Different Strategies,Different Outcomes? The History and Trends of the Inclusive and Special Education in Alberta (Canada) and in Finland

This study compares the strategies and delivery of education for students with special educational needs in the province of Alberta, Canada, and in the country of Finland, in the European Union. The rationale for comparing these two jurisdictions is grounded by the idea that both of these areas have high general standards of living, a well-developed public education system, and top results in international school achievement tests. The data consists of available educational policy papers, previous research papers, and educational statistics. This article first describes the special education system development and the current situation, followed by the funding system and discussion about the implications and outcomes of different policies. The historical analysis shows that while many similarities exist between Alberta and Finland, there are also some culturally-bound elements present that have strongly affected the progress and the decision-making process related to the organization of the education for students with special needs.     

Searching for the public: school funding and shifting meanings of ‘the public’ in Australian education

School funding is a principal site of policy reform and contestation in the context of broad global shifts towards private- and market-based funding models. These shifts are transforming not only how schools are funded but also the meanings and practices of public education: that is, shifts in what is ‘public’ about schooling. In this paper, we examine the ways in which different articulations of ‘the public’ are brought to bear in contemporary debates surrounding school funding. Taking the Australian Review of Funding for Schooling (the Gonski Report) as our case, we analyse the policy report and its subsequent media coverage to consider what meanings are made concerning the ‘publicness’ of schooling. Our analysis reveals three broad themes of debate in the report and related media coverage: (1) the primacy of ‘procedural politics’ (i.e. the political imperatives and processes associated with public policy negotiations in the Australian federation); (2) changing relations between what is considered public and private; and (3) a connection of government schooling to concerns surrounding equity and a ‘public in need’. We suggest these three themes contour the debates and understandings that surround the ‘publicness’ of education generally, and school funding more specifically.     

基于精准扶贫的大学生资助管理探析

精准扶贫的资助工作是教育方面的延伸,也是教育扶贫工作中的重点环节.高校大学生资助管理工作中非常重要的工作内容之一,就是能够帮助家庭困难的大学生顺利毕业并参加工作.这是我国教育政策优势及社会主义制度完整的体现.以我国各大高校开展精准扶贫资助工作的概况为主要切入点,探寻现阶段各大高校精准扶贫工作过程中所面临的一系列挑战,提...     

Achieving inclusion? Effective resourcing of students with special educational needs

In line with the increasing policy emphasis on inclusive education, there is now a greater focus on how best to provide for students special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools. However, there is little consensus internationally as to the most equitable way in which to support these students. Despite ongoing evaluations of the existing funding structures, there has been little discussion to inform future changes and ensure an equitable distribution of resources. This paper examines the system of SEN funding in Ireland during a period of policy change. Using data from a National Survey of Schools, we examine the profile and distribution of students across different school contexts to assess the extent to which the existing funding model targets those most in need. Findings show that the current through-put funding system broadly targets students with SEN but in any new model, there is room for greater differentiation in the allocation of funding, particularly within disadvantaged school contexts. The paper highlights the need for further discussion around how we conceptualise special education in mainstream education. We argue for greater emphasis on student outcomes and school accountability where SEN funding is received to support students.     

山东省某市民办教育发展的经济学分析

通过对山东省某市民办教育发展状况的调查分析发现,民办教育是在市场供求机制作用下产生的,并且其发展水平与政府的相关政策有一定的关联性.在政府没有提供直接财政资助的条件下,民办教育间接地利用了公立教育系统的人力和声誉资源,吸引和接收了部分学生,帮助政府解决了公共教育经费短缺的部分问题.民办教育已经发展成为整个教育系统的一个组成部分,满足了社会多样化的教育需求.在教育分层格局下,学业成绩和学费成为学生赖以选择学校的两种资本,也是学校挑选学生的衡量指标.从两所案例民办学校经费收支情况看,学费收入大于经常性支出,有一定的经费节余,但是如果将建校成本、贷款和其他债务考虑进去,民办学校难以在短期内全面实现盈余.政策制定者应该从教育选择、入学机会、教学效果、教学效率、公平和社会凝聚力等多个维度,衡量和评价发展民办教育的社会效果.     

