CULTURE-SUDAN: The Fall and Rise of English

Crumbling masonry, peeling paint and dusty patches where once were manicured lawns...The University of Khartoum has worn poorly under the searing Sudanese sun – as much as the language that the buttoned-up colonialists who built it came to spread.

EDUCATION: Lessons For Providing Adequate Schooling in Africa

Various African governments received a stinging rebuke this week for failing to live up to promises to improve children’s education in their countries.

EDUCATION-SOUTH AFRICA: Are Preschoolers Getting Their Due?

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man," goes the old Jesuit saying – an advertisement, if ever there was one, for the virtues of preprimary education.

TECHNOLOGY-CAMBODIA: Ingenious Efforts Widen Road to Information

Situated on Cambodia's border with Laos and Vietnam in the north-east, Ratanakiri province is a largely unspoiled Eden of densely forest-covered hills and mountains, pristine rivers, streams, thousand-year old crater lakes and waterfalls.

EDUCATION-BALKANS: Darwin Survives, After All

Within a few days of declaring that Darwin's theory of evolution was being banned from Serbian schools, the government has reversed the controversial decision.

EDUCATION: Foreign Universities Eye Chinese Students’ Full-Fees

Cutthroat competition at Chinese universities and a bleak labour market are driving thousands of Chinese students to buy higher education abroad, making the country the biggest source of foreign students in the world.

IRAQ: Learning New Lessons, And Some Old Ones

As almost six million Iraqi children prepare to start their second year at school away from the shadow of Saddam Hussein's regime, officials see major challenges ahead.

EDUCATION-INDIA: Poor Students Make Their Way into Posh Schools

When Anshu began attending the nursery of one of Delhi's 260-odd private schools this month, she became a pioneer of sorts.

RIGHTS: Kenya Sacks Teachers Who Sexually Abuse Their Pupils

With only one year left for African countries to achieve gender parity in schools, doubts are beginning to be cast on whether Kenya will be able to meet its deadline.

JAPAN: Rebel Teachers Spark Debate About Identity Crisis

Nearly 60 years after it renounced the militarism of the 1930s and 40s, at the end of World War II, Japan still cannot decide what kind of country it wants to be. And this has manifested itself in the current row over the singing of the national anthem in schools.

EDUCATION: Making Another World Possible

The World Education Forum (WEF), which ended Saturday in this southern Brazilian city, put into practice one of the guidelines included in its final document: giving young people a greater role in the production of knowledge.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Caught in the Crossfire

It was incredible that she was not injured and no one was killed. Gloria Ramírez had just left her office and got into her car, accompanied by two bodyguards, when the shooting started. Miraculously, only one of her bodyguards was wounded, in the hand, despite the countless number of rounds fired.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: The Painful Path From Schoolteacher to Activist

Twenty-seven years separate the start of Estela de Carlotto's teaching career and the second stage of her life, in which she became an activist with Argentina's ''grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo'' who have spent years searching for their missing grandchildren.

EDUCATION: Teachers of the World – United and Underpaid

Education is facing a paradox today: students are not learning, despite the enormous accumulation of educational theories and the technology available to many schools and teachers.

VENEZUELA: Rum Maker Gives Troubled Youths a Second Chance

Late one night in January 2003, pistol in hand, Derwin 'Lion Face' and 'Fattie' José Gregorio stole a watchman's gun and radio equipment at Ron Santa Teresa, the leading rum maker in central Venezuela, and disappeared down the narrow passageways of a nearby slum neighbourhood.

POLITICS-US: Minority Students Could Lose Free Med School in Cuba

New travel restrictions to Cuba imposed by the Bush administration would abruptly terminate the education of 80 U.S. students - mostly black and Hispanic - studying medicine in Havana at the expense of the Cuban government.

EDUCATION-INDONESIA: Mobile Laboratory Brings Science Closer

Across Indonesia, many schools are not equipped with science laboratories. But the government's introduction of a mobile laboratory could be the solution.

EDUCATION-LATIN AMERICA: Another Lost Decade?

Teachers in Bolivia earn just 100 dollars a month, and 60 percent of adolescents in Argentina drop out of high school. Given such statistics, is it really possible for Latin America to reach the goal of providing quality education for all by 2015?

EDUCATION-US: Teachers Who Aided in Crisis Face Visa Problems

Hundreds of Caribbean teachers who helped to alleviate a severe teacher shortage in New York City's public schools three years ago may be sent packing by the end of July, victims of snags in the visa renewal process.

EDUCATION-AFRICA: Breaking the Link Between Pregnancy and Dropping Out

Teenage pregnancy has often dealt a mortal blow to the educational aspirations of girls in Africa. But, laws compelling schools to re-admit these young mothers could hold the key to solving this problem.

EDUCATION-KENYA: ‘Schooling for All’ an Empty Slogan for Disabled Children

The introduction of free primary education in Kenya has been hailed in the country. However, it appears that disabled children are not benefiting from the programme, because government has failed to equip schools to meet their needs.