New Realities for Leadership and Governance in Higher Education?

This paper considers some of the new realities that are likely toaffect higher education, particularly those arising from developmentsin communication and information technologies. Four scenarios arepresented as illustrations of how higher education might change;some of the elements that make up these scenarios are alreadyemerging. The paper then explores the role that leadershipand governance play in helping institutions to address the newrealities, particularly as change impacts on institutional culture and functioning.     

Networking and Distance Learning for Teachers: a classification of possibilities

ABSTRACT

Computer based communication technologies, or what could be more conveniently called networking, are bringing new possibilities into teacher education in many different ways. As with distance education more generally they can facilitate flexibility in time and place of learning, but the range of persons and resources that they can bring to the teacher's computer screen are also introducing many new scenarios into what is meant by ‘teacher education’. In this review, nine cases of such new scenarios are briefly considered. Issues common to them are also discussed and the paper concludes with a suggestion of a problem area for teacher education in contemporary Europe in which currently available networking could play a particularly important role.     

Disrupting the Narrative of Universality of Inclusive Education: The New Marginalization of Low-Income,English Language Learners in India

Abstract

The assumption that educational policies and practices in the global North are viable in the global South has promoted a universal template for inclusive education, or Education For All. In India, lived realities do not conform to this universal template, resulting in the emergence of low-income English language learners who are being labeled as learning disabled. The paper calls for a “de-colonial resistance” that incorporates indigenous knowledge and lived realities.     

Escape rooms as tools for climate change education: an exploration of initiatives

Abstract

In the last years we have observed a growing interest in the use of gamification approaches for climate change education. While most practices are related to digital gaming, there is a new trend which is still academically unexplored: escape rooms. The main objective of this paper is to serve as an initial exploratory study in this field by identifying and analysing climate change-related escape rooms. For that purpose we carried out a web search and a qualitative content analysis. A total of 17 initiatives are described and compared, unravelling their main audience, country of origin, topics, scenarios and objectives covered. The paper also highlights what escape rooms can offer to climate change education: experiential and immersive learning, problem solving and critical thinking skills, and a sense of collaboration and urgency.     

Political explanations for economic decline in Britain and their relationship to policies for education and training

Abstract

This paper considers a number of explanations promoted by governments over the last two decades to explain Britain's economic decline. It is argued that the explanations are only partially based in economic realities and are contrived to legitimise broader agendas for policy initiatives. The inadequacy of the education and training system emerges as a recurrent theme and has, as a consequence, been subjected to considerable change. However, other explanations for economic decline have been offered: lack of enterprise, lack of flexibility in the workforce and lack of competitiveness. These explanations are examined for their coherence and continuity and for their implications for education and training.     

Academic developers as brokers of change: insights from a research project on change practice and agency

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the findings of a four-year research project studying change practice and agency in higher education. The main findings of five empirical studies are presented. These findings lay bare how academic staff perceive opportunities to change their practice, identify leaders’ strategies when trying to bring about change, illustrate the different and at times incompatible ways of understanding change initiatives, acknowledge the importance of moral dimensions in change, and demonstrate how leaders mobilise theory when engaging in change practice. The article synthesizes the results of the project and draws conclusions with a view to how academic developers may best engage with critical stakeholders in higher education institutions. The paper concludes by presenting some thoughts on how a new model for academic development may take form. The paper aims to provide insights, inspiration, and critical dialogue to researchers in academic development.     

Editorial

Abstract

The paper addresses one aspect of the ‘New Realities’ of higher education: the employer‐higher education interface. It explores the development of the ‘employability’ agenda in higher education, examines the nature and implication of organisational change for graduates and assesses what attributes graduates will need in the next decade. Flexible organisations need flexible, and increasingly empowered employees; that in turn calls for transformative and empowering learning. The way that higher education might address this, particularly in the context of lifelong learning, is explored.     

Editorial

Abstract

This paper explores the emerging approaches to the governance and management of institutional change at South African higher education institutions. The discussion firstly locates these approaches within the broader context of the new governance framework that is contained in the new higher education legislation, and in particular the emerging forms of institutional governance that this has spawned. The paper then describes and discusses the challenges facing institutional leaders in shaping higher education organisational change in the light of the transformation challenges that arise from the implementation of the new legislation.     

