Language‐in‐education across the Baltic: policies,practices and challenges

Since their political reorientation that started in the late 1980s, the Baltic states have experienced profound social reforms to rebuild their democratizing societies. Education has featured as a key vehicle to this transformation process of overcoming the limitations of the Soviet past. National legislative frameworks were therefore soon provided to restructure educational systems and allow for ‘liberal’ approaches to schooling. The process of policy‐making for a new concept of education, however, entailed numerous challenges, and it has resulted in a diverse tapestry of educational provision across the Baltic. With specific focus on minority education, this paper presents a comparative analysis of education policies and practices in contemporary Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in response to emerging language needs in these intensely multiethnic settings.     

Language of instruction and student performance: new insights from research in Tanzania and South Africa

This article, drawing on a set of studies conducted in the framework of the Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA) research project, shows how well African students express themselves if they are allowed to use a familiar African language, and conversely the difficulties they have when forced to use a foreign language, a language they hardly hear and never use outside of school, as a language of instruction. A key finding of the research is that when the foreign language, English in this case, is used, there is a much larger spread in test performance between students. This means that a small group of students succeed while the vast majority sinks. The author therefore argues for working towards a goal whereby African children like children in industrialized countries may study in their own language. Pursuing this goal should be a centrepiece in poverty reduction strategies.     

Education policies and practices to address cultural diversity in Malaysia: Issues and challenges

The 1969 racial riot in Kuala Lumpur served as a historical landmark in the development of Malaysian education, as it raised concerns about the state of national unity in the country. Subsequently, education was coupled with the socioeconomic restructuring of Malaysian society in line with the New Economic Policy (NEP) that commenced in 1970. However, the changes delivered under the NEP also deepened the natural divides in a multiracial society. Conditions became more challenging in the face of globalization and the need for continued economic development. In the past decade, specific policies have been put forth to foster racial unity at the school level, including the Vision School, the Student Integration Plan for Unity, and Civic and Citizenship Education. But it is becoming obvious that they will produce positive results only if a concerted effort is made to incorporate inclusivity and multiculturalism into the national education agenda.     

Education rights,education policies and inequality in South Africa

In this article we explore education policy changes in South Africa through a rights-based framework. We situate our analysis in the context of deepening poverty and inequality arguing that progress (or the lack thereof) in schools cannot be divorced from poverty and its consequences. We show that education reform in South Africa has been situated within a policy frame that results in a tension between cost recovery and redressing historical backlogs. We argue that the introduction of user fees and the burden of other costs have rendered abstract the idea of education as a ‘right’. The definition of rights is extended to include the quality of education and educational opportunities. We question the constitutional and legislative romanticism surrounding a rights-based discourse and encourage a re-conceptualisation of human rights in education. Finally, we examine the resurgence of education social movements in relation to democratisation, educational transformation and human rights in South Africa.     

Quality Teaching and Learning in Australian and South African Universities: Comparing policies and practices

Over the last decade universities across the world have been grappling with quality and quality assurance issues. In several countries national policies on higher education quality assurance have been evolving, mostly with the purpose of putting external systems of quality assurance in place. In many instances, these policies and systems had less effect on the quality of teaching and learning than had been expected. This paper serves as a comparison of national quality policy developments in two countries, Australia and South Africa, and goes on to investigate the emerging tensions in quality policy processes in these countries. Whereas a number of similarities were discerned, differences were as evident, verifying the underlying assumption of the authors that notions of quality, and quality policies and their implementation are very much dependent on the particular localised contexts in which they exist.     

Higher education research in South Africa: Achievements, conditions and new challenges

This paper provides a historical overview of the development of higher education research in South Africa by focusing on past achievements and conditions, and present and future challenges. An attempt is made to point out the changes in both the context and paradigm of higher education research. The authors illustrate how research foci and methods were shaped by the political agenda of the old South Africa, and highlight the issues which higher education currently and in the future will have to address as part of the transformation process of not only higher education, but of South African society as a whole.     

