The external agenda of aid in internal educational reform

This paper examines the recent orientation of educational aid policy away from enclave projects managed and protected by special donor-controlled units to interventions which support locally developed education policies and which are implemented through local sustainable institutions. Structural adjustment involves the international agencies in encouraging and assisting national governments to create their own development priorities and establish institutions of governance which can effectively direct and control sectoral activities. The World Bank and other agencies have in recent years examined the educational needs of Africa in particular and have initiated programmes of local capacity building to encourage national policy and management development. The paper explores the meaning of capacity building and its relation with local capacity utilization. The anomaly of donor policies which set out to liberate governments from donor influences is pointed out, together with the need for donor agencies to define more clearly their own policies and to subject them to the same sorts of analysis which they are advising for recipient governments.     

What's missing from the national agenda for school reform? Teacher professionalism and local initiative

The author argues that the many recent reports on schools signify a renewed emphasis on social Darwinism. In noting that the reports are numerous and calls for reform vehement, Noblit suggests that the emerging agenda is neither starting nor new. By characterizing this reform agenda as both inappropriate and impotent, Noblit argues that the concepts of quality and excellence are misconceived, as are the means and actors needed to create excellence. Noblit concludes by developing an alternative reform agenda based on teacher professionalism and local initiative.This article is a revised version of a paper prepared for the American Educational Studies Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, November 1985.     

Future-perfect/present-imperfect: Contemporary global constraints on the implementation of a post-2015 education agenda

A future-perfect global education agenda is currently being designed. Much extant research investigates the past-imperfect implementation of successive waves of global education goals. This article is based on a study that investigated the ways in which formal policy commitments in a post-MDGs agenda may be constrained by contemporary global policy practices. Using narrative analysis of interview data from key global policy actors, I argue that future policy will be constrained by: first, the assumptions that currently underlie global policy actors’ narratives of quality and equity; and second, new consensual aid implementation mechanisms that monitor narrow definitions of quality.     

Policy into practice in Hong Kong pre-primary kindergartens: the impact of a reform agenda viewing early childhood as the foundation for lifelong learning

In this paper we outline the provision of pre-primary education in the Hong Kong SAR and discuss how the educational reform initiatives of 2000 (Learning to Learn) and global imperatives provided the impetus to reshape a new educational approach to early childhood education. We use the example of a half-day pre-primary (kindergarten) programme to illustrate the ways in which policy and guidelines are enacted and how they appear to reflect all the attributes of the reform movement that have adopted contemporary ideas from the international educational arena. We highlight the interpretations and enactments of these new educational imperatives in a system that has a long history of different cultural pedagogical traditions that often do not resonate with western pedagogical approaches.     

Conclusion and agenda for item research

This chapter integrates the previous chapters of this issue by presenting a holistic view on the development and implementation of SISs. This is done by discussing the elements of this innovation process. Subsequently, an agenda for future research in the field of ITEM is presented.     

Presidential debate questions and the public agenda

Presidential debates have become an institutionalized component of presidential campaigns. Debates have been shown to create learning in voters and are capable of influencing vote choices. Although candidates have some control over their utterances, questions, usually asked by journalists, have a strong influence on the topics candidates can address. It is fashionable to criticize the questions posed by journalists in these “joint press conferences.” This study adds a new twist to media agenda‐setting, providing empirical evidence on the question of whether voters’ issue interests influence the topics of journalists’ questions. Results show that the questions asked by journalists in debates do not reflect the public interest. We recommend that future debates eschew the use of journalists as sources of questions for presidential debates.     

Toward a post-modern agenda in instructional technology

“Post-modernists look to the past and future equally and position themselves in the present, seeing time as a broken continuum in need of acknowledgement” (Jencks, 1992b, p.6). Traditional views in instructional technology are often based on the application of scientific knowledge. Post-modernism, an alternative paradigm, questions whether science alone offers the best approach to teaching and learning. Post-modernism holds promise for guiding research and development in instructional technology.; however, its potential contributions to the field require clarification. Accordingly, cogent definitions of post-modernism have been constructed—from an instructional technologist's point of view—and implications for the field have been presented to address the concerns of critics. This paper received the 1999 ETR&D Young Scholar Award and the author notes that the termpost-modern shall be hyphenated to symbolize “the continuation of Modernism and its transcendence” (Jencks, 1995, p. 30). David Solomon is completing his dissertation in the Instructional Technology program at Wayne State University. In addition to teaching college students at the secondary and postsecondary levels, he has more than 13 years experience designing, developing, and implementing instruction and performance improvement solutions for multinational and privately held businesses, and can be reached.     

Economics of education: A research agenda

The paper presents a systematic taxonomy of research areas in the economics of education and gives a number of key topics that deserve more research attention in the future. Emphasis is put on documenting the unit cost of education at different schooling levels and curriculum types, along with the learning and earning outcomes of education. Evidence on the costs and benefits, from both the private and the social point of view, can lead to efficiency and equity assessments of an educational system. Among topics where the research effort should be intensified are the screening hypothesis, measuring education externalities and the quality of schooling.     

Teacher Leadership: towards a research agenda

This article explores the emerging discourse about teacher leadership in the UK. It draws upon the international literature in exploring a classification of forms of teacher leadership and discusses issues concerned with the policy context. It considers some theoretical perspectives on distributed leadership before going on to examine in detail a possible framework of factors affecting teachers' capacity to exercise leadership. Finally it puts forward a proposal for research.