Challenges and prospects for improving teacher education and development through the National Policy Framework on Teacher Education and Development

Abstract

This paper examines the prospects for improving teacher education and development in South Africa through the National Policy Framework on Teacher Education and Development (NPFTED). The key elements of the policy framework are critically analysed in terms of their limitations and their potential for improving teacher education and development as a crucial means to improve learner performance. The paper looks at the current realities in teacher education and development, the progress made and opportunities available, the identifiable gaps, and the proposals for closing the gaps. Possibilities and constraints in the current situation, as they are described in the NPFTED, are discussed. These include globalisation, the challenges facing a fledgling nonracial democracy, the legacy of skewed development under apartheid, current social inequalities, conditions in rural schools, declining recruitment trends, large mismatches between the supply and demand of teachers, HIV/AIDS and other diseases among teachers, the limits of the current planning, information and communication systems, and the situation in education faculties in higher education institutions. The paper concludes that the challenges are formidable, but that proper planning and synergisation of objectives and resources by government, higher education institutions, labour unions, the private sector and the public can contribute to significant improvements.     

Making Sense in Education: Pretense (Including No Child Left Behind) and Realities in Rhetoric and Policy About Schools and Schooling

One wrong assumption about reality is sufficient to ensure the failure of education policy. For a variety of reasons, too many people have ignored realities in policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act. Individuals who are serious about reforming or improving education, general or special, must confront realities in at least the following areas: measurement, statistical distributions, measurement error, labels, special services, teacher responsibilities, and teacher training. Enacting or supporting education policy that is known to be seriously flawed is unacceptable and tantamount to the criminal conduct of someone who markets goods with known safety defects or harmful effects or of someone who ignores critical realities in the conduct of business.     

The visual representation,by electrical methods,of the elementary principles of sound

Abstract

This paper describes an institutionally based research project examining the problems encountered in introducing curriculum change to an engineering programme in a further education college. The project required tutors to integrate assessment of core skills with their engineering assessment. Evaluation of the impact of these changes was made using both interviews and questionnaires. Tutors experienced some problems in taking on this new responsibility. Students, particularly adult students, welcomed a move to more active learning, but required more guidance from lecturers on what was required of them. The project explored the practical problems experienced by lecturers and students when change was introduced. The findings of this study highlight the extent of change in attitude and in teaching style that may be required by many lecturers implementing General National Vocational Qualifications programmes.     

The Construction and Challenges of Australia's Post‐binary System of Higher Education

Abstract

In 1988 Australia commenced the transition to a post‐binary system of higher education as the UK is currently doing. In both countries the generally acknowledged obsolescence of the dual system had provoked the structural change. In Australia, the new direction was also motivated by official concerns that the universities be made more accessible to government priorities, particularly economic priorities, at a time of national economic decline. Unlike the UK, the Australian post‐binary era has been founded on a government programme of widespread amalgamations based upon the universities.

This article explores the process of constructing the unitary system, the difficulties experienced in conceptualising the new order and its impact upon the other provider of tertiary education. The Australian approach has ignored a canon in higher education, that varied structures and types of institutions preserve diversity. Further, in contrast to Britain's gradualist path into a unitary system, Australia moved quickly to form large undifferentiated universities to serve the needs of a mass system of higher education.     

Singapore international education hub and its dilemmas: the challenges and makings for cosmopolitan learning

ABSTRACT

Higher education in Asia is massifying at an exceptional pace and scale. In this paper, I ask how practices and discourses which inform the internationalization of Singapore’s higher education can provide opportunities for developing cosmopolitan learning that it claims to provide. Cosmopolitan learning is closely related to cross-border student mobility and plays an important role in shaping the international students’ identities, aspirations and worldviews. Based on a recent study in Singapore of a group of international students from various parts of Asia and Europe, this paper attempts to bring the theoretical and grounded realities of cosmopolitan learning in an Asian context into the fore. The aim of the paper is to provide a useful frame for rethinking the purpose of international education for cosmopolitan learning in an increasingly interconnected world that is strewn with ambivalence, and what that means in the context of Singapore as an erudite nation-state critical to building Asian education hub aspirations.     

The Flipside: Concerns about the “New Literacies” Paths Educators Might Take

Abstract

This article explores some of the ways in which educators are using the tools of new literacies without the mind-set. The author poses the possibility that this might be a result of increased pressure on teachers to differentiate for standardization. The author then presents ways in which new literacies, particularly those grounded in technology, can be used to transform education instead of dressing up drill and practice as new literacies.     

