This major encyclopaedia “is designed as a descriptive survey of the national education systems of the world. It is a global report on the state of education in the dawn of the twenty‐first century.” Ambitious claims, but well‐founded. A total of 130 contributors provide essays on 233 countries, these essays ranging from 235 to almost 30,000 words. That means a set of substantial entries providing a lot of comparative descriptive data.
While contributors were allowed to vary things a bit as circumstances might demand, the basic structure of each country entry contains: history and background; constitutional and legal foundations; overview; pre‐school and primary education; secondary education; higher education; administration, finance and educational research; nonformal education; the teaching profession; summary; and a bibliography. A 13‐page foreword gives a world overview and highlights major issues.
The approach is intentionally descriptive, although naturally some comment and analysis appear in many entries too. Basic data prefaces each entry, giving some comparative factual information, such as literacy rate, number of schools, enrolments, student : teacher ratios and the like. A small number of graphs and bar charts within entries give more comparative statistical data. The contributors are, with very few exceptions, academics from North American universities. That probably increases the objectivity of the essays which, from the single volume examined, seem to maintain a consistently high standard of coverage and accuracy.
Education is universal, but this approach to its worldwide structure, policy and administration is more specialist. Those libraries which have used the first edition of 1988 will need to replace it with this, as it is now completely revised. I am uncertain of the likely users: obviously anybody interested in worldwide comparisons of educational opportunity, provision and practice; so, probably, users will be found as much in government agencies, international and cultural and aid agencies as in academia itself. This is a fundamental reference work which will retain its relevance for some time to come.
