Education in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Netherlands Antilles

Description

Education in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Netherlands Antilles provides a contemporary survey of education development and key educational issues in the region. The chapters cover: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, the Netherlands Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, Saint Eustatius and Saint Maarteen), Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The book includes discussions of the impact of local, regional and global occurrences, including social, political and geographical events, on education systems and schooling in the region. As a whole, the book provides a comprehensive reference resource for contemporary education policies in the Caribbean, and explores some of the problems these countries face during the process of development. It is an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers at all levels.

Emel Thomas is Senior Lecturer in Education, Children and Young People at the University of Northampton, UK.

Education in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Netherlands Antilles does, indeed, furnish a multi-faceted view of schooling in island societies. I very much enjoyed the book's diverse perspectives towards schooling. I believe the volume readily fulfils the editor's hope that it will not only provide readers with ''information on specific Caribbean countries, but, more importantly, stimulate debates, discussions, and research that inspires all to examine education in the 'local' context". -- R. Murray Thomas * International Review of Education * This highly informative collection makes an important contribution to the literature on education in the Caribbean region. It draws upon locally grounded research and insightful theoretical analyses. In doing so, this book plays a valuable role in bringing the perspectives and experience of small states into the international arena. -- Michael Crossley, Professor of Comparative and International Education, University of Bristol, UK This is a truly user-friendly manual, authored by a range of knowledgeable essayists who, cooperatively, have managed to efficiently capture in one volume the eclectic temperament that delineates education in the Commonwealth Caribbean and Netherlands Antilles. Exceptionally enlightening and interesting, it eschews many of our cultural ethnocentric misconceptions - a boon for the notion of cultural relativity. Policy-makers, practitioners, academics, general readers - and politicians - will want and ought to have their personal copy. -- Francis O. Severin, Director, The University of the West Indies, Open Campus Country Sites This book, edited by Emel Thomas, is a timely compendium of resources on Caribbean education. Twenty-two valuable research essays by experts from a wide range of countries discuss how the societies of the Commonwealth Caribbean and Netherlands Antilles made significant gains, after colonialism, in modernizing education. Some essays also critique current barriers to progress as well as recommend reform, providing a welcome stimulus to debate and further research. * Anne Hickling-Hudson, Adjunct Professor of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Australia *