How to use ISDN Video‐Conferencing to Develop Efficient Remote Education and Corporate Training

Abstract

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is available today in Macau and has been since 1997. It is emerging as a mainstream telecommunications network that will serve a wide variety of users’ needs. It has improved service capabilities, reduced costs and improved productivity for Macau organizations, both large and small. The following are short notes on possible uses.     

Educating Teachers for the Information Era

Abstract

This paper seeks to summarize efforts made by the Faculty of Education of the University of Macau to inculcate computer literacy in teachers in Macau in preparation for the information era. Based on one programme of study proposed by the National Research Center for Computers in Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, the paper summarizes the course objectives, as well as the concepts and skills required to ensure sustainable development of information technology in China. To educate teachers throughinformation technology, it is envisaged that two kinds of activities are required: (1) construction of web‐based learning environments, (2) multimedia courseware authoring.     

Promoting national identity through higher education and graduate employment: reality in the responses and implementation of government policy in China

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, the Chinese government has called for deep collaboration between Hong Kong, Macau (the two special administrative regions of China) and cities in Southern part of the country to foster economic and social development across the region. More recently, the Chinese government initiated a strategic project to develop the Pan-Pearl River Delta region into a Greater Bay Area like successful bay economies in Tokyo and Florida. This article sets out against the wider policy context to critically examine the reality in the responses and implementation of government policy in China when serious attempts have been made to encourage students originally from Hong Kong and Macau to study in Chinese universities in the Mainland and look for career development upon their graduation. This article has found that the promotion of national identity through higher education and graduate employment has not been successful because of failure of policy coordination, policy interpretations and implementation.     

The management of participation in the policy‐making process: the case of the Education Commission in Hong Kong

In 1984 the Education Commission was established as a quasi governmental body to advise on all aspects of education policy in the colony. Within the Hong Kong context the Education Commission's establishment was novel for it created a single body to advise on all aspects of education policy and it involved a greater degree of public participation in the policy making process. This paper examines the motives for its establishment, the means by which the state maintained control of the policy making process and the impact of the policy measures initiated by the Education Commission.     

HANDYNET ‐‐ The European Community Information Network on Disability

Abstract

HANDYNET is a live and vigorous project with a large ‘family’ of participants. Details of HANDYNET, and other European Commission projects for the handicapped, were published in the Commission of the European Communities Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Education publication Social Europe ‐‐ supplement 7/86 directed towards ‘The Social Integration of Disabled People’. This article on HANDYNET is an edited extract from the above supplement and in particular the splendid paper by Danielle Rimbert.     

The Development of a Multi‐media Distance Education Prototype

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show the state to which the initial work, the development, and the production of a multi‐media prototype has advanced in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. This prototype was commissioned by the Commission for Distance Teaching of the Department of Public Instruction of Geneva.     

Towards a network governance of European lifelong learning: a structural analysis of Commission expert groups

ABSTRACT

The influence of the European Commission (EC) expert groups on policy coordination within the European Union has received a growing interest among researchers, who have assessed their role in policy-making processes, their participation patterns, their transparency, and their knowledge-generating process. This article interrogates the structural configuration of the networks, and the relationships between the actors, formed through the Commission expert groups on adult learning, and under the Education and Training 2020 work programme, respectively, by means of a Social Network Analysis. So attention is paid on the mutual-constitutivness of a social network and its members, or the potential power within a network, and of a network, to influence member states’ domestic adaptation of communitarian policies. Our analysis points at noticeable differences between the connectivity of each of the Commission expert groups, and the groups emerging from the two forms of network governance these produce in the adult learning, and education and training domains. A key result, however, is that two actors (i.e. Flemish Department for Education and Training, Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland) stand out as fully embedded in both forms of network governance, and represent highly connected ‘informal’ brokers across policy domains.     

