The purpose of this paper is to clarify the current situation and issues regarding securing educational opportunities for the children of foreign nationals in the Russian Federation through the analysis of education laws and regulations enacted in Russia after 1991. Particular attention is given to the new Law on Education in the Russian Federation, which came into force in September 2013 with the start of the new school year. This legislation claimed to guarantee the right to education for foreign nationals’ children.

  The Constitution of the Russian Federation as well as The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides everyone the right to education, however some categories of children, including migrant workers from Central Asian countries (especially Uzbekistan and Tajikisitan), have been often deprived the access to schools. This situation is also affected by strict migrant legislation and rising xenophobia. The children of migrants and stateless persons in Russia are often deprived of legal protection because their parents have no work or residence permits. The previous education law enacted in 1992 did not mention the right to education for foreign nationals.

  Alternative reports submitted by Russia’s NGOs for the 65st Session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) claim that the situation of minority and migrant children had not improved as of the reporting period. They especially pointed out to the so called “90 days rule”, according to which migrants’ children are obliged to leave the Russian Federation every 90 days, regardless of the length of their parents’ legal stay in the country. According to these reports, it is crucial to create an incentive for parents to send their children to school by granting legal status to each pupil coming from migrant workers families that are legally residing in Russia, as well as by abolishing the requirement to renew migration cards every three months.

  The main findings of this paper regarding securing the opportunities of education from the point of view of Russia’s education laws and regulations are the following: First, there is a problem in securing more efficient access to schools. Both current and previous education laws are not clear about whether the children of foreign nationals are subject to compulsory education in Russia. However, legislation regarding compulsory education does not mention citizenship, and the representatives of Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science declared in September 2013 that the principle of compulsory education applies to everyone. This may prove to be an important opportunity to improve the situation with migrant children who do not attend school.

  Secondly, there is a significant problem regarding illegal migrants. While the new education law guarantees the right of education to all foreigners irrespective of their legal status, legislation by Russia’s Ministry of Education enacted in 2012 following debate on the new education law obliged foreigners to prove their legal status in order to be registered for school. This paradoxical legislation may contribute to a new period of Russian immigration policy, which restricts illegal migration while increasing opportunities for legal migrants. The debate over working migrants in Russia has intensified recently, leading members of the Russian parliament to introduce legislation that would prevent the children of migrants from attending kindergarten and school if their parents fail to provide evidence that they are paying taxes. Unfortunately, not all members of local and regional education boards are aware that denying access to education for the children of illegal migrants constitutes a violation of human rights. Even the Head of the Child Rights Division at Saint Petersburg Regional Administration (View PDF for the rest of the abstract)

  This paper clarifies the relationship among the state, universities and colleges (higher education institutions) in Vietnam, focusing on the authority of various ministries to govern higher education institutions. This is done through multiple analyses of higher education administration characteristic to Vietnam, which is referred to as the “parallel governance” common to older socialist countries. Parallel governance means that the central educational ministry and other central ministries have the power to establish and manage higher education institutions in their own ways, and that other ministries also manage higher education institutions as educational authorities. This paper provides some viewpoints as to why Vietnam has maintained parallel governance in its transition from a centrally planned economy to a market based economy, while China has changed its traditional structure of parallel governance in its transition process. It furthermore explores the roles universities are expected to play in Vietnam.

  In the first section, on the basis of the above research question, changes in higher education administration and the structure of parallel governance in China are discussed, in order to provide a comparative perspective with higher education administration in Vietnam. Mainly after its transition, China changed its structure of parallel governance in that almost all higher education institutions, which had been managed by central ministries, were transferred to control under local governments. As part of this process higher education institutions have been autonomous as a whole.

  In the second section, corresponding to the discussion about the change in the structure of parallel governance in China, national policies and official documents pertaining to the higher education system in Vietnam are considered, focusing on the process of introducing and developing a parallel governance system in Vietnam. Vietnam learned from and introduced Soviet methods during 1956-1965 in North Vietnam as a first step, and just before and after reunification, Vietnam decided to introduce a parallel governance system into former South Vietnam with the provision of the “Decision on urgent problems about universities network” issued in 1976. From a quantitative perspective, however, Vietnam has maintained a parallel governance system with consistency throughout its transition period. Many newly established higher education institutions have come under the control of other ministries, leading to the maintenance of shared governance. In this situation, other than national universities (Dai hoc Quoc gia), not all higher education institutions have become autonomous in Vietnam.

