Improving numeracy outcomes for children through community action research

Virtue, according to Aristotle, is doing the right things at the right time with the right people for the right end and in the right way. This concept is central to the work of the Early Learning Initiative, an Irish community-based educational initiative. This paper describes how a community of parents, early childhood care and education practitioners and a third-level institution used action research to develop a three-year numeracy programme for children aged zero to six years. The Early Numeracy Project was one of 11 national projects that aimed to influence early years practice, provision and policy in Ireland. Remaining true to our local values and virtuous practice while implementing a national project was challenging, particularly when robust evidence of the impact of the programme on the children and parents in our community was required at national level. Approximately 860 children (zero to six years old) and their families took part in the Early Numeracy Programme each year, with national and local evaluations indicating that the outcomes for children in the programme had improved. The programme is an example of how a local community can use action research and virtuous practices to implement a national programme and improve outcomes for children.     

Building up capabilities of educational administrators in India

Since independence in 1947, India has made a rapid development in all spheres, more particularly in the field of education. With the national commitment to provide educational opportunity to all citizens of the country and the highest priority given to the programme of universalisation of elementary education, the educational facilities have increased considerably over the years. Special attention is being paid to provide education to girls and to the children of the weaker sections of the community. Besides formal education, non-formal channels of education are also being exploited.This has increased the responsibilities of educational administrators manifold. The complexity and enormity of the tasks that they have to perform, the quality of leadership that they have to possess, the horizontal and vertical linkages that they have to establish within and outside the Education Department, and the managerial role that they have to discharge in order that the resources are effectively mobilised and utilised, have made it incumbent upon them to be familiar with the latest techniques of planning and management.The National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) which is a specialised Central Institution for advanced training of key educational personnel has for the past two decades been playing an important role in building up the capabilities of different kinds of educational functionaries and serving as a catalytic agent for change.The need for training of educational administrators of all levels is now well recognised in India. In a developing country where there are certain aspirations of students, teachers, parents and community about education and where quantity, quality and equity all play a vital role, the development of professional skills in the educational administrators assumes great importance. Such a training not only leads to human resource development and an increase in the productivity of the officers but it also helps in the speedy realisation of the targets of educational and social development.     

Field Animation and a Mixed Media Approach

In this article the author points out the limitations of television as a tool in non‐formal education of adults in Africa and looks at the benefits of supplementing broadcast‐delivered messages with person‐to‐person communications. Two examples of mass media campaigns integrating various media with person‐to‐person communications in the field are described, one in Ivory Coast and another in Zaire. In both cases television, once seen as the ultimate panacea of mass education, has been reduced to a supportive role     

Where’s the Community Practice? Gaps in Community Practice Education in a Clinical-Community Social Work Program

Although the profession of social work has a rich history of supporting community organizing and engagement efforts, there has been a trend toward educational programs that focus heavily on the clinical components of social work. The purpose of this study was to perform an exploratory investigation of the potential need for more community-centered educational content at a school of social work in the Gulf Coast, which advertises itself as offering a clinical-community practice program. Researchers developed and administered a questionnaire to all current students of the School of Social Work to evaluate the program’s efforts to provide a balanced clinical-community practice education. Student responses to the questionnaire suggested that the community practice learning opportunities at the school were not represented equally in quality or quantity to the clinical material. Students reported limited access to field placements that focused on community practice. The researchers suggest that the results of this study are reflective of a potential national trend in social work education toward a narrower focus on clinical practice, and away from its roots in community organizing and advocacy.     

Analyse Des Inégalités De Rendement Liées Au Sexe De l'élève Dans l'Enseignement Primaire Ivoirien

A survey of achievement in primary education in the Ivory Coast shows that the results of girls are inferior to those of boys in all subjects and at all levels of schooling. Concerning the learning of French (the language of instruction in the Ivory Coast), the situation differs from that observed in a number of industrialised countries, where the performance of girls is generally superior to that of boys in subjects linked to language learning. On the other hand, it conforms to the situation observed in other developing countries, where boys most frequently show superior results. This pattern of results suggests that the differences in achievement between the sexes are of a cultural origin. Analysis of factors associated with these differences in the Ivory Coast seems to confirm this hypothesis:

-First, society in the Ivory Coast attaches less importance to the educational achievements of girls than of boys. Girls go to school less often than boys or leave school more readily than boys. They less often express the desire to continue their studies beyond the primary school.

-Secondly, girls leave the circle of female members of the family (mother, aunts) less and have fewer opportunities to speak French outside school than boys. The latter speak more French ‘with their father’ (who himself is more likely to have been at school than the mother) or with ‘their friends in the street’.

