Global measurement of the quality of education: A help to developing countries?

Global measures of the quality of education that are used in the context of international competition between educational system innovators are detrimental to the quality of education, especially in developing countries. Such measures are likely to support developments towards the standardization or globalization of curricula. In the development of global measures developers typically are looking for what is common to cultures instead of what is unique. If such measures start playing an important role in accountability and certification processes, curricula will be adapted to the measures. The resultant global curricula may hamper learning and as a consequence will not contribute to a binding of cultures but to isolation and feelings of inferiority.Alternative measures are suggested which meet global standards and may be used for comparative purposes. They can be a great help in the process of changes in educational systems determined and controlled by Third World countries themselves.

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Zusammenfassung Weltweite Maßstäbe für die Verbesserung der Qualität der Bildung, die im Zusammenhang mit dem internationalen Konkurrenzkampf zwischen den Innovatoren von Bildungssystemen angewandt werden, beeinträchtigen besonders in den Entwicklungsländern die Qualität der Bildung. Solche Maßstäbe unterstützen wahrscheinlich Entwicklungen zu einer Standardisierung oder Globalisierung der Curricula. In der Entwicklung weltweit gültiger Maßstäbe befassen sich die Organisatoren typischerweise mit den Gemeinsamkeiten in den Kulturen anstatt mit deren Eigenheiten. Wenn solche Maßstäbe in Verantwortungsbereichen und Benotungssystemen an Einfluß gewinnen, werden die Curricula an die Maßstäbe angepaßt. Die daraus hervorgehenden weltweit angewandten Curricula könnten eine Beeinträchtigung des Lernens zur Folge haben und führen dadurch nicht zu einer Beziehung zwischen den Kulturen sondern zu Isolation und Minderwertigkeitskomplexen. Es werden alternative Maßstäbe vorgeschlagen, die dem globalen Standard gerecht werden und zu Vergleichszwecken herangezogen werden können. Sie können eine große Hilfe im Veränderungsprozeß des Bildungssystems sein, das von den Ländern der dritten Welt selbst kontrolliert und bestimmt wird.

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Résumé Les mesures globales de la qualité de l'éducation auxquelles on a recours dans le contexte de la concurrence internationale entre les novateurs des systèmes d'éducation nuisent à la qualité de l'éducation, surtout dans les pays en développement. Elles tendent à renforcer la normalisation ou la globalisation des programmes d'étude. Lorsqu'ils conçoivent ces mesures globales, les responsables cherchent généralement ce qui est commun aux cultures plutôt que ce qu'elles ont d'unique. Si pareilles mesures commencent à jouer un rôle important dans les processus d'évaluation et d'homologation, les programmes d'étude devront en tenir compte. Les programmes d'étude globaux qui en résultent peuvent entraver l'apprentissage et ne contribueront donc pas à un rapprochement des cultures mais à l'isolement et à des sentiments d'infériorité. On suggère des mesures de rechange répondant aux normes globales et pouvant servir à des fins de comparaison. Elles peuvent être d'une grande utilité pour le processus de changement dans les systèmes d'éducation des pays du Tiers Monde déterminés et contrôlés par eux-mêmes.

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I thank Bill Loxley (IEA headquarter, The Hague) and Hetty Kook (University of Amsterdam) for their comments on an earlier version of this article. This article was partly written when I still worked in the Institute for Educational Research in the Netherlands (SVO).     

Public versus private schools in developing countries: Evidence from Colombia and Tanzania

The paper presents evidence on differences between public and private schools in Colombia and Tanzania on a number of indicators like cognitive achievement, unit cost and labor market outcomes. The findings are mixed, in the sense that in both countries, statistically controlling for student ability and socioeconomic background, private school students outperform their public school counterparts on academic achievement, whereas the reverse is true regarding achievement on specialized subject-matter. One possible explanation of this finding is that parental pressure (social demand) on private schools makes them tacitly emphasize academic subjects which are viewed by their customers as leading to a higher level of opportunities after graduation.     

Educating teachers for the improvement of the quality of basic education in developing countries

In discussions about improving the quality of basic education in the developing countries much focus has been on education functioning to improve the economic conditions of individuals. Basic education as critical literacy which empowers people to improve their social and personal lives by participating politically in decision-making processes relating to equitable distribution of economic wealth appears to be missing from the discussion on basic education. Grounding her arguments in observations of classroom teaching in two developing countries, the author argues in this article that the current ‘socialization’ approach to education in the developing countries needs to be replaced by innovative, critical approaches involving ‘resocialization’ if basic education is to play a role in improving the lives of the masses. What some developing countries are doing in teacher education to achieve this innovation is also discussed.     

Problems of accreditation and quality assurance of engineering education in developing countries

The relationships between funding, management and quality assurance of engineering education in developing countries are discussed in this paper. It is proposed to raise the debate on engineering education up to the global economic level and to examine some of the issues facing developing and poorer countries in managing and improving the quality of engineering education in their countries. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world is now divided in two realigned blocks: one of developed (rich or advanced) countries that have a social security safety net for their population and another of developing (or poor) countries that have no such luxuries for their population. For the general public in the developing countries, any engineering degree is a passport to lifelong well-being of an individual and his/her extended family.Therefore, the demand for such qualifications is very high and it is almost a rat race amongst school graduates to get into engineering/technical colleges. In view of this booming demand, there are hundreds of privately funded engineering/technical colleges in countries like the Philippines, India, Thailand, etc. besides state-funded ones. It is extremely difficult to ensure good quality in this mushrooming scenario. There are also many very small poorresource developing countries where there is only one engineering school and/or two to three technical colleges. Products of these schools/colleges work only in their own country and educational globalization has little or no meaning for them. Besides highlighting the aforementioned general issues, the paper also presents a few case studies on problems of accreditation and quality assessment in larger developing countries such as India and the Philippines and also in very small developing countries such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Arab countries.     