  In the third section, taking into consideration the opinion of the Ministry of Education that the shared governance system should be dismantled and that universities should be autonomous as a whole, the authority of other ministries to govern higher education institutions under their controls is analyzed from both an institutional aspect and reality of the situation. In so doing, first, the stipulations of regulations as they are applied to other ministries are considered. These include the following: (1) the “decree on the standard of establishing universities and occupational secondary schools”, issued in 1963, and (2) the “decree on regulations about national responsibility to govern educational activities” issued in 2004 and 2010.

  Fourth, in addition to these institutional analyses, with a view to extract the principle of maintaining parallel governance in Vietnam, data obtained from interviews with persons from the ministry relevant to water resources and agricultural development, the National Institute of Educational Management, and The Vietnam Institute of Educational Science are considered. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract)

  In recent years, the promotion of regional equity in developing countries has become an important topic for both researchers and policy makers. In Uganda, this policy issue is particularly important because the country is currently plagued by wide regional inequalities in income and living standards. Moreover, one of the most important factors that explained regional inequality in income welfare was found to be inequality in educational attainment. In the primary education subsector, the rapid expansion in enrolment following the launch of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy in 1997 posed several challenges in quality and equity, including urban-rural inequality issues. Although these challenges in the primary education system have cast a shadow over the sustainability of high economic growth in the future, few studies have analyzed such inequality issues.

  This study explores school inputs that would effectively contribute to the reduction of the urban-rural gap in school performance in Ugandan public primary education. The following research questions are addressed: (1) What is the difference in the effect of school inputs on aggregate pupils’ learning achievement between urban and rural government schools? (2) In both urban and rural government schools, how does the effect of each school input on aggregate pupils’ learning achievement at different performance levels vary?

  The significance of this study is in its investigation of the urban-rural differences in school effectiveness and application of the estimation strategy, which takes into account the possibility that the effect of school inputs on output varied according to the school achievement level. The study applied OLS and quantile regression methods in building an analytical model, using Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ) III data collected in 2007.

  One of the key findings from the study is that school inputs relating to the education level of the head teacher and handling of homework by classroom teachers have a significant and positive relationship with a school’s average test score only in rural government schools. Also, these two types of inputs have a significant effect only among the well-performing schools, with the effect size tending to increase when the school performance level goes up. These findings potentially suggest that interventions from government, such as deploying more qualified head teachers and improving teaching strategies of classroom teachers in rural government primary schools, might effectively reduce the urban-rural gap in primary school performance by improving the rural areas. However, the findings also suggest that the government needs to exercise care when supporting poorly performing schools in rural areas because simply increasing school inputs might not be able to raise student performance in target schools. Sufficient school equipment might have to be prioritized to bolster the most poorly performing of rural government schools. Furthermore, the practice of parents making additional contributions to supplement regular teacher salaries, which showed to be of significant positive effect, is observed only in urban government schools. This may suggest that financial support from parents is a determinant of school output in urban areas, even among government schools under the UPE policy.

  Western European public education systems were basically established when modern states were organized in the 19th century. With the appearance of mass education, schooling became a basic national feature characterized by the enrollment of all classes and individuals throughout society.

  In Central Asia, Uzbekistan introduced an education curriculum to all public education, which applied from the preschool to higher education levels. Students continue at least 12 years of compulsory education, in which they attend officially assigned classes on law and the constitution, which is extremely rare in other countries. However, many studies on Uzbekistan politics mention that democracy hardly exists, and that there is presently a strong centralization of political power, which reflects a typical dictatorship. With restricted civil rights, for example those pertaining to freedom of demonstration and association, citizens only have limited chances to play active democratic roles in society. Within this context, why has the government introduced the law-related education with great emphasis? What are the goals and objectives – indeed, the meaning – of the curriculum? How does it benefit citizens and the country?

  This article examines the law-related education in Uzbekistan under the theme of state formation. Research questions are based on the theory of state formation and nation building, and on the question of how the law-related education in Uzbekistan conveys national ideas and ideals to students within the scope of national education.

