The mission of ACHEA is to “promote the highest professional and ethical standards and the continuing development of the management capacity among those who have administrative and managerial responsibilities in higher education in the Caribbean by enhancing the skills of individual members through the provision of training and development programmes and opportunities for effective networking” (http://sta.uwi.edu/ACHEA/).

This double issue of the Journal of Education and Development in The Caribbean (JEDIC) honours Jossett Lewis‐Smikle, lecturer in Literacy Studies in the School of Education, University of the West Indies, Mona, who passed away in March 2013. Many in our university community and beyond will know of her unstinting commitment to literacy achievement in Jamaica through her teaching, research, curriculum development and community work.

For Cuban (1992), fundamental reforms are those which permanently transform, alter, or completely overhaul the educational process, and are not mere renovations. Many changes have to take place for these reforms to materialize. Fullan (1993) describes educational change as “an overlapping series of dynamically complex phenomena” (p. 21) that are uncontrollable in many respects. Change is not something that can be forced or mandated, he argues.

The Latin American reality reflects a continent full of contrasts where youth is expected to play a key role in the transformation of society. Demographic studies indicate that the percentage of young people in Latin America is greater than at any time in the past. These young people have witnessed a significant increase in opportunities for higher education in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, where student enrolment has doubled in less than two decades.

The study seeks to determine school constituents’ rating of the leadership dimensions of high-performing principals based on school types. A questionnaire developed surrounding nine dimensions was distributed to school constituents from 125 schools across Jamaica which included classroom teacher, grade coordinator, senior teacher, head of department, vice principal, board chairmanship, PTA president and education officer. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) generated four dimensions or factors that conceptualized leadership performance in effective principals.

International research supports the view that principals play an integral role in ensuring the effectiveness of educational programmes for students with disabilities through assuming the role of instructional leaders. This research is qualitative and utilizes phenomenology to explore principals’ experiences and decision-making practices in assessment, curriculum and instruction in special education. The researcher conducted indepth interviews, analyzed transcripts using content analysis, and grounded theory to extract themes which characterized principals’ practices at the four schools.

There is today an urgency to infuse technology into the curriculum, as technology is viewed as a pedagogical tool ideal for facilitating improvement in student performance and achievement (Bebell & Kay, 2010; Desai, 2008; Vrasidas & Glass, 2005; Yeung, 2010). The benefits identified are many, among them the possibility of providing varied, engaging and flexible environments for learning and increasing access to meaningful and effective resources (Yeung, 2010).

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) is an increasingly important innovation at all levels of the education system, including early childhood care and education (ECCE). This multisite, qualitative case study was designed to investigate the practice and ideology of data use at early childhood centres in the Caribbean island of Tobago. We analyzed DDDM using a sociological lens of practice and ideology as described by Lofland, Snow, Anderson, and Lofland (2006).

This paper discusses the technical, humanistic, and critical paradigms presented by Plumb and Welton (2001) in making the case that all three dimensions are essential to the education of individuals who will function effectively in a context of rapid social and technological change and numerous social problems.

This issue of the Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean contains articles that use a variety of methodologies and span countries in both the English-speaking Caribbean and Latin America. The article by Garcia Pena, Da Silva, Angelucci and Csoban, in fact, compares youth in higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Two of the articles were originally presented at the Biennial Conference on Education held at the University of the West Indies on the St. Augustine campus in Trinidad and Tobago in 2013.