Open Source as appropriate technology for global education

Economic arguments for the adoption of ‘open source’ software in business have been widely discussed. In this paper we draw on personal experience in the UK, South Africa and Southeast Asia to forward compelling reasons why open source software should be considered as an appropriate and affordable alternative to the currently prevailing dependency on large commercial organisations and proprietary products in the field of education.The dynamic and responsive nature of 'open source' software and the existence of freely available documentation and online communities offers an opportunity for educators, network administrators and software developers to participate in the development of resources appropriate to local needs while developing their own skills.We identify a range of critical development tools such as Perl and Linux, alongside a more specific application, Basic Support for Cooperative Work, which has great versatility for customising to fulfil specific educational needs and for the development of collaborative on-line learning communities.     

International school partnerships as a vehicle for global education: student perspectives

The UK government has recently demonstrated an unprecedented interest in global learning within primary and secondary schools. While the adoption and implementation of the global dimension varies, international school partnerships (ISPs) have been identified as a key vehicle for harnessing the potential of the global dimension in schools. Despite increasing global policy and practice interest in ISPs, little empirical research examines the influence of ISPs on students, teachers and leaders. Drawing on evidence nested in our 3-year research and development study of the British Council's Connecting Classrooms-Sub Saharan Africa programme, this paper examines students' own view of their international school partnership participation. We employ a multidimensional citizenship framework to frame our analysis of 694 student surveys from 66 schools across 12 countries. Based on this evidence, we argue that the influence of ISPs on global learning can be enhanced by intentionally designing partnerships to: celebrate school-based learning linked to international partners; create opportunities for students to engage in activity-based communication-driven ISP related learning; and, deliberately encourage students to discuss their partnership work with friends and family. We also make recommendations for policy and practice leaders and researchers.     

Locating curriculum studies in the global village

This paper examines the prospect of 'internationalizing' curricula and curriculum studies in the context of increasingly complex patterns of global interconnectedness in social production and organization. I explore some ways in which diverse knowledge traditions can be sustained locally, and amplified transnationally, without being absorbed into an imperialist archive. The homogenizing effects of economic and cultural globalization and internationalization can be resisted by emphasizing the performative rather than the representational aspects of curriculum work. The internationalization of curriculum studies can then be understood as creating transnational 'spaces' in which local knowledge traditions in curriculum inquiry can be performed together, not as local representations of curriculum translated into a universal discourse.     

Early years education in Pakistan: trends,issues and strategies

This paper outlines the programme of provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) which is currently urgently needed to support the development of children from birth to eight years in Pakistan. It begins by emphasizing the global recognition of the importance of such provision, before describing the recent history of ECEC in Pakistan, and the current situation. A case study from the pre‐primary (katchi) class in a typical government school is used to illustrate the urgent need for initiatives and action to implement both Education for All (EFA) commitments and government policy for ECEC. Impediments to the implementation of the policy, including financial, structural, organizational and cultural barriers are identified, and recommendations are made for overcoming these obstacles. From a human capital perspective, it is argued that an ECEC programme will benefit the country and its economy, as well as the individual children who will be enabled to become active and effective contributors to society.     

Early childhood education for all: a mixed-methods study of the global policy agenda in Tanzania

This study considers the extent to which access to basic education and student learning outcomes have become more equalized or more disparate in Tanzania following the implementation of the international Education for All (EFA) initiative, and whether early childhood education access and performance follow similar patterns. To answer these questions, we apply a mixed-methods research design, which includes a longitudinal analysis of changes in educational opportunity and a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of key education policy documents in Tanzania. Findings from our quantitative analysis suggest that social inequality is persistent across time and consistent across access and learning outcomes at the early childhood and basic education levels. The implication is that, to date, the EFA agenda has only served to reproduce social inequalities in Tanzania, with the exception of increased opportunity for girls. These results align with CDA findings assessing the global and national policy discourse, which find educational inequalities to be prioritized in language but not adequately in final targets and strategies. Given the resiliency of such education inequalities, it would appear that policy capable of removing social barriers to educational opportunity requires more attention to specific at-risk student populations.     

