Artificial intelligence and education in China

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the political economy of artificial intelligence (AI) and education in China, through an analysis of government policy and private sector enterprise. While media and policy discourse often portray China’s AI development in terms of a unified national strategy, and a burgeoning geopolitical contestation for future global dominance, this analysis will suggest a more nuanced internal complexity, involving differing regional networks and international corporate activity. The first section considers two key policy documents published by the central Chinese government, which are shown to implicate educational institutions as influential actors in national and regional strategies for AI development, with a significant role in plans to train domestic expertise. The second section outlines three prominent private education companies: New Oriental Group, Tomorrow Advancing Life (TAL), and Squirrel AI. These companies are selected to represent important aspects of China’s development of educational AI applications, including the influence of a well-established private education sector, and a growing interest in international corporate activity. The paper concludes with the suggestion that while central government policy reserves a significant role for education in the national AI strategy, the private sector is utilising favourable political conditions to rapidly develop educational applications and markets.     

The emergence of a market-driven funding mechanism in K-12 education in British Columbia: creeping privatization and the eclipse of equity

Since 2002, British Columbia’s education system has undergone extensive change following amendments to the BC School Act (Bill 34). This article presents a critical analysis of policy changes to the K-12 education finance system, particularly the expansion of the legal capacity of school districts to create ‘school district business companies,’ a phenomenon that is unique within Canada. These companies enable public school districts to establish for-profit companies that operate at arm’s length from the school board, yet generate revenue from private sources to supplement government operational grants. This shift occurred in parallel with fiscal restraint measures that centralized control over the level of government funding while downloading inflationary and new costs to school boards. The result has been structural funding shortfalls for school districts across the province. Structural funding shortfalls, coupled with a push toward market-driven revenue generation, signaled to school districts that they needed to become more financially self-reliant. The authors argue that efficiency and adequacy (defined in financial terms) have eclipsed equity as priority values in BC education, and that ‘creeping privatization’ is undermining public support of public education. For the most part, these substantive changes have failed to stimulate a mass public outcry, and organized resistance comes from public sector unions.     

Knowledge and attitudes of secondary school teachers regarding sexual health education in England

Objective To assess the sexual health knowledge of teachers who contribute to secondary school sexual health education in order to determine whether teachers are adequately prepared to implement present government education and public health policies.

Design Results were obtained from a questionnaire as part of a two‐phase intervention study.

Setting Nineteen mixed‐sex, state secondary schools in central England.

Participants One hundred and fifty‐five teachers (94 female, 61 male) participated.

Main outcome measures The questionnaires were distributed to teachers to assess their knowledge of sexual health, contraception and sexually transmitted infections. In addition, teachers' attitudes on the subject of sex and relationships education were evaluated.

Results The results suggest that teachers have insufficient sexual health knowledge to effectively teach sexually transmitted infections or emergency contraception, although their general sexual health knowledge was good. Therefore, at present teachers do not have adequate specialist knowledge in sexual health to contribute to current recommendations for sex and relationships education in secondary schools. There were no statistically significant differences in the results regarding location of school, area of residence, gender or age of the participant.

Conclusions Many teachers are being expected to contribute to secondary school sexual health education programmes at a time when they do not have sufficient knowledge to provide young people with adequate sexual health education and when they do not feel prepared to teach, and in many cases would prefer not to teach, these programmes.     

北宋时期应天书院兴盛的原因分析

应天书院是宋初四大书院之一，它经历了从私学到官学，从书院到府学，再由府学升为国子监的发展过程；由于物质基础的支撑、政府的倡导与支持、教学管理科学以及教学质量优秀，最终成为北宋时期众多书院中的佼佼者。     

Diversifying Schools and Leveraging School Improvement: a Comparative Analysis of The English Radical,and Singapore Conservative,Specialist Schools' Policies

ABSTRACT

Within the context of fierce global economic competition, school diversification and specialist schools have been seen by governments as cornerstones of education policy to engineer school improvement in both England and Singapore for more than a decade. In both systems, the policy has manifested in different school types, school names and sometimes buildings – in England, specialist status schools, academies and most recently free schools; and in Singapore, specialist schools and niche schools. Diversification is promoted by each school emphasising distinctiveness in its curriculum – often with implications for its funding and degree of autonomy – which differentiate it from others. There is normally the intention to scale-up curricular innovations school-wide. The paper addresses three aims in respect to both countries: first, it profiles the evolution of specialist schools' policies in both states in relation to school improvement and secondly, social justice; thirdly, it undertakes a comparative policy analysis in order to draw conclusions as to how the relationship between central government and schools has re-configured in both countries – arguing that the policy in England is radical, that in Singapore, conservative.     

