Jamaican policy makers have prioritized literacy improvement as a matter of urgency within the educational milieu. This has become even more intense during the past decade with initiatives being mandated and implemented to promote this cause. One such initiative is the establishment of literacy research and development centres in two teacher-training colleges with a prime mandate to prepare a special group of teachers to extend literacy improvement efforts in Jamaican schools.

The barrage of new trends and new foci in language teaching and learning can create a sense of unease among language educators, pulling them in many directions, as linguistic, cultural, technical, and educational considerations compete for time and space in their conceptual frameworks. It is a feeling shared by all those who are engaged in second language acquisition (SLA).

The Caribbean region has long been in desperate need of professional persons who can address its burgeoning mental health problems. This need has been addressed only minimally and relatively recently by the establishment of a training programme in psychiatry in the Faculty of Medical Sciences (of the University of the West Indies, UWI) in 1965. The small numbers of psychiatrists who have been trained in this programme have been insufficient to meet the mental health needs of the region.

This article provides an overview of over two decades of anti racism policy and practice in Britain, the USA and Canada, and its ineffectiveness in providing equitable education for African Caribbean and other students of minority races. Contributing to this failure are such factors as a serious lack of accountability infrastructure for policy implementation, white teachers’ perspectives on race and meritocracy, and their contestation of anti racism on pedagogical and ideological grounds.

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the first publication of the Caribbean Journal of Education. The need for a Caribbean journal focused on educational issues had become apparent especially after the School of Education was established at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in 1972. In the first issue of the journal, the Dean of the newly established School, Professor R. N. Murray, outlined the reasons for establishing the Journal and the purposes that it would achieve.

The aim of the Caribbean Journal of Education is to stimulate thought and discussion about issues in education that affect Caribbean people in the region and worldwide. The Journal publishes articles that define education in the broadest sense—peer reviewed papers that examine controversial issues from a socio-cultural, historical, or philosophical perspective, as well as reports of research that employs a variety of research methods. Papers that focus on learning in both school and non-school settings, and articles that present critical analyses of education and schooling are encouraged.

The purpose of critical inquiry is to 'offer critiques of our world that allow us to transform it' (Baez, 2007: 18). Inthis article it is argued that limiting critical inquiry to qualitative techniques is fallacious. The critical theorist seeks to understand the experiences of individuals and groups in light of social prescriptions and cultural constraints (Stage, 2007). Lamiell (2003) noted that the scientific objective of quantitative methods was alwaysto ascertain an understanding of human experiences andto gain insight into the workings of the human mind.

This paper deals with women, education and development in India. It sketches the development in women's education in the current context in India and shows that higher school enrolment has led to better jobs for women, a lower fertility rate and overall benefits in nutrition and health for the family. However, higher education levels have not necessarily translated into higher status for women because societal attitudes are hard to change.The overall question this paper aims to address is: What really matters when evaluating human well-being?

This paper reflects on the ways in which traditional notions of literacy are being challenged by new technologies, arguing that alongside a re-conceptualization of literacy, educators need to re-think literacy curriculum content and their approaches to teaching. Taking a view of literacy as a social practice, it discusses how increasing numbers of people in technologically rich environments are taking opportunities to produce complex digital texts as part of their everyday life.