's participation in a conflict setting in Sri Lanka); (4) Peace Education (insights from a project in a Kenyan refugee camp); (5) Project DiaCom (in Bosnia, the project allows Serb and Bosniak teachers to enter into a dialogue process); (6) Community Leadership (builds capacity for community in internally displaced people in Azerbaijan); and (7) Human Rights Training (in Peru, a human rights organization conducts workshops that bring together diverse participants to learn about their rights and share experiences). (BT)

The purpose of this document is to describe AED's extensive experience in six countries that have undergone periods of violent conflict or natural disaster followed by extended and complex periods of increasing resilience, and if possible extract lessons learned from it. The focus is on what we have learned about effectively and sustainably restoring education in a context of development. This paper is timely for two reasons. First, the number of low-income countries experiencing crises, especially war, continues to escalate (Collier 2009). Second, there is a growing consensus among countries and donors that restoring education systems should begin as soon as the security of teachers and students can be assured and not wait until the termination of relief efforts. Education should be part of the solution from the beginning of the rebuilding process. It is hoped that this paper will facilitate that work in the future. This paper begins by reviewing AED's work over the last two decades in six countries on two continents (El Salvador,Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in Latin America, and Ethiopia and Namibia in sub-Saharan Africa), considering their history and education sector as they move from fragility and attempt to consolidate education reform. This section seeks to extract lessons concerning the actual relationship between the education sector and fragility or resilience and what this has meant for AED's role promoting change in the education sector through its interactions with governments and donors. A second section takes the findings and underlines the interaction between donor, recipient, and implementer. A final section suggests paths for conceptual and operational development to better integrate assistance in crises with assistance for development in the education sector, and considers how this may be related to the degree of fragility or resilience, and how this may be further examined. (Contains 9 tables, 7 figures, 43 footnotes, and 25 additional resources. An annex presents trends in education, assistance and investment in six countries.)

This paper presents the results from the 2012 Corporate Recruiters Survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council[R] (GMAC[R]). Conducted annually since 2001, this survey examines the job outlook for recent graduate business students as well as employer needs and expectations. The objectives of this study are to obtain a picture of the current employment landscape, gauge the demand for master's-level business graduates, better understand employer needs, and provide insight into hiring practices and trends across industries and world regions. Responses to this 11th annual survey of graduate business student employers were collected from mid-February to mid-March 2012. Data reflect the responses of 1,096 recruiters representing more than 800 companies in 40 countries worldwide. Respondents in the United States represent firms in 37 states plus the District of Columbia. This broad representation of the employer spectrum was possible through the efforts of the 128 business schools in 30 countries that facilitated the survey administration. Key findings include: (1) Not only are more companies planning to hire recent MBAs in 2012 (79%, up from 72% in 2011), but they expect to increase the number of new hires from 13 in 2011 to 17 per firm in 2012, on average; (2) Growth is most notable in the Asia-Pacific region, where 54 percent of companies plan to hire Master of Accounting graduates in 2012, up from 38 percent in 2011; (3) Small companies (fewer than 1,000 employees) account for the largest proportional increase in demand for MBAs; (4) MBA graduates will continue to command higher starting salaries compared with other master's graduates in the United States in 2012; (5) Regional job placement data provide insight into where graduate business students might work beyond company headquarters; (6) When selecting which job candidates to interview from business schools, recruiters most often consider the candidates' previous work experience; and (7) Employers predominantly seek new graduate business hires with leadership skills in 2012. (Contains 8 tables, 21 figures and 19 footnotes.)

This course of study for college students is about educational development in tropical Africa, or Africa south of the Sahara, excluding North Africa and the Republic of South Africa. The major goals of the course are to help students gain knowledge about the educational policies and practices of African countries under the rule of Belgium, England, France, and Portugal during the early 20th century and to help students understand contemporary trends, issues, and problems of education and development in independent African countries. The course involves students in critiquing, analyzing, and summarizing films, slides, journal articles, books, and national and international documents. Students also write papers and compile annotated bibliographies on pertinent topics. The course consists of seven modules. Each module contains an introduction, a list of student goals, a bibliography of print and nonprint instructional resources, and suggested student activities and projects. Included is a pretest with which to ascertain the student's prior overall knowledge of the African continent. (Author/RM)

Six hundred and sixty-two listings of instructional materials for teaching about Africa are presented in this annotated bibliography to help teachers identify materials that will assist them in developing courses and units of study. Materials are identified that can be used by precollegiate teachers of all subject areas. This handbook is arranged by grade levels--preschool to grade three, grades 4-6, and grades 7-12. Within each section materials are divided by geographic region and listed alphabetically according to their instructional formats. The region divisions include Africa (general), Western, Eastern/Central, and Southern. Types of materials include multimedia, books, filmstrips and slides, records and tapes, maps and transparencies, duplicating masters, and pictures and charts. Entries include title, price, publisher and description. A list of publishers and distributors is included for ordering materials. The handbook concludes with two evaluation forms which may assist teachers in selecting materials on the basis of their cross-cultural value and for purposes of general assessments. (JR)

This 6th grade social studies unit delves into the belief systems and external religious, cultural practices of Black Africans. It is part of a series of guides developed by the Public Education Religion Studies Center at Wright State University. Study is focused upon the Ashanti tribe of Ghana knowing that although the multiplicity of tribes have individual beliefs and practices, there is a likeness that transcends all. For example, each tribe must adjust to a changing world and most tribes at this time are facing similar problems. Students are given some general ideas of the spread of Christianity and Islam into Africa and their relationships with indigenous religions. The unit emphasizes how these two religions entered Africa, what impact they had on the people they touched, and what is happening to these religions today. Unit generalizations, concepts, and subject matter are briefly outlined. Much of the document is an outline of Black Tribal Religion in Africa with such headings as: Belief in God; How does man approach God; and Christianity in Africa. Cognitive, affective, and psychomotor objectives are stated as well as initiatory, developmental, and culminating activities. The document concludes with evaluation suggestions and instructional resources. (Author/BC)

Two social studies units for sixth grade provide information and learning activities about Africa and Russia. Both units contain lists of concepts to be learned, skills, objectives, learning activities, common misconceptions, vocabulary, maps, objective and essay tests, and bibliographies. The unit on Africa helps students understand the wide variety of cultures within the continent as well as realize the similarities in man's basic physical needs and universal outgrowths of society such as religion and government. By making geological relief maps, independently researching individual countries, or analyzing folk tales, students develop map and research skills while learning about the forces that have shaped the continent's history. Student reading material and teachers' lectures cover topics such as apartheid and tribalism. The unit on Russia emphasizes its cultures, geography, historical development, and role in the 20th century. Teachers are encouraged to select from 70 learning activities including field trips, role-playing historical characters, and comparing pollution problems of Lake Baikal and Lake Erie. Identification of the political and economic characteristics of Communism is one of the unit's objectives. Teachers should be able to incorporate part or all of both units into existing social studies course plans. (AV)