Bringing Cinderella to the ball: constructing a federal system of technical and further education in Australia, 1971–1975

Australian vocational education has a history dating from the late eighteenth century. As Australian colonies and, later, federated states evolved each constructed its own version of vocational education provision. Generally the systems, consisting of community‐based or state‐controlled colleges for the training of operatives, apprenticeships and professional support personnel, were poorly resourced and lacked powerful sponsors to support and promote the education and training of their mostly working‐class students. By the early 1970s Australian governments had developed commissions to supplement the funding of state‐based elementary, secondary and university education systems, even though under the Australian Constitution education remained state‐controlled matter. A reformist federal Labor government at the time consolidated elementary, secondary and university funding but neglected to consider, or even acknowledge, the 400,000 vocational education students not covered by these commissions. Following pressure from vocational education teacher unions, among others, the Labor government established the Australian Committee for Technical and Further Education (ACOTAFE) to address the needs of these students. At ACOTAFE’s first meeting on 25 March 1973, the Minister for Education Kim E. Beazley said, ‘It will be a renaissance in education when technical and further education cease to be Cinderellas in education. It is the role of your committee to bring Cinderella to her rightful role as princess’. ACOTAFE was to be chaired by Myer Kangan from the Department of Labour and National Service. The committee’s published outcomes were referred to evermore as the iconic ‘Kangan Report’ rather than TAFE in Australia: Report on Needs in Technical and Further Education, its formal title. The report gave Australian vocational education a name (TAFE), a philosophy (access to all through lifelong learning) and much needed capital works and infrastructure funding. The paper will outline the circumstances leading to the formation of the committee, its work and its outcomes. Focus will be placed on the influential role of Chairman Kangan in shaping ACOTAFE’s conclusions. A key theme within the paper is the intersection of biography, politics and the economy in shaping policy construction.     

Historical construction and Australian Catholic education: accounting for school funding policy from the cultural politics of Australian education

This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies.     

National Plan for School Improvement and Students First: the predictable nature of school education policy and the problem of student achievement

This paper explores two Australian school education policy documents and the inputs they describe to boost student achievement. The paper suggests that current reform efforts in schooling like others previously configure student achievement in input–output terms confining school education policy to predictable inputs that sideline broader influences on educational output including, for instance, school funding. The national policy documents that are the subject of the case study in this paper are the National Plan for School Improvement and the current Students First. Student achievement is explored as an object of study that can be worked on by policy, including for across-the-board national ‘non-educational’ purposes. The analysis, critical in outlook, suggests that current school education policy trades on a predictable set of evidence-based inputs as correctives to declining levels of student achievement without weaving into the student learning equation the complex mix of relations that frame the educational system.     

Some proposals for change to the role of the catholic sector in the Australian school funding policy process

This paper is set against a history of school funding policies in Australia that begins with the first public policy recognition of the disadvantages experienced by government and non-government schools in the 1973 Schools in Australia (Karmel) Report. The paper traces a history of school funding policy linking it with the current backlash against public education and retaliatory backlash constructions of public schools as the new disadvantaged in an increasingly competitive and deregulated school funding policy environment. These backlashes, argued to be against the indiscriminate funding of independent schools policy by several protagonists of public education, are framed in terms equivalent to what Lingard and Douglas (1999) have called ‘recuperative’ politics. From the kind of recuperative statist politics considered in this paper, construing the backlash effects of public and private schools as damaging and unproductive as those emerging from the gender wars in education policy, I propose a move to an Australian school funding arrangement in which all schools, both public and private, are integrated into one deregulated and equally funded sector, as typify diverse school provisions in several OECD polities (Caldwell 2004, FitzGerald 2004).While briefly tracing a school funding policy chronology, this paper also concentrates on the current policy moment in relation to school funding, that signals the end of distinctive public and private education sectors, and in the context of which it argues that private schools should be funded equally to state schools, a trend in evidence since 1996. The focus on the current policy moment entails an abbreviated analysis of the Fitzgerald Report (‘Governments Working Together: A Better Future for All Australians’ 2004), which makes a number of recommendations to the Victorian and other governments in relation to the public funding of all Australian schools¹. The paper addresses the impact of this trend especially on the funding of Australian Catholic schools.     

