Shoko Yamada

Nagoya University | Meidai · Graduate School of International Development

This article, with the aim of identifying elements that constitute the characteristics of an academic space within comparative education, analyzes how comparative education has been discussed and practiced in Japan, based on a questionnaire completed by 264 members of the Japan Comparative Education Society and classification of articles published...

In 1994 in Ethiopia, after the fall of the military regime that had been in power since 1977, a new constitution was adopted, and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) was officially established. This chapter examines the role that civic education has played in permeating the concept of democracy in a multi-cultural developing country...

This chapter will situate the global paradigm shift toward Post-Education-For-All (Post-EFA) not only in the policy trends in the field of international education development, but also in the academic context of international relations and comparative education. The chapter highlights three dimensions which characterize the paradigm shift; namely,...

Soft skills are an essential determinant of worker productivity. This study investigates the efficacy of a game-based soft skills training program conducted with 501 workers in Ethiopia's garment sector. The training was based on behavior modeling theory and included two board games and reflection activities to help participants connect and apply s...

Cross-border partnerships are increasingly important for higher education in the twenty-first century. While virtually all universities in the world, in their pursuit of internationalisation, strive to enter into partnerships with universities abroad, there is no synthesis of literature on the many case studies on such partnerships or the various m...

The authoritative ideas of what education should be like under the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 4) are constructed through discourse among key actors of the “international education community” at large. This article presents the evolution of international education discourse, comparing the periods before and after September 2015. The an...

In this paper, we highlight the outcomes of the training needs assessment and suggest some factors that enable or impede women to learn new skills and achieve higher productivity. First, we describe the characteristics of skills of workers depending on their workplace, comparing among firms and between those working in the formal sector and at home...

This paper is peer-reviewed and accepted for forthcoming publication in the International Review of Education journal. The authoritative ideas of what education should be like under SDG4 are constructed through the discourse among key actors of the “international education community”. This paper presents the evolution of international education di...

Since the UN passed its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there has been a seemingly commonsense equation between schooling and education, and access to quality schooling is considered to mean the assurance of educational rights. Against such an assumption, this paper demonstrates the complex nature of educational equity in the modern...

This is the editorial for the special issue titled "Skills for development revisited" of the International Journal of Educational Development. In 2012, IJED published a special issue on vocational education and training and development that reflected the sense of being at a potential turning point for policy, practice and research in this area as...

Japan has supported industrial human resource development in developing countries for over 50 years through official development assistance (ODA) provided by its government via the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Japanese private businesses, including the Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships (AO...

Using cross-sectional data on the varieties of skills and employers' demands for them, this paper examines determinants of wages in the garment sector in Ghana and Ethiopia. It found that the effects of cognitive and technical skills are consistent, while those of noncognitive and behavioral skills are important but in different ways depending on t...

Ethiopia is a fast-growing economy, and garment production is one of the key manufacturing sectors that drives it. Accordingly, to cultivate a higher skilled workforce in this sector, the Government of Ethiopia has expanded Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Regardless, complaints are ceaselessly heard from employers that their...

This chapter focuses on the Government of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in developing countries. We focus specifically on the assistance provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), as the organization mainly responsible for technical cooperation for TVET. W...

This chapter focuses on the Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships (AOTS), which has carried out training projects through public-private partnerships to meet the human resource development needs of private businesses investing overseas. This chapter compares AOTS with the Japan International Cooperation Agency...

Western classical epistemology holds that knowledge is formed by the subject's cognition of the object's meaning based on rational reasoning. Many disciplines that have developed since modern times, including education and psychology, are based on this individualistic, subject-object separation view of knowledge. In recent years, the role of the sc...

As sustainability gains popularity in public discourse, scholars have noted its diverse uses, multiple meanings, and contradictory outcomes. This paper explores how the current proliferation of the concept of sustainability stems in part from its varied normative appeals, which in turn motivate, legitimate, and unsettle its diverse mobilizations. A...

The paper contributes to the discussion of the effects of educational attainment and skills on labour market outcomes, especially in a fast-growing economy. The data are derived through the authors' unique skills assessment of 591 workers at 19 foreign-invested garment-production companies in Ethiopia, which allows for the analysis of the impact of...