  In the following chapters, this article examines the system of the subjects from the viewpoint of state formation. An analysis is made of the Presidential Order of 2001, laws pertaining to subjects, national standards of education, guideline materials for teachers and textbooks of the law-related education. The second chapter details laws related education in Uzbekistan, referring in particular to the presidential order, which introduced the present curriculum. The presidential order clearly cites the reasons for the introduction of classes on the constitution of Uzbekistan as necessary to develop the legal thinking and knowledge of young generations as future builders of the country. The third chapter examines the purpose and contents of the curriculum, while the fourth chapter takes other laws into consideration. In 1997 the Parliament of Uzbekistan adopted a statement regarding the legal atmosphere in society and the necessity of the law-related education, which is also widely mentioned in other studies as a practical starting point for arguments on the national curriculum. The fifth chapter refers to other presidential statements and legal documents governing actual classes at schools under the national education system. It also investigates the principles of the government, with regards to state formation and nation building. Finally, based on the findings of each chapter, this essay investigates the features and roles of the law-related education in Uzbekistan, in accordance with state formation and national education.

  Based on an analysis of the above, this article argues the effectiveness and possibility of the curricula in Uzbekistan. While classical processes of the creation of national identity, obtained from the notions of culture, race, religion and language are aimed at provided a strong patriotic sentiment, it remains unclear whether or not these have been entirely successful in instilling a strong feeling of “oneness as nationals”, which historically prompted people into action – and sometimes conflict – with great enthusiasm. The case study of Uzbekistan suggests other factors as being important devices in state formation for newly developed countries.

  The study of Uzbekistan shows that (View PDF for the rest of the abstract)

  This paper clarifies the development of the dual quality assurance approach for international branch campuses in the Dubai free zone. In Dubai, one of the emirates that constitute the United Arab Emirates (UAE), numerous free zones to attract foreign institutions have been constructed, and many branch campuses of foreign universities have been established. Considering this situation, the question arises: How might the quality of branch campuses be assured? In the UAE, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR) established the Commission for Academic Accreditation (CAA) as a federal quality assurance agency in 1999, responsible for the quality of institutions and programs. However, in the free zone, assessment by the CAA is optional. In 2008, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), which is the government of Dubai, established the University Quality Assurance International Board (UQAIB) as a quality assurance agency for branch campuses in the free zone.

  This paper provides a comparative viewpoint on how approaches to quality assurance in the Dubai free zones may be differentiated and clarifies how they are related to each other in the context of the development of Dubai free zones. Hanada (2013) suggests that the difficulty that the UAE is experiencing to integrate the quality of branch campuses is the result of the different strategies of each emirate. Knight (2014) notes the lack of clarity in the development of branch campuses without national policies and the emirates’ corporation. However, this research is based on the premise that the UAE may be integrated. The viewpoint that each emirate has various rationales for the development of the free zone is absent. This paper provides the possibility of regional development through higher education in terms of Dubai’s economic strategy.

  Firstly, the background of higher education and the structure of the government authority in the UAE are investigated. The federal government holds authority over education. Authority over economic development is highly allocated to the emirates government because of diversity of natural resource environment. Federal law clarifies that MoHESR holds the authority to license the establishment of higher education institutions as well as accredit and supervise them. On the other hand, a free zone to attract foreign institutions reflects the main economic policy in Dubai because of the lack of natural resources. Thus, federal authority over higher education and the authority of the emirates for economic development overlap in the free zone in terms of higher education.

  Next, the development of quality assurance by CAA is investigated by analyzing “standards” as set by the CAA. The CAA (2005) regards branch campuses as private higher education institutions in the UAE, and regulates them with a “must statement” governing standards due to the overflow of institutions. The radical shift from the “must statement” to the 2007 “General Criteria” reflects a change in focus from the regulation of institutions to the improvement of institutions and programs. In 2011, the presence of branch campuses expected to operate within the UAE cultural context and federal regulation is clarified for the first time. With the Qualifications Framework Emirates to Standards, the focus was moved to student’s learning outcomes.

  This paper further examines the development of the quality assurance system in the Dubai free zone. With the beginning of the free zones in 2003, branch campuses were selected based on home countries’ rankings and the fiscal soundness of higher education providers. At present, the KHDA selects branch campuses while considering the needs of Dubai’s economic vision and labor market. In 2008, the UQAIB was established by the KHDA and adopted (View PDF for the rest of the abstract)