St. Deiniol's residential library,Hawarden, Deeside,Flintshire: Index of pamphlets on education

Abstract:

The concept of social reproduction of sets of advantages and disadvantages together with that of status group, is used to explore the evidence and thinking presented in the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb, etc. regarding the education of children with disabilities in 1889. Even though the evidence was ambiguous, models for the education of children with disabilities were laid down. Integration into mainstream elementary schools was recommended for the blind. Recommendations for deaf children were divided in allegiance with belief in the principles of either oralism or signing. The largest group numerically received the least attention in the Commission. The idea of feeble‐minded children as a product of social, economic and educational circumstances had its champion but was overwhelmed by the acceptance of the doctrine of the innate characteristics of the child's mind identifiable by medical science.     

A Case Study of a Community‐Based Transition Education Project∗

Abstract

In Australia, the needs of non‐tertiary bound students have been the focus of a number of special initiatives funded by the Commonwealth Schools Commission. One such intitiative, the Commonwealth‐State Transition Education Programme was designed to help students prepare for work while completing their schooling. In this paper, a particular transition education project is described and its effectiveness as an agent of whole‐school improvement is discussed.

     

Undergraduate Studies: motives and expectations

ABSTRACT

Universities in England and Wales have played a substantial role in teacher education for nearly a hundred years. Throughout this period their involvement in teacher education has been seen as a threat to the universities’ claims to status and autonomy. As a result the universities have regarded teacher education with ambivalence, an ambivalence which can be traced from the report of the Cross Commission in 1888 to the setting up of the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education in 1984.     

Relationship between teachers’ preferred teacher–student interpersonal behaviour and intellectual styles

This study examines the association between teachers’ preferred interpersonal behaviour in teaching and their thinking styles. A sample of 131 secondary teachers from Hong Kong (n = 94) and Macau (n = 37) participated in a survey to measure their preferred interpersonal behaviour by the questionnaire for teacher interaction (QTI) and their thinking styles by the thinking style inventory‐revised (TSI‐R). Results indicated that teachers in both regions preferred to employ student‐centred interpersonal behaviour (leadership, helpful and friendly, understanding and freedom teaching styles) in the classroom teaching. Teachers’ thinking styles were related to their preferred interpersonal teaching styles. Specific relationships were found between the types of thinking styles and their preferred teacher interpersonal behaviour among Hong Kong and Macau teachers.     

Frame Syllabus for Biology Teaching at Schools

Summaries

Engish

In 1973, the Association of German Biologists (Verband Deutscher Biologen) published a detailed frame syllabus for biology teaching at primary and secondary school level, covering the age range 6 to 18 years. The proposals were again discussed and evaluated in 1978 and confirmed as a basis for biological education in West German schools by the Schools Commission of the Association of German Biologists and representatives of all Bundeslander.

The frame syllabus represents a major contribution to the development of biological education in a European country and interest in it is likely to extend beyond FR Germany. For this reason, it is published in EJSE. Any comments or observations on the framesyllabus should be sent to Professor Schaefer.     

The ‘new vocationalism’: Further education and local labour markets

Current policies aimed at promoting a ‘new vocationalism’ through changes in vocational training in further education are based upon a particular functional model of labour market behaviour, which sees the relationships between technical qualifications, training and recruitment to jobs as unproblematic. In fact, however, this model bears little relationship to the realities of actual labour markets, especially given the enormous diversity which exists between economic conditions in different localities. What this implies, therefore, is that there are considerable tensions between the imperatives of a national training strategy, promoted centrally by the Training Commission (and previously by the Manpower Services Commission), and its local implementation mainly by the local education authorities and their colleges of further education. In many local labour markets, far from promoting closer responsiveness to the needs of employers, current policy initiatives may actually be making it more difficult for the colleges to react to employers' demands. These general arguments are illustrated here by reference to a large‐scale empirical study which was specifically designed to investigate the inter‐relationships between the labour market behaviour of employers and the implementation of the ‘new vocationalism’ in further education.     

Evaluation of the Experiment with the Activity Pro Gram in the New York City Elementary Schools

ABSTRACT

A Chinese database collected from a random sample of more than 12,000 ninth-grade students in an SISS Extended Study (SES), a key project supported by the China State Commission of Education in the late 1980s, was used in this study to investigate gender differences in student science achievement. In this empirical data analysis, which uncovered significant gender differences across the nation, male students received the higher scores (p < .0001). The results were interpreted in light of the educational, political, social, and cultural contexts of modern-day China.     