Assessment policy in post-apartheid South Africa: challenges for improving education quality and learning

The South African education system has witnessed significant changes since 1994 when the democratically elected government began the process of dismantling the inherited apartheid order. The primary focus of the transformation process was to address the twin imperative of equity and quality in education, particularly for the historically marginalised black population. A key aspect of this transformation process remains the development of alternative assessment policies. This paper reviews the changes focusing on the stated rationale as well as their underlying assumptions and implications for practice. It argues that the changes have in many respects addressed the most obvious effects of the previous apartheid systems. However, it notes that, notwithstanding the policy intentions, assessment policy since 1994 has favoured a measurement focused-approach in the classroom, which has hindered a shift towards an assessment for learning approach. This, it argues, is partly fuelled by the abiding belief in and commitment to classroom testing and examinations as well as external national assessments as the key criterion for reforming learning and teaching practices in the classroom.     

Language proficiency and language policy in South Africa: Findings from new data

This study explores new data from 2008 on language proficiency and labour market outcomes in the context of South Africa's language-in-education policy. We show that the economic returns to English language proficiency are large and higher than those to home language proficiency for the majority of employed South Africans. This helps explain why there is little incentive to switch to an African language as the language of instruction in schools. However, we show also that African adults are significantly more likely to be proficient in English if they are proficient in their home language. This finding supports the arguments of additive bilingualism, which identify the benefits of extended mother-tongue education for the acquisition of second-language skills.     

Adult education in the Limpopo province of South Africa: challenges for policy implementation

In this article we report and reflect on a study about the problems encountered in the implementation of adult education policies in the Limpopo province of South Africa. We used the model of intergovernmental policy implementation of Van Horn and Van Meter as a theoretical framework. We reflect on this study and link the findings with more recent literature on and experiences with developments in the implementation of adult education policies. The findings of our study show several discontinuities and contradictions in the implementation of an adult education policy, partly caused by the legacies of the past. A central recommendation, informed by contributions from stakeholders at grassroots level, is to use a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches (bottopdown) in policy development to improve the quality of the implementation.     

美国“教育博士”培养的实践、问题与挑战

美国教育博士培养经过80多年的发展,不断修正、完善自身的培养方案,形成了符合本国国情的培养系统。但是,由于教育博士质量标准参差不齐,以及在学位属性和培养方式等方面表现趋同化,引起国内关于教育博士学位的争论不断。面对挑战与危机,美国一些大学教育博士项目不断改进,突破了传统哲学博士的模式,提高了教育博士的价值和意义。其实践、问题与挑战对我国教育博士的培养具有借鉴意义。     

Building citizenship in fragmented societies: The challenges of deracialising and integrating schools in post-Apartheid South Africa

Soon after the collapse of Apartheid, the new government in South Africa set about restructuring the educational system, which was previously segregated by race, class and language. This paper argues that the deracialisation and integration of schools in South Africa has been difficult to achieve and as a process, uneven in different parts of the country and in types of schools.     

From policy to practice: The challenges to educational access for non-nationals in South Africa

This paper argues that the problems of educational access for non-nationals in South Africa lie not simply in failures of the current policies, although there are certainly instances where policies need modification, but largely in the implementation of existing policies, and the ways in which they are developed and modified. The paper reviews evidence in the international literature and draws on empirical evidence from a small study of a group of Zimbabwean migrant children to illustrate more clearly the dynamics that serve to exclude them from access to schooling, despite official policy commitments. Key research questions that are addressed are what main barriers to educational access exist for non-national and are these a result of policy gaps; how does the implementation of existing educational policies affect the educational access of non-nationals; what approaches to policy and practice would be more effective in ensuring non-nationals participate fully in basic education? The paper ends with some observations on how to address the policy gaps and how to develop a more effective approach to policy formation and implementation in order to improve both policy and practice.