The world is changing and becoming complex on a daily basis. The quality of education is also declining since teachers cannot cope with rapid changes in society in this information age (dot.com students). Students are becoming complicated and difficult to manage; teachers trained in traditional methods cannot manage these students. In most developing countries colonial teacher training curriculum is used which brings about a mismatch between theory and practices in teacher training colleges and the world of work. Teachers in both primary and secondary schools need continuous professional development/refresher courses and probably there is need to train teachers using different approaches.

The quality of teacher education is declining and yet not much in terms of research has been done in recent years. There is need to identify the best model for training teachers which can be adopted by others. This calls for a study of teacher education models internationally. In addition factors affecting quality of teacher education need to be explored as this would be essential knowledge for teacher trainers and policy makers. Financing higher education is a burning issue in most developing countries and researchers might be interested in exploring this topic and how it impacts on the training of teachers.

Research funds may not be easily available to researchers in developing countries and joint networking and cooperation will be most appropriate for this matter. Research is an important component of teacher education where a teacher educator reflects on his/her practices and continue to improving the quality of their competences. Reflection and critical thinking, teamwork, effective communication and ICT, to mention a few are new trends in education which teacher educators can use in improving quality of education. Responding to the above issues is an attempt to address the sustainable development goals and this affirmed by Michaela Martin (2016), in the IIEp Letter where he argues that higher education being interdisciplinary in nature has the capacity to address the Sustainable Development Goals advocated by UNESCO.

This call for papers is intended to motivate and empower researchers and educations scholars as well other stake holders in education to reflective papers on this theme.

Mathematics performance of students is still a challenge to other countries. The top five performing countries in TIMSS 2015 out of 59 participating countries continue to be Asian countries such as Singapore, Korea, Chinese Tapei, Hong Kong, and Japan. Some countries have made strides of improvement as reported in TIMSS 2015 but still perform below the TIMSS center point of 500 average score except Australia and Sweden. This performance challenge is influenced by many factors. One of the important factors is the quality of mathematics teaching provided to the students followed by the economic status variable that seem to become stronger with the time. Quality early childhood mathematics provision has also become a significant factor in increasing mathematics performance (TIMSS 2015, Spaull, 2011). Hence, this call focuses in early childhood mathematics stimulation.

This issue aims to elicit how the low socio economic status of students has been used as an excuse by educational systems that fall short in providing quality mathematics teacher training for early years of schooling. The teacher qualifications and the training provided for teachers of young children lack preparation for mathematics teaching (Feza, 2016, Fronseca and Peterson, 2015). The admission criteria used to enroll teachers of young children does not consider mathematics knowledge; hence the quality of provision received by learners continues to be of low level (Schmidt et al, 2008, 2013). This issue therefore seeks to use empirical studies in arguing for quality teacher training that requires mathematics as an important subject for human development in all nations. Literature on mathematics performance indicate intensively the variation of training programmes offered within countries and across countries that influence the inequities observed in mathematics performance of students (Schmidt et al, 2011, Blömeke, 2012).

Levelling the teaching field in mathematics: A call for papers looking at early childhood mathematics stimulation practices and the needs of educators to provide quality stimulation.

The quality of teaching of mathematics and science is one of the key national imperatives for both developing and developed countries primarily because mathematics and science provide the backbone future developments. Due to globalization and free movement of people the mathematics and science classes have increasingly become diverse in culture, language, and student abilities. Therefore, reforms in education, particularly research in the teaching of mathematics and science should take cognizant of the latter. This special issue of this journal seeks to invite articles, both theoretical and empirical, focusing on innovative methods on the teaching of mathematics and science particularly in schools. In addition, this issue welcomes articles that surface and critically engage with the current trends in mathematics and science teaching.

Since Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) gained their independence in 1991, the system of education in each country has gone over significant changes in both procedures and curriculum development.

The purpose of this issue is to present how educational systems evolved during the last 24 years of independence, highlighting the contemporary transformational processes.

The essential scope of this Special Issue - Ethics in research - theme proposed for the special issue of the Education Journal seeks to highlight the fundamental ethical dilemmas facing the investigator who acts and intervenes in the educational context (e.g. privacy and confidentiality, the consent process, values, deception, the use of quantitative and qualitative methods).

It's main purposes are allow teachers and researchers of the educational community may reflect upon the fundamental ethical principles that should guide the conduct of the professional of education, give knowledge of the current ethical dilemmas in research in education and the importance of ethics committees regarding research projects, and finally, present an international perspective of ethics in research in education through different countries.

In this sense, this Special Issue will allow to all of those who seek being informed of the main issues of research ethics in education find the most relevant and current information about research ethics.

It is important that learners acquire mathematical understanding by constructing their own meaning through ever-increasing levels of abstraction, starting with exploring their own personal experiences, understandings and knowledge. It is aimed at mathematics educators at all levels of education, providing a medium for stimulating and challenging ideas, offering innovation and practice in all aspects of mathematics teaching and learning. It presents articles that describe or discuss mathematics teaching and learning from the perspective of the practitioner.

The first phase in designing user Interface which should be considered is availability of software to different types of users. Moreover, it is important to anticipate the possibility that the children who attend inclusive teaching can use software, too.

It is important to estimate the state, detect the problems and perspectives of education development by competent experts and teachers as well as the influence of education development on society development as a whole.

There is a need to analyze the state of the educational system in world, and use of educational software in teaching.

Musical gesture covers an extensive research area that concerns movements, direction, space, flow within notation, and action in a performance. Gesture plays an important role as an intermediary, such as between performers and audience or instructor and student. Research in music and gesture is growing rapidly and this special issue aims at pedagogical perspectives on bridging music and gesture. This issue aims to connect research and practice, not limited to the context of the academic institution and its curriculum but also to include instrumental pedagogy, transmission of world music and so forth. This special issue covers not only music pedagogical research, but also study on the use of music and gesture in sports, dance, theatre, psychology etc.