As a means to break away from broad criticism of the mismatch between training and employment, the Skills and Knowledge for Youth (SKY) Project of Nagoya University contributes by providing concrete evidence of mismatches using the skills data collected uniquely by the project. The approach of the SKY Project is to contrast the skills possessed by...

In searching for the potential that lies in African societies, the chapters of this volume consider relationships between knowledge, education, and social structure from multiple angles, from a macro-continental scale to national education systems, schools, and local communities. The themes that cut across the chapters include education as a mode o...

In searching for the potential that lies in African societies, the chapters of this volume consider relationships between knowledge, education and social structure from multiple angles, from a macro-continental scale to national education systems, schools and local communities. The themes that cut across the chapters include education as a mode of...

This article focuses on the perception gaps between teachers and students of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) related to garment production and the reasons behind such gaps. Garment production is the priority sector for the Ethiopian government which plans to make it the driver of export-oriented growth. At the same time, it i...

Recent evidence indicates substantial heterogeneity in the returns to skills across countries, but only a few studies have explained the varying patterns in the return to skills. Using the 2013 STEP data for Ghana and Kenya, we estimate the causal effect of cognitive and noncognitive skills on a large set of labour market outcomes by controlling fo...

In this paper, we analyse the effects of workers' self-rated attitudinal skills and their performance on vocational skills tests on their wage. The survey was conducted with garment workers who had experience of less than three years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The constituting elements of atti-tudinal skills were examined using the questionnaire for...

Thanks to the concerted effort of the international community to promote basic education, which was driven by the Education for All (EFA) goals and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), indices of education in Africa have improved dramatically since the 1990s. Although the access to schooling was improved, there are still issues of quality related t...

In this paper, we analyze the factors which determine the levels of self-rated non-cognitive skills of workers and their occupational. The former skills were grasped by the questionnaire which ask workers to evaluate their attitude at work with five-point Likert scale. Meanwhile, the latter were captured by the practical skills tests designed by th...

Recently the Ethiopian economy has grown significantly. Accordingly, the government has prioritized industrial skills development and expanded technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Nevertheless, the unemployment rate for TVET graduates is high, and little scholarly effort has been expended to empirically identify the exact types a...

From 1910 to the 1930s, educating Africans was a major preoccupation in the metropole and in the colonies of imperial Britain. This richly researched book untangles the discourse on education for African leaders, which involved diverse actors such as colonial officials, missionaries, European and American educationists or ideologues in Africa and d...

The Ethiopian economy has grown significantly and the government has prioritized industrial skills development and expanded technical and vocational education and training (TVET). However, mismatches between the skills available and the skills required are widespread and the unemployment rate for TVET graduates is high. Little scholarly effort has...

This paper is to untangle the strategies of accumulating vocational skills and developing career from the perspectives of young students in TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) institutions in Kumasi, Ghana. The analysis is based on the questionnaire with 494 students who learn in the automobile-related courses (auto-mechanics, el...

This paper explores the convergence and divergence in the discourses and practices of comparative education in Japan, North America, and Greater China. Research demands, institutional settings, and social and historical background determine the nature of the research discussed and practiced in each place. Some particular patterns were identified in...

This chapter will examine the interplay among actors who took part in the process of consensus building towards a post-2015 education agenda via different channels of global governance, including both formal and informal channels. Most of the forums and entities established as part of the global governance structure are composed of representatives...

As the sole Asian country in the DAC donor community until South Korea joined in 2010, Japan has been struggling with the pressure to align with the norms and modalities of the community, while having a different history of aid from Western donors and desiring to be unique. This chapter untangles the domestic and international factors that have aff...

This chapter highlights the characteristics of Asia through the analysis of policy-related documents by five donor countries, namely Japan, South Korea, China, India and Thailand. It will also examine the roles played by regional bodies such as the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and ASPBAE (the Asia South Pacific Assoc...

As the target year of achieving Education for All development goals have approached in 2015, there were growing discussions about the post-EFA agenda in the international community of educational development. The process went parallel with that on setting the post-Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Regardless of the magnitude of discourse, this t...