The charitable status of elite schools: the origins of a national scandal

ABSTRACT

The origins of the charitable status of elite schools in England is a neglected topic. This article reconstructs the debate on the funding of schools which led to the establishment of the Charity Commission in 1853 and argues that it was the obdurate refusal of the Anglican Church to surrender its control of secondary education which first delayed reform and then forced the compromise which resulted in the major public schools remaining outside the direct control of the new Commission. In conclusion, it argues that decisions which were taken in the mid-nineteenth century continue to resonate today, allowing elite schools catering for some of the richest families in the land to continue to operate as registered charities and benefit from significant financial support from the State. The article carries the implicit suggestion that this is but one of several controversial contemporary issues which might benefit from more detailed historical contextualisation.     

CONVERSATIONS WITH…: Environmental Educators A Conversation With Rick Wilke

Abstract

The Independent Commission on Environmental Education, a panel of scientists, economists, and educators, reviewed some 100 K-12 environmental education teaching materials used in America's classrooms. Its report has received considerable attention. This essay discusses the commission's formation, goals, findings, and recommendations, with special emphasis on areas within the report that have been a source of discussion within the environmental education field.     

Cross-border flows of students for higher education: Push–pull factors and motivations of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong and Macau

Within the context of broad literature on cross-border flows for higher education, this article examines the distinctive case of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong and Macau. These territories are a sort of bridge between the fully domestic and the fully international. Hong Kong and Macau higher education plays a dual role, as a destination in itself for higher education and as a stepping-stone for students’ further international development. Patterns in Hong Kong are slightly different from those in Macau, and the territories may thus be usefully compared with each other as well as taken as a pair for comparison with other parts of the world. The paper begins by noting the literature on the ways that push and pull factors influence student mobility, and then turns to motivations in pursuit of academic and professional growth, economic benefit, individual internationalisation, and enhanced social status. The paper shows that flows of mainland Chinese students are driven by both excess and differentiated demand. Analysis of the distinctive features of this pair of territories adds to wider conceptual understanding of the nature of cross-border flows for higher education.     

The Aims and Practice of Ethics Education in an Undergraduate Curriculum: Reasons for choosing a skills approach

In 1998 the author, working in the University of Glasgow Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences with European Commission funding, set out to design an integrated ethics approach in the undergraduate curriculum. This paper describes the choices made in relation to the aims and methods of teaching ethics in an undergraduate bioscience curriculum. The acceptable and reasonable aims for a ethics teaching are skills based: ethical sensitivity and moral reasoning. Behaviour/value and virtue/character approaches are rejected. An ideal ethics intervention would last 4-12 weeks and be based on studentcentred teaching methods involving student participation in ethical dilemmas.     

Three bolognas and a pizza pie: Notes on institutionalization of the European higher education system

Quietly, without attracting too much attention from educational sociologists in Europe, a massive process has been underway for five years that is expected to revolutionize European higher education to an unprecedented extent. Launched by a number of European governments and subsequently taken over by the European Commission, the so-called Bologna Process is expected to boost European higher education to the top of the world higher education markets by 2010. This article looks at the history of the Process and its connections to the process of constructing the federal Europe, and analyses its three agendas: cultural, political and economic. In the final section the issue of institutionalizing the European higher education system is discussed and problematized. It concludes that the contribution European intellectuals have made to the project is both sociologically naive and intellectually irresponsible.     

Hollis Leland caswell: An Appreciation

(Circa 2020 A.D.) The late 20th century was a time of great upheaval: political, economic, religious, cultural, geographic, and educational With hindsight, it appears such social convulsions were necessary and inevitable — a perspective those who lived through that era are less likely to share. Reflecting on the educational changes during the past thirty years are Peter Wisseman, executive director of the International Commission of Accreditation for Teacher Education, and Yolanda Herrick‐Dillard, Dean of the College of Education at the University By‐the‐Sea (formerly Auburn University)