Audit cultures and quality assurance mechanisms in England: a study of their perceived impact on the work of academics

Abstract

Acceptance of the legitimacy of post‐modern theories on education implies a need to reconceptualise the professional development of graduates in the area of educational leadership. This paper reports on the first year of an innovative professional doctorate programme focusing on educational leadership at the Queensland University of Technology. A problem‐based learning approach was integrated with and underpinned by post‐modern imperatives such as the valuing of the self‐empowerment of students, the acceptance of multiple realities as reality, and a view of knowledge as arising out of interdependence and contextualised by discontinuous change. The focus of this paper is on students’ and teachers’ views of the development of individual empowerment, processual competencies and interdependence in the first cohort of students.

     

Higher education as a self‐guiding society

Abstract

Over the last two decades, there has been a significant change in the financing of higher education in the United States. A decrease in student and institutional support in real terms, tuition increases at all types of institutions, along with the view that students are the primary beneficiaries of higher education has resulted in policies that reduce the proportion of higher education costs borne by the federal and state governments. This paper will describe this financing shift in the United States, and analyse its impact on college participation with a particular focus on equity and opportunity. It will also provide an analysis of some questions that European countries should address as they implement their own policies that shift the burden of paying for college from the government to individuals, and as they consider various forms of financial assistance to help students pay for college.     

Notes on contributors

The recently released Young People's Participation in Post‐compulsory Education and Training document, usually referred to as the Finn Committee Report, completes an education policy triad in Australia involving schooling, higher education and technical and further education (TAFE). This paper is particularly interested in examining the policy nexus between higher education and TAFE. While the philosophical continuities are clear, the underlying ‘logics’ of the two arenas pull in different directions, creating policy tensions and contradictions. In particular, the assumptions about mass tertiary education underlying the Finn Report conflict with the entrepreneurial ‘universification’ of higher education set in train by the recent restructuring of the higher education sector. This paper traces the competing logics of these trends and discusses their implications for higher education.     

Use of national parks for outdoor environmental education: An Australian case study

Abstract

The need for environmental education through outdoor education experiences is becoming increasingly evident in outdoor education theory and practice. In Australia, this environmental focus is reflected in recent outdoor education curriculum documents, particularly in the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). For many outdoor education teachers who do not have expertise in environmental education, this curriculum development presents a challenge. Outdoor education teachers frequently use National Parks to help them address this challenge.

The study examined the educational objectives and roles of teachers and park staff involved in environmental education through outdoor education in National Parks in Victoria, Australia. This paper discusses findings related to the teachers' educational objectives and roles while those of the park staff are examined in a separate paper. The findings indicate that the teachers often lack the environmental knowledge and skills needed to teach some aspects of the curriculum thus making the role of the park ranger or education officer particularly significant in educating teachers as well as students. Issues are raised about the training of outdoor education teachers and of park rangers to meet the environmental education needs of outdoor education students. Questions are also raised about the appropriateness of using National Parks for outdoor education purposes.     

Curriculum Development and New Information Technology

ABSTRACT

Many reports of achievements in developments in new information technology in schools lament the, as yet, unfulfilled hopes that they will radically change education. Those involved in new information technology sometimes seem to imagine that the problems of change that they face are somehow unique and have not been faced by others who have set out to change the curriculum.[l] I shall argue that the view of curriculum change employed by many policy makers and by some of those charged with implementing policy is inadequate.[2] While some acknowledge the need to change attitudes and practices in schools, national programmes have often failed even to include teacher training elements, and few have addressed the school as a focus of change, although the classroom has been addressed. My argument is that a better awareness of the common issues of curriculum change may make individual changes such as envisaged by the advocates of new information technology more effective, or at least less painful! Further I urge for a focus on the school, rather than individual classrooms, for both support and research efforts.

In a previous paper I traced the development of technology education in general (McCormick, 1991), this being a curriculum area that has some overlap with information technology. There are parallels to be drawn with this case of development, indeed there is direct overlap, and I will seek to illustrate this. In arguing for a more sophisticated view of curriculum change I will not be suggesting easy policy or programme changes, nor seeking to explain the lack of impact of new information technology, rather I hope to encourage (as I said above) an emphasis on the school and new directions for research. To facilitate my argument I start with a consideration of curriculum change in general, as it relates to national education systems, then consider the case of curriculum change in technology education, and then give an overview of development strategies in the new information technologies.[3] I then apply the evidence from these three sections to the fourth when I deal with curriculum change in the new information technologies, and end the paper by considering the implications for curriculum development in the new information technologies.     

Special education in Romania

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to give a closer view of the realities in special education in Romania, as part of the general reform in the educational system. It outlines the most important features of the past that have led to the present problems which Romania has to face, and presents the main categories of disadvantaged children in the context of social protection guaranteed by the present laws. Where available, data with respect to the years 1991 to 1993 are given.