As the target year of achieving Education for All development goals have approached in 2015, there were growing discussions about the post-EFA agenda in the international community of educational development. The process went parallel with that on setting the post-Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Regardless of the magnitude of discourse, this t...

It is only in the last 20 years that Africa has become a region to which Japanese official development assistance (ODA) personnel have attached significance. Until then, in its development aid programs, Japan long focused on Asian countries with which it has strong relationships, not only in terms of history and culture, but also economically and p...

A School Management Committee (SMC) is an administrative tool adopted in many developing countries to decentralise administrative and financial responsibilities at school level, while involving local people in decision-making and making education more responsive to demands. I question the assumption linking administrative decentralisation and popul...

In 1994 in Ethiopia, after the fall of the military regime that had been in power since 1977, a new constitution was adopted, and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) was officially established. This chapter examines the role that civic education has played in permeating the concept of democracy in a multicultural developing country e...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to untangle the domestic and international factors that have affected policy making and implementation of the Japanese Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), particularly in education, at different times in its history. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on analysis of governmental policy docume...

Purpose – This purpose of this paper is to provide the context in which this special issue is published. This special issue highlights the matters related to the Asian countries which provide assistance to developing countries for their advancement of education. There are an increasing number of donor countries which are formerly recipients of deve...

School-based management has been promoted in many developing countries as an effective means to decentralize educational administration and give decision-making authority to the school. In Ethiopia, too, the School Management Committees (SMCs) are formulated in all schools as a multiparty administrative body, with participation of community represe...

TICAD was held for the fourth time in 2008, raising unprecedented public interest about Africa in Japan attracting attention not only from aid, diplomatic, trade and research communities but also among the general public. Due to geographic distance and limited historical connection, it has always been a matter of debate as to why Japan should incre...

The book analyzed the responses of three east African countries – Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia – to the changes brought under the paradigm of EFA and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which spread the virtue of universal basic education and a new decision-making mechanism fostering partnership with external stakeholders. International environmen...

This chapter analyzes the epistemological debates among the members of the Japan Comparative Education Society (JCES). Changing perceptions about the location of the academic field of comparative education will be considered against the sociopolitical context which has surrounded comparative educationists since the 1990s. The authors also investiga...

In Ghana, the senior secondary education system is funded minimally by the government and depends heavily on costsharing by households. Schools charge various kinds of fees, which add up to six to ten times the amount the government has officially approved for the schools to collect from parents or guardians. Moreover, there are costs that are not...

This paper investigates the educational philosophy and practices of Achimota School, which was established in the Gold Coast Colony (the southern part of today’s Ghana) in 1927 as the governmental model school for leadership education. Achimota’s education aimed to develop leaders who were ‘Western in intellectual attitude’, ‘African in sympathy’....

Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy in the form of fee abolition has become popular in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the mid 1990s in order to achieve Education for All (EFA). Even after learning from the past, the current UPE policy is devoid of analytical studies on its impact and challenges beyond school enrollment. This...

This study explores the extent to which American educational ideas made an impact on policy‐making and practice of education in British African colonies between the two World Wars. The analysis re‐examines the apparent ‘borrowing’ of American black industrial education models for application in Africa. It is argued that, while the view that America...

Although global factors undeniably play a role in the adoption of Education for All (EFA) goals in any given country, it would seem that a great majority of studies on EFA tend to overlook the significance of local dynamics. The meaning of schooling is socially constructed, regardless of how the global consensus may wish to structuralize it. The ma...

This paper examines the socio-moralistic justification of vocational education in colonial and contemporary Ghana. In the international arena, vocational education has been justified in various ways (mostly in economic terms), but in Ghana, the primary reason for introducing vocational education has always been the development of socially appropria...

The paper investigates the educational philosophy and practices of Achimota School, which was established in colonial Ghana in 1927 as the governmental model school of leadership education. Achimota's education aimed at developing the character of leader who is ‘western in the intellectual attitude, but remained African in sympathy’. To fulfil this...

The aim of this paper is to provide a landscape view of the values and justifications of different types of vocational education, specifically in Africa. At first, the paper will review the justifications of vocational education. African governments often state that vocational education is the most efficient means to meet the manpower demand in the...