发展农村教育的重大举措

全国农村教育工作会议昨日闭幕。由国务院召开会议专门研究部署农村教育工作,这是新中国成立以来的第一次。本报今日全文发表《国务院关于进一步加强农村教育工作的决定》(以下简称《决定》)。学习宣传好《决定》,认真贯彻落实会议精神,对促进我国农村教育发展和“三农”问题解决,具有十分重要的意义。     

English as a global language and the question of nation‐building education in Bangladesh

The national language Bangla (Bengali), which is spoken by 98% of the people, is foundational to the nation of Bangladesh as a nation. Language played a crucial role in the struggle for independence from Pakistan which was finally successful in 1971. The medium of instruction in state‐provided basic education is Bangla. Nevertheless, as in the colonial period a significant part of the elite is educated in English medium schools and subject to British‐determined curriculum and assessment. English medium private education carries the highest prestige, and the private sector is dominant in secondary education. The role of English is now being enhanced by globalization, which threatens a cultural recolonization of Bangladesh, and by World Bank strategies designed to promote the private school sector. The article discusses these problems and explores elements of a language policy that might be able to enhance both Bangla literacy and competence in English.     

New public management as a global education policy: its adoption and re-contextualization in a Southern European setting

In the education sector, new public management (NPM) has crystallized in policies such as school autonomy, professionalization of school principals, standardized evaluation and teachers’ accountability, and it has been widely disseminated by international organizations, such as the OECD, which enjoy a great prestige when it comes to frame education reforms in European countries.

This article analyses the way NPM has been constructed as a global education policy, and its adoption and re-contextualization into the Spanish education context. This article shows that the reasons for adopting NPM are not so different from those prevailing in other countries where these policies have been implemented before. Counter-intuitively, although NPM is a reform programme traditionally initiated by conservative governments, in the Spanish education field, as also happened in other Central and Northern European countries, it has been adopted and regulated with social democratic governments. In all these countries, social democrats have tended to embrace NPM as an attempt to address the legitimacy crisis of the welfare state and of public services in particular.

Nonetheless, in Spain, the NPM reforms have been re-contextualized and regulated in very uneven and paradoxical ways. For a combination of political, institutional and economic reasons, the final form adopted by the NPM approach is far from the model advocated by the international community and is deeply contradictory.

Our arguments are based on intensive fieldwork that include, on the one hand, interviews with key education policy-makers and stakeholders and, on the other, document analysis of policy briefings, press releases and legal documents.     

Science in early years education: introducing floating and sinking as a property of matter

In the present study we test the effectiveness of a teaching intervention concerning the phenomenon of floating and sinking as a property of the matter the bodies are made of. The treatment, designed for children aged four to six years, comprises two units of hierarchically sequenced activities. The children experiment with objects having specifically designed characteristics aiming at shifting children's attention from the objects to the material(s) these are made of. Both solid and hollow objects were used. The activities were developed collaboratively by a researcher and early years teachers and were implemented by the teachers of the work group in their own public school classes in a sample of 104 children. Action research processes were used to optimise classroom practices. Teacher preparation took place within the work group before implementation. Concept cartoons were used for the children's final assessment. Analysis of classroom data recorded during the course of the activities showed gradual redirection of the children's attention from the objects to the materials of which they were made. The results of the post-instructional assessment revealed high percentages of pupils understanding the kind of material as the determining factor for the bodies' behaviour in water.     

Colonial secondary education in a global age: Economic

Retaining a secondary education structure designed during British colonial times has resulted in a secondary education system ill suited to serve the labor market needs of Bangladesh. As the country enters an era when increasing numbers of people move away from subsistence farming lifestyles into the informal and small business sector, Bangladesh requires a system that provides large number of people with basic skills for such activities. The economic distortions caused by a secondary sector mismatched with the realities of the labor market result in ongoing income inequalities, unnecessary demand for secondary education growth, and expenditures for private tutors by parents who can ill-afford such services.     

A global reset of education

PROSPECTS - As the world looks to the future and ways to safely return to normal, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have a unique opportunity to reset our priorities and redefine what this...