Knowledge of secondary school pupils regarding sexual health education

Objective: To assess the sexual health knowledge of secondary school pupils in order to ascertain whether the current government public health and education policies are having any impact on pupils' sexual health.

Design: Results obtained from a questionnaire as part of a two‐phase intervention study.

Setting: Nineteen mixed‐sex, state secondary schools in central England.

Participants: Year 8 pupils (350 male, 345 female), year 9 pupils (300 male, 325 female) and year 10 pupils (310 male, 329 female).

Intervention: A questionnaire survey to assess the knowledge of pupils' sexual health education.

Main outcome measures: Questionnaires distributed to pupils as baseline to assess their knowledge of sexual health, contraception and sexually transmitted infections.

Results: Sexual health knowledge improves with age. A significant difference across all age groups was found, although knowledge regarding sexually transmitted infections and emergency contraception is poor for all age groups.

Conclusions: Current sexual health education provision is not providing young people with adequate knowledge regarding sexual health and contraception.     

论近现代中国教育转型对传统私塾的改造

近现代社会新式教育快速兴起,新式学校逐渐取代传统的私塾和书院,成为教育机构的主流。政府在发展和普及新教育的过程中,一方面新设大量学校,另一方面也对传统教育机构进行改造,使融入新的学校系统。相比较而言,书院改学堂较为容易;传统私塾因为数量庞大,分布散乱,成份繁杂,改造起来难度大、时间长。教育行政机关通过组织塾师培训、审定塾师资格、实行设塾登记等形式,积极开展对私塾的改造,使之逐渐脱离旧的教育模式,在教学组织、教育内容、教育方法和学校管理上向新式学校靠近,为新教育的发展服务。     

Marketized education: how regulatory failure undermined the Swedish school system

ABSTRACT

In a radical school choice reform in 1992, Sweden’s education system was opened to private competition from independent for-profit and non-profit schools funded by vouchers. Competition was expected to produce higher-quality education at lower cost, in both independent and public schools. This two-pronged study first examines to what extent the consequences of this reform deviate from the predicted results. It demonstrates increasing discrepancies between absolute test results and grades, suggesting grade inflation. Secondly, the study investigates whether the school choice reform was institutionally secured against school competition based on phenomena that are unrelated with educational quality, such as grading. It reveals that the architects of the school choice reform overemphasized the potential positive implications of market reforms and, therefore, did not deem it necessary to establish appropriate rules and institutions for school competition. Instead, grading and curriculum reforms had unintended consequences such as grade inflation and similar forms of school competition in dimensions other than school quality. The analysis of how the objective of raising the quality in Sweden’s schools through competition and choice was inadvertently undermined contains practical lessons for policymakers with regard to the use of privatization and co-production both in schools and in other fields.     

Higher education and the marketization of compulsory schooling: english universities and academy sponsorship

ABSTRACT

Recent policy emphasis on market mechanisms to drive up the performance of education systems has resulted in rising fees and increased competition in higher education in England, and in the creation of different types of self-governing state-funded schools run independently of municipal authority in compulsory schooling. University sponsorship of Charter Schools in the US raises issues which this article examines in relation to university sponsorship of academies in England. The article provides a quantitative overview of university sponsorship of academies over the last decade and explores how the policy context has shaped the discursive construction of sponsorship by the institutions concerned. Different patterns of sponsorship linked to institutional position and differentiated discourses of ‘sponsorship’ consistent with ‘academic entrepreneurship’ are identified. The discursive function of sponsorship is argued to extend to a legitimation of the policy itself reflected in increasing government pressure on universities to sponsor academies.     

Climate change education in the humanities classroom: a case study of the Lowell school curriculum pilot

Abstract

Climate change as an instructional topic in K-12 schools is most frequently taught in the science classroom. However, it is a human issue requiring social as well as technological and scientific solutions. This study analyzes and evaluates a climate change curriculum implemented via an integrated social studies and language arts framework in a middle school classroom. The curriculum reflects collaboration between a private school, a climate education non-profit, and a government agency (NOAA). Following the first year of implementation, student surveys, teacher interviews, and classroom observations comprise the primary tools of data collection and evaluation. Based off these data, students demonstrate high levels of climate literacy, improvements in reading comprehension, and overall engagement with the topic. Teachers report successes and challenges of teaching the curriculum, and administrators offer opportunities for scaling and implementing the curriculum in other schools and contexts (including public schools). Findings from this study are relevant to climate change curriculum developers, researchers, and educators seeking to incorporate an interdisciplinary, socio-scientific approach to climate change education in their work.     

