The case for investing in secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): challenges and opportunities

Over the next two decades, sub-Saharan Africa will face substantial pressure to expand its secondary education system. This is driven by the current low development of secondary education compared to other world regions, continued rapid population growth, the increase in the enrolment and completion rates at the primary education level, and the upsurge in the demand for skills. This paper suggests that in order to help countries respond to these pressures, external partners should now increase their support for secondary education, in terms of academic as well as technical and vocational skills training. Given the attributes of the African economies and the continuing need for foundation skills, this paper argues that in the current situation, particularly the lower secondary level will have to be strengthened, in many cases through a longer basic education cycle for all. The necessary rapid expansion of secondary education will require substantial investments, and this paper discusses how aid allocation can be made more evidence-based and used in a more strategic way to make these investments more effective and sustainable. While aid will continue to have a role to play over the next decade especially in fragile states, in the long run it is African countries’ capacity to achieve sustained economic growth which will be the single most important factor determining their ability to meet the financing needs.     

Making Explicit the Analysis of Students’ Mathematical Discourses – Revisiting a Newly Developed Methodological Framework

Sfard and Kieran [Kieran, C., Educational Studies in Mathematics 46, 2001, 187–228; Sfard, A., Educational Studies in Mathematics 46, 2001, 13–57; Sfard, A. and Kieran, C., Mind, Culture, and Activity 8, 2001, 42–76] have developed a methodological framework, which aims at characterizing the students’ mathematical discourses while they are working in groups. In this study, I focus on an important aspect of this methodological framework, namely the interactive flowcharts. The aim of this study is to suggest two complementary analyses for the construction of the interactive flowcharts: an additional analysis by means of the analytical construct of contextualization as well as an analysis of types of mathematical discourses. Based on data from a study of how four groups of Swedish engineering students collaboratively construct concept maps in linear algebra. I show that the two complementary analyses make the construction of the interactive flowcharts more coherent and transparent, and hence, more reliable. Furthermore, the two complementary analyses dramatically changed the picture as to whether the studied discourses were to be seen as mathematically productive or not. In the end of the article, I discuss the possibilities of performing the suggested additional analyses within the original methodological framework.     

Close Strangers or Strange Friends? The London Olympics and Anglo-Norwegian Sports Relations in a Historical Perspective

This article studies similarities and disparities between the two nations England and Norway as they could be observed before and during the London 2012 Olympics, and discuss them in the historical perspective of geopolitical and sportive relations. The main perspective is how these relations have been seen and experienced from Norway. The article also studies whether the London Olympics of 2012 did present new forms of relationships between the two geographical neighbours. The article discusses the role of ball games, preferably team handball at the 2012 Games, as one example of where sporting interests differ. The article reflects upon these matters in a historical context. It builds upon traditional historical methods, document and media analysis. It also looks at the 2012 London Olympics against the background of the former London Games of 1908 and 1948, and the overall historical sports relations between England, ‘land of sport’ and a small country like Norway, who generally has been on the receiving end of these interchanges. Such asymmetric relationships invite to a critical use of perspectives like cultural imperialism and post-colonialism. The article discusses whether such perspectives can be fruitful also when one discusses matters between the so-called First World nations. As the title of the article indicates, Norway and England are both close, politically and culturally, while also being strangers to one another, e.g. in parts of the sports culture. The 2012 Olympics seemed to reinforce this impression.     

Modellierung und kartographische Visualisierung von Geodaten mit XML-basierten Sprachen

Zusammenfassung Mit den XML-basierten Sprachen GML, XSLT und SVG lassen sich Geodaten nicht nur anwendungsorientiert modellieren, sondern auch karten?hnlich visualisieren. In dieser Fallstudie zeigen wir das, indem wir realistische Geodatenbest?nde der Landesvermessungs?mter zun?chst mit der Geography Markup Language (GML) nachmodellieren. So mit GML strukturierte Daten werden dann mit der Extensible Stylesheet Language for Transformation (XSLT) auf Elemente der Sprache Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) abgebildet. Dabei wird der Prozess der kartografischen Visualisierung durch XSLT-Konstrukte modelliert und auch gleichzeitig implementiert. Als Ergebnis erhalten wir Grafiken, die den entsprechenden Karten der Landes?mter zumindest nicht un?hnlich sind.

---

Using the XML-based languages GML, XSLT and SVG, we modeled German geo data and also visualized it in map-like graphics. This case study shows the feasibility of that approach, by modelling the data with the Geography Markup Language (GML). Then, the GML-structured data is mapped with the Extensible Stylesheet Language for Transformation (XSLT) to elements of the language Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). The process of cartographical visualization is thus modelled through XSLT-constructs and at same time also implemented. The results are graphics, which share close ressemblance to the corresponding maps of the official offices.

CR Subject Classification I.3.3,I.3.5,I.6.5,I.7.2,J.2