精准扶贫视域下高校“多彩”资助育人路径探索——基于高校辅导员资助育人工作案例

精准扶贫视域下,在高校开展资助育人精准化研究,探索资助育人新路径,有着重要的现实意义。基于某高校辅导员工作中多个具有代表性的资助育人典型案例,客观分析目前资助育人工作存在的问题,针对问题打造“红黄绿青蓝”等多彩资助育人模式,探索传承红色基因、丈量黄土大地、拓宽绿色平台、壮志凌云揽青天、青出于蓝而胜于蓝“五位一体”的“扶贫、扶志、扶智”资助育人新路径,以期更加全面地帮助贫困学生实现从灰暗到多彩的人生转变。     

高校困难生“精准资助”实现路径研究

国家资助政策是帮助困难学生完成学业的重要举措,是实现资助育人的重要途径。近些年来,我们国家也逐步形成了相对稳定的资助体系,资助政策的实施取得了良好的社会效益,困难学子得以顺利入学。但是现行的资助政策在实施过程中也总存在一些偏差,难以满足资助工作的要求。精准资助是解决当前资助问题的有效途径,文章基于精准资助和分析当前资助存在的问题,以期对资助工作提出建议,实现精准资助。     

Singapore’s educational policy through the prism of student voice: recasting students as co-agents of educational change and ‘disrupting’ the status quo?

This paper examines the implementation of Singapore’s landmark policy, ‘Thinking Schools, learning Nation’ (TSLN), in developing ‘thinking students’ through the prism of student voice. In the context of twenty-first century education and the growing importance of student voice in education, this paper argues that the time might be right to ‘disrupt’ Singapore’s education status quo and incorporate meaningful student voice in education policies. Instead of perceiving students as mere subjects of educational policy enactment, and seeing policy as something that is done to them, it should be reconceptualised as something which is done with them; importantly, students should be recast as key co-agents of educational change, consistent with TSLN’s reconceptualization of learners as ‘thinking students’. Basing its arguments on findings from a qualitative case study of students’ perceptions and schooling experiences of critical thinking in TSLN, this paper considers the case for the inclusion of significant student voice in Singapore’s educational policy reforms. It fills gaps in research on student voices in Singapore’s educational reforms and TSLN’s research from students’ perspective. The paper suggests that the inclusion of student voice in educational reform might be the next landmark step in ‘disrupting’ its educational landscape after the ‘big bang’ of TSLN.     

The Regular Education Initiative in the U.S.: What Is Its Relevance to the Integration Movement in Australia?

A NEW THRUST for the integration of students with a mild disability has been initiated by special education scholars and Federal government officials in the U.S. The “regular education initiative” is based upon the assumption that mildly disabled students’ educational and social needs can be better served in regular education settings. Proponents of the regular education initiative are seeking “waivers for performance” that would allow school districts to experiment with alternative service delivery models and the allocation of resources without being Financially penalized under the current funding systems. Critics argue that the strength of the research base used to support REI is insufficient to warrant wholesale changes in current service delivery systems. They are sceptical of the argument that REI type programs can eliminate the effects of labeling by better integrating students who need supplemental educational resources. An analysis of the REI proposals and their conceptual relevance to the Australian context is presented.     

我国现代远程教师继续教育政策探析

我国对高质量、国际化教育模式的追求,致使广大教师不断参加继续教育以提高自身的综合素质。现代远程教育以其不受时间、空间的局限,信息资源储备量大以及知识更新速度较快等方面的优势,正逐渐成为教师开展在职继续教育的首选形式。在此背景之下,对于远程教师继续教育政策构建与完善的诉求也不断加强,导致了我国现有相关政策体系的变迁。从理论和实践两个层面来审视我国这一政策变迁的背景,可以凸显其重要性和必要性;而通过考察变迁过程中政策的现存问题以及问题的成因,则有助于我国相关政策体系的进一步完善和规范,进而保证其健康、可持续地发展。     

Inclusive Learning: the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the postschool education of those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities,in England, 1996