Homeschooling,Virtual Learning,and the Eroding Public/Private Binary

ABSTRACT

Regulators ubiquitously dichotomize schooling into two discrete sectors: public and private. Although homeschooling is regulated in some contexts as a third sector, the general approach is to treat it as a species of private education by subjecting it to public regulation while simultaneously denying it public funds. But the public/private binary is increasingly difficult to sustain as charter schools multiply and, especially, as virtual schooling increasingly penetrates primary and secondary education. Public school systems are deploying virtual education in ways that erode once impermeable walls between public and private. Many obstacles to homeschooling will fall with those walls—particularly obstacles related to government financing of homeschooling activities.     

Policy Making at the School Level: Some Issues for the 90's

Abstract

In this article we discuss how central governments can promote the development of policy at school level which will lead to quality improvement. The development of school level policy does not mean abandoning the role of central government as a driving force in school improvement, which would clearly be unacceptable in many countries. Instead, it may mean a change in the relationship between policy making at different levels. The main question is: under which conditions can schools develop their own policy that permits them to coordinate and act in unity, but which also fits in the framework of central government policies. This question may be examined from the perspective of central government policy makers, or from that of professional educators working within schools. In this article we choose the latter perspective. We will examine the factors that confront school level policy makers and the ways in which they can deal with them. Our intention is to provide a framework for policy action at the school level, within the assumption that there is a national government policy direction.     

Emerging local schooling landscapes: the role of the local authority

The school system in England is undergoing rapid change, with the government creating more than 4000 ‘independent publicly funded schools’, known as academies, since 2010. The potential for fragmentation is considerable with diversity of governance emerging as a key feature of the new schooling landscape. Consequently, a major and widely recognised issue to which these reforms give rise concerns the future of the ‘middle tier’ –that layer between individual schools or groups of schools and central government. There are competing visions of how a future middle tier might evolve: one focuses entirely on a middle tier of individual schools and chains as a ‘self-improving system’; others conceive a continuing but revised role for the local authority (LA). The aim of this paper is to begin to explore the latter position, and in particular the potential role of the LA as a ‘broker’ of new patterns of school organisation. Drawing on interview data from three very different LA areas, the findings show that LAs differ in how they conceive their role and, consequently, on the strategies that they pursue.     

Community financing of education: issues from Kenya

Given the squeeze on national budgets and the need for priorities over investment choices in education, many governments have turned to communities in the search for alternative sources of revenue. In Kenya, there is a long and rich history of community involvement in the financing of education at all levels, rooted within the phenomenon of the dynamic self‐help movement harambee, which underpins much of Kenya's grass roots development activity. Within education, the conscious partnership between communities and government has been most manifest within the unaided harambee secondary school sector, although a more recent policy shift has witnessed the transfer to communities of all capital expenditures associated with a structural and curriculum reform, particularly at primary level. Despite opening up access to education to a high percentage of the school age population, there remain, however, fundamental questions associated both with the quality and equity of systems dependent upon community financing.     

The development of secondary education from 1902 to 1970 in the Borough of Bedford

Summary

Bedford in 1902 had an enormous advantage in the substantial provision made by the Harpur Trust. She has consequently been able to provide, through little effort of her own, excellent opportunities for selective secondary education for most of the century, especially when a meagre scholarship ladder was improved after the Great War and the opening of Pilgrim School ended a second lean spell in selective secondary education in the 1950s. However, concern for those with fewer financial or intellectual advantages has not been conspicuous; a central school was forced through because the Board demanded improvements in the school buildings, the rise in population more than anything else caused partial reorganization in 1937 and government pressure helped to produce a scheme for reorganization on comprehensive lines. Usually a Conservative M.P. sits for Bedford (Labour won narrow victories in 1945 and 1966) and this perhaps indicates the nature of the town's political attitudes. There has also been a habitual reliance on the Trust. These factors may account for the town's moderate concern for the child of average and below average ability. Finally in 1970 the Harpur Trust, which in the first half of the century was such a boon to the town in its efforts to develop secondary education, was proving a stumbling block to the reorganization of the Borough's schools; Sir William's gift now presented nearly insuperable problems to the development of a truly comprehensive system of secondary education and this, in the eyes of many, was once more to the detriment of the ordinary child. The provision of secondary schools in Bedford was for so long the pride of the town, but no longer seemed so splendid to many living in a more egalitarian educational climate.     