-Finally, the education which girls receive, itself imposes a certain reserve (not to speak too much, not to make oneself stand out) which generates a passive attitude in class: girls begin to speak less, make fewer voluntary contributions, ask fewer questions and are more often reckoned to be ‘timid’ by their teachers. In classrooms in the Ivory Coast, where education is highly ‘oral’, this expresses itself in a probably significant reduction of girls’ ‘actual time of involvement in learning’ (time-on-task).

     

New Challenges for Co-operation with Developing Countries

Higher education has been improving over a few years in developing countries: engineering education institutions have been developed or created. The Ecole Nationale des Ponu et Chausshs is participating in this building of new institutions and is providing a few of them with its assistance. Two examples are given of the methods employed by Ecole Nationale des Pontr et Chaussées. In both cases assistance is aimed at reinforcing the counterpart's capacities: for the ENSTP in Ivory Coast, the objective is to create a national faculty staB for the ENIT in Tunisia, it is to develop continuing education.     

教育:过去、现在与未来的全球挑战

1990年以来全球教育发展缓慢,且各国发展速度不同。普及基础教育仍是发展中国家政府与国际组织亟待实现的目标。这与近年来经济学关于人力资本对于经济增长以及社会发展的催化作用的研究发现形成鲜明对照。本研究基于一个新构建的教育数据库与1950—2010年的国民账户数据,采用不同的方法与若干国家案例,估计与人力资本积累缓慢相关的收入损失及其对公平的影响。研究还基于各国过去与未来加速人力资本积累的假设,推算了1900—1950年与2010—2050年的情况。研究发现,以人均收入表示的福利损失至少为7～10个百分点。此外,提高人均受教育年限对于减少收入不平等也有影响。     

Educational Television as Part of a Learning Environment: dilemmas for the Dutch Open School broadcasts

What to do if you want to make an educational programme for 40% of the population and only 2% of them are watching? You can choose between giving up and a total face‐lift. The makers of the thematic educational broadcasts for Dutch television (TELEAC) chose to renew their product. The research activities reported here were undertaken to support the process of redesigning the programme through construction principles that can help to improve thematic educational television directed at independent learning. Three investigations were carried out: consultation with experts in the field of education, mass communication, and television programme design; consultation with educationally related groups; consultation with the audience at home. The results were interpreted in the light of an educational theory of self‐directed adult learning to produce proposals and suggestions on four main topics: context and image; content; form; and appeal to the audience     

廊坟社区文化现状与影响因素的相关研究

面对终身教育、终身学习成为当今世界主要教育思潮,发展社区文化建设成为我国重要的现实任务。以廊坊市社区文化建设的为例,从社区文化建设认识、受教育程度以及社区文化建设投入等方面,具体分析廊坊市的社区文化特色,以期为社区文化的未来发展提供思路和发展方向。     

Language,Educational Television and Young Children

Ninety‐one percent of 227 surveyed teachers of children up to seven years of age (including 101 teachers who monitored educational television series for the Project), in 17 local education authorities in England and Wales, claimed to use educational television broadcasts to assist them with children's language development. However, apart from the nursery teachers, they appeared to put emphasis on language skill acquisition rather than language development, reinforcing the language policy of the schools. Two thirds of the teachers stated that they were catering for children individually when using educational television, although class viewing was the normal practice. The usual method was to watch a programme continuously from beginning to end (even when a video recorder was used) and then to discuss it with the children and to give written work on letter formation, sentence formation, initial sounds, etc., often by filling in worksheets. The teachers were encouraged in this practice by the television series, as these promoted the learning of language and reading skills rather than language development. There was no evidence to suggest that general interest series were used to any extent to enhance language development, in spite of overwhelming agreement by the teachers that television stories, songs and poems were valuable in this respect. A change of attitude by teachers towards language and educational television is desirable, involving the examination of current practices, the analysis of the material presented by broadcasters and the relating of developmental factors to the medium     

美国纽约市的学习型社区建设透析

随着终身教育、学习社会、终身学习等教育理念在全球的风靡,如何实现由理论到实践的转换成为各国进一步关注的焦点。而社区作为不同地域人们生活的基本单位,学习型社区的实现成为国家范围内建成学习社会的必由之路。纽约作为国际化大都市的典型,在充分利用社区资源、组织多样化的教育活动、改善社区教育管理等方面均凸显出自身特色,因此可为我国城市社区建设提供良好的借鉴。     