Research on education in the developing countries

Developing countries are in a major educational crisis. Educational opportunity has expanded but quality has been sacrificed. In some instances the quality of education has become so low that one might do well to question whether the costs of expansion do not outweigh the benefits. Research on education has not prepared the developing countries to meet the crisis at hand. The article mentions three examples—in pedagogy, in curriculum and in ‘deschooling’ theory—where educational research has not been helpful. On the other hand, the article points to several areas where there has been useful work, and where new work might make a substantial contribution in the years ahead.     

Quality of education and the demand for education — Evidence from developing countries

The relationship between quality and demand is analysed using data from various countries, with special emphasis on Burkina Faso, Mali, and Tanzania. Four types of educational quality are postulated: value, output, process and input quality. The relative importance of quality compared to external efficiency and costs is assessed. The paper is a reanalysis of existing studies. Qualitative data are complemented by simple analysis of educational statistics. The studies had different though over-lapping foci: one study explored reasons for non-enrolment, drop-out and exclusion from school under the umbrella theme of the quality of education. Another one emphasised social demand in rural areas, with quality one of a number of topics. A third study looked at attitudes towards education and educational strategies, restricting itself to parents. A primary level, the quality of education influences the demand for education. The relative importance of quality varies from one context to another. Quality influences the decision to enrol less than the decision to carry on. However, it affects enrolment to such an extent that moderate correlations have been observed between pass rates and repeater rates on the one hand, and enrolment rates on the other. Value quality is mainly related to enrolment. Output quality is the criterion for selecting a school or a school system. Output, process and input quality affect dropping out and irregular attendance. Repetition, justified on unsatisfactory output quality, is related to input quality. The decision to participate in education combines considerations of educational quality with an evaluation of costs, both direct costs and opportunity costs.     

Determinant factors for implementing learning study in developing countries: the case of Tanzania

The study explored the contributing factors in implementing the learning study approach in Tanzanian secondary schools. Three mathematics teachers formed a learning study group, guided by the variation theory of learning, to share their experiences on how to implement a Learner-Centred Approach (LCA) in their school milieu. Teachers were interviewed at the end of each intervention phase on the prospects they encountered in the course of implementing the learning studies. Classroom observation notes were taken to supplement the interview data, which were analysed using phenomenographic variation framework. The results show that the school’s administrative support, the existing curriculum and perceived positive outcomes of the learning studies were the key factors contributing to the learning study perfection. We therefore, conclude that careful attention should be taken into account to promote key aspects for sustainable implementation of the learning studies in developing countries’ secondary schools with similar attributes to the Tanzanian context.     

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.     

Financing public higher education in developing countries

The financing of education has emerged as a major topic of discussion among policy makers in recent years. There is evidence that in many developing countries, governments can no longer continue to increase spending on education at the high rates characteristic in the 1960s and 1970s. The macroeconomic environment has worsened, and there is keen intersectoral competition for public funds. Thus unless educational development moves away from its present heavy dependence on public funds, the expansion of education would be frustrated. One policy option is to increase the private financing of education. In this paper, we evaluate the potential effectiveness of loans schemes as a cost recovery instrument in higher education. Essentially, loans permit students to finance the cost of their education from future income. So the effectiveness of loans would depend on the relation between costs and students' future income. It also depends on the incidence of repetition, dropout, and default, as well as on whether or not a grace period is incorporated in the loan scheme. Our simulations show that in Asia and Latin America, the potential rate of cost recovery is substantial under what appears to be bearable terms of repayment. In Francophone Africa and Anglophone Africa, however, loans schemes are unlikely to perform as well, but they would still permit a shift toward greater private financing of higher education.     

Training and education of teachers in higher education in developing countries

The article describes our experience and experiments in helping to develop a training programme for academic staff at Universiti Sains Malaysia and the model of staff training associated with this programme. This is used as a basis for proposals for a more general scheme of staff training for universities in the South East Asian region, a special feature of the proposals being the use of distance teaching and of individualised learning materials in teaching and learning in higher education. The ultimate aim of the scheme is to make the region independent of outside assistance.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Open University Conference on The Education of Adults at a Distance, Birmingham, 19–24 November, 1979.     

Nurturing quality of higher education through national ranking: a potential empowerment model for developing countries

This paper reviews the recently introduced National Higher Education ranking system in Indonesia in order to evaluate its potential as a sustainable model to improve the quality of higher education in the country. It is a scaffold towards an established world-universities ranking system that may prove formidable for a developing country. This ranking system is based on four quality criteria, namely quality of academics, of management, of research and of students, each with its own weighting factor and scale. It is found that the actions and inactions of institutions vis á vis their continuous quality improvement may reflect their ranks. In countries where the thirst for higher education is high such as in developing countries, institutions’ ranks play a decisive competitive role. A rational, transparent, bona fide and dependable national ranking system is realistic in helping to improve the quality of higher education in the country.