日本私立高等教育经费来源探析

日本私立高等教育的经费来源呈现出多渠道的特点,主要包括政府财政资助、学费、捐款、学校经营创收等。其中,政府的财政资助是日本私立高等教育发展的重要保障,学费是私立高等教育经费的主要构成部分。探寻日本私立高等教育经费的构成及其特点,将对改变我国民办高等教育经费来源单一化的局面有所裨益。     

Higher education in Romania: Evolution and views from the business community

Abstract

The paper has two purposes: to present the evolution of higher education in Romania after 1990, as an illustration of the transition period in Central and Eastern Europe and as a background for the subsequent section, and to present the results of a study concerning the relationship between higher education and the business community in Romania. The empirical study is based on a survey of private companies from Bucharest. The survey had as its main objective to analyse the evolution and performances of graduates from both private and state universities in the labour market, based on the companies’ experiences with them. Considering the results of the study, the paper draws conclusions in relationship with the general status of higher education in Romania, focusing on the needs of the companies, as major beneficiaries of higher education, along with individuals and society as a whole.     

Publicness: An Analytical Foundation for Categorization Standards under the Legislation for Private Schools

Abstract

The central tenet of the revisions to the Law on the Promotion of Private Education is the implementation of categorized management of private schools, establishing a legal basis for categorized management. Private education is characterized by publicness, and upholding and guiding private schools in exercising their public nature is the target value of legislation on private education. Publicness determines the criteria under standards for the categorization of private schools, and differences in publicness provide an analytical foundation for private school categorization standards. Publicness defines the focal points of private school standards, including the subjects of the law for private education, as well as the rights and obligations of these subjects.     

First‐rate Courses for Second‐rate Pupils: the demand for technical education, 1918–1939

Abstract

This paper analyses the expansion of technical education in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, in the 1920s and 1930s. It argues that the rapid industrial and commercial growth in this southern county at a time of chronic economic uncertainty nationally brought particular pressures to bear upon the Local Education Authority to provide an increasing range of courses to better equip local children for local Jobs. With government approval and, indeed, eventual direction the technical education initiative increasingly pervaded the elementary schools, with vocationally orientated courses becoming available to children aged 13, 12 and even 11 years. An important Incentive In most county councillors’ eyes was the fact that these developments deflected attention away from any great expansion of secondary education. As a result of these pressures and policies by 1938 technical education was well established, well planned and well funded but never more than second prize for the aspiring elementary‐school child or booby prize for the failing secondary one.     

Preparing to transition to secondary education: perceptions of Dutch pupils with migrant backgrounds

Background: The transition from primary school to secondary school is a crucial period of time for children and this may be especially the case for pupils with migrant backgrounds. While there has been considerable research on the transition from primary to secondary school, more needs to be known specifically about the experiences of this group of pupils during their final year of primary school, as they prepare for their transition to secondary school.

Purpose: The study investigated how Dutch children with migrant backgrounds in their final year of primary school perceive the preparatory process for the transition to secondary school. In particular, we were interested in who the children felt were the important ‘actors’ (e.g. pupils, parents, teachers and others) in the preparatory process.

Sample: We collected data from 76 primary school pupils from three schools in an urban city in the Netherlands. The sample included pupils who, according to the Dutch system, were preparing to follow an academic pathway (i.e. the tracks known in this system as ‘HAVO’ or ‘VWO’) and those who were preparing to follow a vocational pathway (i.e. the track known as ‘VMBO’) in secondary education.

Design and methods: We used photo elicitation (N = 76) and also conducted semi-structured interviews with a subsample of the pupils (N = 25) to examine the roles of the important actors in the preparatory process. Data were analysed qualitatively; responses were coded and underwent pattern analysis in order to identify and describe repeating structures in the data. Data were grouped according to whether the pupils received school recommendations for an academic track or a vocational track.

Results: Findings suggested that the pupils perceived the most important actors to be the pupil, the classroom teacher and the parents. Both teachers and parents were considered valuable resources for pupils in the preparatory process. Patterns representing the participants’ perceptions of the roles of three actors – namely, (1) the child, (2) the classroom teacher and (3) the parents, were identified. Six patterns were identified with respect to the child, four with respect to the classroom teacher and two with respect to the parents. For some patterns, it was apparent that the responses of children in the vocational group and the academic group had different emphases.

Conclusions: The study highlights the importance for teachers and parents of children in their final year of primary school to be aware of the pupils’ perceptions of and feelings about their preparation for secondary school, so as to be in the best position to support them collaboratively.