ABSTRACT

The Report, Inclusive Learning (1996), is the result of a three‐year enquiry into the educational needs of and provision for adults with disabilities and/or learning difficulties in England. It arose from the requirement of an Act of Parliament, in 1992, that the new national funding council for further education should ‘have regard’ for such students in all its work of funding, development and evaluation. The Committee commissioned some fundamental research into the nature and extent of provision, the actual and potential demand for further education and the current requirements of law, and also reviewed existing academic research (chiefly in English‐speaking countries). It took extensive evidence in many modes and, in particular, created a series of workshops in which the students and their advocates could speak for themselves. The outcome was the main Report and summary, together with six supplementary publications. The core of the Report is the notion of ‘inclusive learning’, which places the responsibility for providing appropriate education with the teachers, the managers and the system (ultimately, with society), rather than problematizing the student as one with a deficit. A good education system is not merely about offering access to what is available, but also the making of what needs to be available accessible: the moulding of opportunity. Thus the Report concentrates on a theory of learning and its educational consequences. It represents another step towards embracing students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities unequivocally within the general approach to learning appropriate for all students. This article summarizes the main lines of analysis and argument in the Report and its framework of recommendations to the Further Education Funding Council, teachers, managers, voluntary organizations and to the government.     

The expansion of higher education led by private universities in Korea

This article explores the role of the Korean government in expanding private higher education over time and attempts to examine the impact of such expansion on access to and equity in higher education. The enrolment rate in Korean higher education has increased to over 80% within the past 60 years. This can be attributed to two factors: the rapid expansion of private universities which currently enrol about 80% of undergraduates, and the Koreans' educational aspirations rooted in the cultural esteem for education. The government's role is also paramount in the expansion by deregulating private universities. However, higher education expansion, mainly led by private resources with minimal government funding, has resulted in educational inequity. The Korean case demonstrates the importance of maintaining a balanced act between regulating and promoting the expansion of private higher education for a developing economy.     

Changing patterns of school enrolment in Australia

The various explanations offered for the decline in government school enrolments since the mid-1970s are considered in this article. Changing parental perceptions of the educational strengths and weaknesses of school systems are held to be of critical importance. Changes in government funding policy have been very important too, in their effects not only on enrolments but also on the educational policies of some non-government schools and, indeed, whole systems. The need is stressed for further research into parental concerns about education and the effects of funding policies on educational decisions.     

School funding formulae: designed to create a learning society?

The right to education depends upon a willingness to finance education fairly. Addressing the difference in educational achievement between learners of different backgrounds is a key aspect of fairness. Framed by contemporary neoliberal policies around marketisation and competitiveness, this paper examines fairness in the education finance policy (EFP) of three jurisdictions in England, Israel and Oklahoma. Using a comparative analysis of school funding formulae and an international survey on the perceptions of local policy actors, the de jure and the de facto EFPs are examined. Our findings reveal de jure policies attempting to address fairness through integrating different student background characteristics. However, variability is evident in the extent to which the de facto policies align with an aspiration for fairness. This is linked to the marketisation of education in each jurisdiction. We conclude that weightings of students’ background characteristics can only be one feature in policy interventions orientated towards bringing about social equity.     

On the relationship between society and higher education: what path should we take?

Abstract

The current network society, with its primacy of information and communication technologies, is challenging the higher education model. The needs and expectations of today’s students differ from those of students in the past, and educational practices should adapt to modern times. But what changes will we see in the relationship between societal transformation and the higher education system? In this research paper, we set out a quantum-based approach in order to analyze this relationship and to advance the understanding about the role that distance education will play in the future. Under this perspective, we provide an illustration that allows for the representation and evaluation of future scenarios.     

Discussion paper Education,capability and action: Further comment

ABSTRACT

Responsibility for meeting the costs of higher education in England has moved inexorably away from the government toward the family with the introduction of tuition fee and maintenance loans. Although an important public policy issue, there is limited research on how the policy impinges on the private sphere of the family. This paper focuses on financial support given by parents, including difficulties and constraints along with their perspectives of and responses to student loan debt, and students’ views of their financial independence. In-depth interviews with 28 parent–student dyads revealed different patterns of support. Some parents, contrary to policy assumptions, felt responsibility for their children’s student loan debt and acted to avoid, minimise or cushion the debt. There was evidence of financial stress for less affluent families. However, students with no parental support and high levels of government funding felt financially independent. The findings suggest that more affluent families were able to protect their children from student loan debt in different ways, whilst those with lower incomes were not able to do so, apparently creating a new form of inequality.