Education in developing countries: the view from Mount Olympus

In a recent issue ofProspects we published a review of the World Bank's recent publication,Education Sector Working Paper. This publication represents a major policy statement by the Bank on the subject of education and significant (not to say radical) departure from previous policies. It is a document all the more important in view of the enormous funding power of the World Bank and the undeniable influence of its policies on national governments and even on international organizations. TheEducation Sector Working Paper, which has been generally welcomed in international circles, is certainly not without its critics both in the developing countries and in the industrialized world. We feel that at a time when there is a push for examining educational policies and concepts on an international level, we can contribute to the debate by publishing some criticism and rejoinder centring around the World Bank publication, much as we did in 1973 and 1974 on the subject ofLearning to Be, the report of the International Commission on the Development of Education. In this issue, therefore, we open the discussion with an article by Peter Williams, originally written for a one-day review meeting to consider the World Bank publication, held on 19 May 1975, at the University of London Institute of Education, and which he revised forProspects. The institute hopes to publish a report of its meeting, together with the papers, before the end of this year. Peter Williams' critique seems to us to be particularly interesting because it is based on the author's disagreement with the prevailing pessimism in the world, reflected by the World Bank, on the state of education in the developing nations. As always, our readers are warmly invited to contribute their reactions in any form they choose.     

Creating world-class universities: Implications for developing countries

Many countries are now creating world-class universities (WCUs) as essential parts of their higher education reform agendas, and as national goals. It is legitimate to ask whether every county that aspires to build a WCU can do so—especially developing countries. To answer this question, this paper provides a three-step framework. The first step in building a WCU is to understand its characteristics. The second is for the country to systematically assess whether it has the capacity to create a WCU by rationally appreciating the challenges it would face in creating one. Third, it must understand, given the challenges discovered in the second step, what to do to create a WCU. Considering this framework, only a few developing countries have the potential to foster a WCU. Thus it is difficult for many universities in developing countries to enter an existing market already occupied by well-developed education systems and universities.     

Health and schooling: evidence and policy implications for developing countries

Health and education are typically viewed as distinct topics from both the research and policy perspectives. Accordingly, the direct interactions between health status and education have been neglected in both research and policy making. The authors use survey data collected from students during the 1980s in Piaui, Ceara, and Pernambuco states as part of an evaluation of a major educational intervention program, EDURURAL, to investigate the complementarities of health with school attainment and cognitive achievement. A series of anthropometric measures for individual students in rural northeast Brazil are used in educational performance models. The promotion models and value-added achievement models both demonstrate the importance of students' visual acuity. Poor vision systematically leads to higher drop-out rates, more grade repetition, and lower achievement. The achievement models also point to the role of good nutrition.     

Issues and trends in qualitative research: Potential for developing countries

This article builds upon previous work carried out by the authors in the field of comparative and international education, with special reference to the implications of globalisation and contemporary methodological trends for educational research in developing countries. Distinctions are drawn between methodology and methods in exploring the potential and limitations of qualitative strategies for researchers, policy-makers and development assistance agencies. A review of contemporary trends and developments draws attention to a related volume of new work, the value of case studies of educational practice, the importance of context and the dangers of uncritical international transfer. The article also examines linkages between post-modernism and the interpretivist paradigm, issues of data analysis and validation, and the possible benefits to be gained from practitioner research and evaluation in the process of research capacity building in developing countries.     

INSET: prospects and practice in developing countries

Recent years have witnessed considerable growth of emphasis in the inservice education and training of educational personnel. It has come to be generally accepted that the pace of social and educational change makes preservice training an inadequate basis for long‐term professional competence, and that inservice training is an essential instrument for updating and upgrading staff. In contrast to preservice training, inservice courses can often be more easily related to the practicalities of the education profession, and several models of inservice training avoid removing staff from the workforce. Inservice practices are not usually without problems, however, many of which may be logistical and financial constraints arising from the decision to cater for trainees in their workplaces rather than in one central location.

This paper highlights some of these issues by reference to the experience of several less developed countries, and in particular by reference to practices in Papua New Guinea. For over a decade, university inservice courses have been organized in Papua New Guinea for school teachers and a variety of educational administrators. These programmes were developed independently of ‘main stream’ thinking on INSET, but analysis of their operation within a more general and contemporary theoretical context sheds useful light on issues of international interest.     

Mobiles for literacy in developing countries: An effectiveness framework

In recent years, the advent of low-cost digital and mobile devices has led to a strong expansion of social interventions, including those that try to improve student learning and literacy outcomes. Many of these are focused on improving reading in low-income countries, and particularly among the most disadvantaged. Some of these early efforts have been called successful, but little credible evidence exists for those claims. Drawing on a robust sample of projects in the domain of mobiles for literacy, this article introduces a design solution framework that combines intervention purposes with devices, end users, and local contexts. In combination with a suggested set of purpose-driven methods for monitoring and evaluation, this new framework provides useful parameters for measuring effectiveness in the domain of mobiles for literacy.     

Fight against corruption: The common mission for developing countries

This paper holds that an anti-corruption campaign in the process of modernization in developing countries must be sustained and systematic, and conformed, and geared to the whole modernization drive and be reconciled with economic development, social stability, improvement of efficiency and perfection of the legal system, with safeguarding and promoting the overall development of modernization as its purpose. Based on analysis of the characteristics of corruption among government officials, the present paper puts forward five measures to fight it. Anti-corruption program in a political campaign is of so great importance that proper measures should be taken. The success of this campaign lies largely in the balance between the evil forces behind corruption and the combined force of all the good people in and outside the government, who are behind the anti-corruption campaign. With the spread of corruption, the campaign should not be confined to the government itself; the participation and support, of non-governmental democratic institutions and organizations should be sought.     

Policies for teacher education in developing countries

This chapter discusses the context of the 1990 s in which teacher education policy has been formulated. The focus is on three of the areas that are pushing for change: a conceptual shift from teaching to learning, a focus on effective school results, and the implementation in many countries of systemic education reforms. Though reference is made to conditions and constraints affecting teacher education in developing countries, the discussion emphasizes policy in the Latin American region. Consideration is given to conditions for implementation and sustainability of what appears on paper as interesting policy orientations. The importance of networking and interchange is seen as an important factor for broadening policy formulation and learning from experiences in teacher education reform.     

Peripheries and centers: research universities in developing countries

The research university is a central institution of the twenty-first century—providing access to global science, producing basic and applied research, and educating leaders of the academe and society. Worldwide, there are very few research universities—they are expensive to develop and support, and the pressures of massification have placed priorities elsewhere. For developing countries, research universities are especially rare, and yet they are especially important as key ingredients for economic and social progress. This article argues for the importance of research universities in developing and middle-income countries and points out some of the challenges that such institutions face.