Achieving universal primary education (UPE) is one of international development goals. In the light of this goal, the Kenyan Government introduced a policy of free primary education (FPE) effective in 2003, when the new government came to power. Although some other countries have introduced FPE, its introduction has not been based on careful planning and preparation. It is often introduced as a political decision. This has marginalized the role of research and professionals. The article is a report on a case study of critical analysis of implementing FPE policy in Kenya, and implications for the achievement of UPE are explored.
Many sub-Saharan African countries gained independence from colonial rule in the early 1960s. School enrolment ratios have since then steadily increased. However, African economies stagnated, particularly in the late1970s and 1980s. Enrolment ratios did not improve, and at the same time there was a decline in the quality of education. One third of out-of-school children are in sub-Saharan African countries; hence achieving UPE is always a priority in their national plans. Malawi and Uganda attempted to attain UPE by implementing an FPE policy, but this resulted in further lowering education quality. Class-sizes became larger, particularly in the lower grades. There was a shortage of classrooms and teachers to accommodate the dramatic increase in the number of pupils.
The Kenyan Government spends almost40per cent of its current national expenditure on education.Education indices such as primary school enrolment ratios of the country are good in comparison to those of other developing countries.However, the Kenyan education system is characterized by inefficiency in terms of the utilization of teachers and high grade repetition and dropout rates.The Kenya National Union of Teachers (NUT) has strong power in the political arena, and teachers in Kenya are relatively well paid in comparison with those in neighboring countries. However, the enrolment and completion rates in primary education have been declining in spite of an increase in educational budgets.Drastic measures need to be taken to reform the education system as a whole.

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Thailand in the 1990s faced rapid changes in the era of globalization.In order to cope with these changes, Thailand needed to raise its science and technology standard and equip Thai people with international competitive competence.The Thai economy underwent stunning growth which caused imbalanced development. The financial crisis in 1997 underlined the urgent need for reform in education. The new 1997 Constitution provides challenging guidelines for education reform. It mandates 12 years of basic education for all children (Section 43). The 1999 National Education Act is the first law of its kind in Thai history and serves as master legislation on education in the country. In accordance with the new Constitution and the National Education Act, the 2001 Basic Education Curriculum was formulated.
This study is aimed at examining 1)government policies on education reform; 2) characteristics of basic education reform as viewed from legislative and curriculum reforms; 3)the process of basic education reform through empirical analysis; and 4) issues and challenges for basic education reform.It is hoped that this study will clarify how the country copes with such a crisis by looking at basic education reform in Thailand as a case study.

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The purpose of this paper is to consider the legitimacy of the legal status of the subject of ‘Ethics and Philosophy’(Ethikunterricht) in secondary schools in the Federal Republic of Germany. This is a controversial issue, i, e., how morals and values in school education should deal with the problem of values transfer in a pluralized civil society.
In Germany, the subject of ‘Religion’(Religionsunterricht), which has mainly played the role of moral and values education in school, is being re-examined. At present, ‘Ethics and Philosophy’ is established as a substitutive or an alternative subject for ‘Religion’ in all states (Lander). The legal basis and educational content of ‘Ethics and Philosophy’ has given rise to an argument centering on its relation with ‘Religion’. The main point of the legal argument is how to come to a compromise between the legal status of ‘Ethics and Philosophy’ and the status of ‘Religion’ that is provided as a compulsory subject in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany (the Basic Law) Article 7, 3rd.
In this paper, first the legal basis of ‘Religion’ is discussed, followed by an analysis of the arguments and actions regarding the legitimacy of the legal status of ‘Ethics and Philosophy’ in the following two states. One state is Bavaria, where ‘Religion’ is positively guaranteed and‘Ethics’ is established as an “alternative subject”. The other is Brandenburg, where ‘LER’(Lebensgestaltung-Ethik-Religionskunde) is a “compulsory subject” while ‘Religion’ is a “supplementary subject”. Moreover, it is also a noteworthy contrast that Bavaria is one of the southern states where the CSU (Christian Social Union) government follows a conservative educational policy, while Brandenburg is one of the states which are led by the SPD (Social Democratic Party), just as many other northern states are.

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For the purpose of this paper is to reveal the intervals of regular senior secondary schools in China.This paper puts an importance on the entrance opportunity and the educational environment and administration.
In China, with the liberation of markets in 1990, the forms of establishment of elementary and secondary schools have been diversified even though they were only schools established by the public before. But for now, the situation is that private schools and publicly subsidized private schools are appearing which shows the progress of diversification in school establishment.
The paper chooses Shenyang city in the province of Liaoning as an example to show the differences of public regular senior secondary school publicly subsidized private regular senior secondary school and the private regular senior secondary school in the field of the school establishment and administration by considering the policies set for the regular senior secondary schools.In Shenyang, the public regular senior secondary school can be classified into several types.The classification is as follows: the province-prioritized regular senior secondary school is a kind of school at the control of the province, the province-prioritized regular senior secondary school controlled by city and the province-prioritized regular senior secondary school directed by the district.In addition, according to the form of administration the public regular senior secondary school also can be separated into another five types: province-prioritized regular senior secondary schools administrated by the province, province-prioritized regular senior secondary school administrated by the city, province-prioritized regular senior secondary school administrated by the district, city-prioritized high school administrated by the district.If publicly subsidized private regular senior secondary schools and private regular senior secondary schools are included, the regular senior secondary school in Shenyang can be classified into above seven types.

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