The challenges of small-scale evaluation in a foreign country: reflections on practice

This paper is a reflection on practice. It begins by briefly describing an evaluation of an externally-funded education programme in Kosovo (a new country in south-east Europe). The programme was managed by Save the Children in Kosovo and aimed to develop and promote models of inclusive education through three strands of activity. The first of these provided a bi-lingual multicultural learning environment for children of 3–5 years; the second was designed to integrate children with special educational needs and disabilities into mainstream education; and the third was concerned to support the inclusion of Roma/Ashkali/Egyptian children in primary schooling. The three strands of the programme were piloted in selected schools in different municipalities throughout the country for between 1 year and 3 years. The client (Save the Children in Kosovo) commissioned an independent evaluation to assist with decision-making at a time of transition for the programme. The author (who was the evaluator) discusses how she attempted to address the methodological challenges often typical of this kind of work: a small budget, a compressed time-frame, a complex and volatile socio-political climate and, last but not least, a contractual requirement to produce authoritative recommendations for action. She goes on to reflect on how and why various unplanned events and encounters that occurred outwith the parameters of the evaluation made a significant contribution to its outcomes. The author invites comments from other evaluators about their experiences in similar situations.     

A Window on the World

The $4 million national Loan Video Programme is an ambitious project which has been operating in outback regions of Australia for two years. The Programme was originally intended to provide videocassette copies of ABC educational broadcasts to primary-school students studying by'correspondence'and living outside television reception areas. An examination of the effects of the Programme on teacher and parent attitudes, viewing patterns, integration with the curriculum, and educational concerns about televisual learning in Western Australian Schools of the Air and Distance Education Centre students, are given in this paper.     

Young Children,Television & Learning: Part I. The effects of children watching a continuous off‐air broadcast

Responses of 21 pre‐operational children, aged between 6#lb6 and 7#lb4 years, to an uninterrupted television programme, viewed in small groups, were surveyed by individual post‐viewing questioning. The indications are that the children viewed the programme passively except when something extraordinary or stimulating occurred; they recalled only isolated aspects that interested them or that they liked. They were unable to deduce the producer's intentions and gained only a vague idea of what the programme was about. Children are limited in what they can take from a broadcast by their own experiences and by how those relate to what is viewed, so teachers have a responsibility to assist young children to internalise and interpret what is viewed from educational television. Continuous ‘programmes’ seem unsuitable as learning media; children should view, via a videorecorder, short sequences or ‘modules’ of television material, linked to activities with which they are involved or familiar, to enable a three‐way interaction between children, teacher and television to be established     

Television and Secondary School Children

Abstract

The way in which children judge the general output of television, and the way in which it affects them, should be prime factors in considering programming for educational television, particularly in areas where educational television is still in its infancy, asin the Third World.

Dr Collin's article looks at the effects TV can have on young people, and considers the general programme output. From survey results he draws important lessons about these effects and how, for young people, the world of television translates into real life.     

学习型社会内涵、特征与时代意义的新解读

学习型社会被国际社会认为是现代教育研究的首要命题,是当代教育发展的基本主题。学习型社会是一个转变传统的学习方式、学习具有终身性,促进人的全面发展,强调教育机会均等,实现全民教育的社会。学习型社会的产生是适应社会发展变化的需要,是增强国民素质,提高国家综合国力的需要。     

The Development of Programmes for Young Children in Japan

Japan is one of the countries which have been producing and broadcasting a large number of programmes for children, both educational and entertainment, and both types of programme have been widely watched by children in other countries in recent years. This article introduces the characteristics of Japanese children's television viewing and some examples of studies on the development of new television programmes for young children and then discusses the possibility of the development of international television programmes for children.     

Mother tongue instruction in Lubuagan: A case study from the Philippines

In the modern era, the prevailing model of public education has been that of “one size fits all”, with private schooling being a small but notable exception. Language (of instruction) was generally viewed as a minor variable readily overcome by standard classroom instruction. As researchers have sharpened their focus on the reasons for educational failure, language has begun to emerge as a significant variable in producing gains in educational efficiency. This paper reports the intermediate result of a controlled study in a very rural area of a developing country designed to examine the effect of language of instruction on educational outcomes. In the experimental schools, children are taught to read first in the local language (via the local language) and are taught other key subjects via the local language as well. English is taught as a subject. Teachers in the control or standard schools continue the standard national practice of teaching all subjects in either English or Filipino, neither of which is spoken by children when they begin school. Year-end standardised testing was done in all subjects throughout grades one to three as a means of comparing the two programme methodologies.