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This book sets out to bring voices of the South to the debate on localization of education and makes the case that it should be considered a right in education. Despite all the scientifically-based evidence on the improved quality of education through the use of a local language and local knowledge, English as a language of instruction and "Western" knowledge based curriculum continue to be used at all educational levels in many developing nations. This means that in many African countries, the goal of rights to education is becoming increasingly remote, let alone that of rights in education. With this understanding and with the awareness of the education challenges of millions of children throughout Africa, the authors argue that local curriculum through local languages needs to be valued and to be preserved, and that children need to be prepared for the world in a language that promotes understanding. The authors make a clear case that policy makers are in a position to work towards a quality education for all as part of a more comprehensive right-based approach. We owe it to the children of the South to offer the best quality education possible in order to achieve social justice. This book convincingly erases any doubt that a rupture from this historical legacy is necessary in order to counter elitism and rediscover pathways to quality education through the promotion of local languages grounded in a contextually relevant and rights based education system. The various contributions cohere into a vital read compellingly linking issues of language, power and rights in education. This compilation must be read by African policy makers, language planners, educationists and all who are concerned with human rights as well as those wanting to understand the continuing 'underdevelopment' of African societies. Salim Vally, Director of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. In focusing on the right as well as the need to indigenize linguistic and curricular contexts in Africa education, this new book achieves the two occasionally parallel but often intersecting objectives of de-Europeanizing African schooling while at the same, clearing the deck for the decolonial re-voicing of emergent epistemic and pedagogical platforms that should constitute the sine qua non of educational well-being for the masses of this ancient continent. It is a timely, well-constructed work that should benefit students, specialized researchers, policy makers and the general public inside and outside Africa. Ali Abdi, Professor of Education and International Development at the University of Alberta, Canada. As we move towards defining the Post 2015 education and development agenda, it is critical that we revisit the issue of "Right for quality education for All". It is refreshing to know that through this book Zehlia Babaci-Wilhite and other colleagues are putting the use of the African languages and cultures of the learners and their communities as at the center of the policies geared towards promoting access to quality education to all African learners. I recommend "Giving Space to Africa Voices: Rights in Local Languages and Local Curriculum" to all policy makers and practionners engaged in the Post 2015 Education debate. Professor Hassana Alidou, Director and Representative UNESCO Regional Office Abuja, Nigeria.

This book aims to enhance understanding of school choice as a supra-national travelling policy, explored in two strikingly different societies: Latin American Chile and North European Finland. Chile was among the first countries to implement school choice as a policy, which it did comprehensively in the early 1980s through the creation of a market environment. Finland introduced parental choice of a school on a very moderate scale and without the market elements in the mid-1990s. Predominant aspects of Chilean basic schooling include provision by for-profit and non-profit private and municipal organisations, voucher system, parental co-payment and ranking lists. Finland persists in keeping education under public-authority governance and free-of-charge, and in prohibiting profit making and rankings. The wide range of sociologists of education contributing to this book offer novel analyses and perspectives on the operation of school choice in Chile, the trailblazer, and Finland, the 'European PISA leader'. Agnès van Zanten's description of how school choice operates as a major dimension of social reproduction sets the scene. After that, Chilean and Finnish authors explore how the policy is displayed and used explicitly for very different societal purposes, although implicitly following similar patterns in the two countries with their histories, politics and cultures. Empirically the focus is on how families view and act on school choice. The research material includes large surveys, interviews and ethnographic data gathered in urban Chile and Finland. Capitalising on the concept of dynamics, the book concludes with some insights into how this globally travelling education policy has materialised in two apparently dissimilar societies and their localities.