Special needs education: an international perspective

Professor Peter Mittler, who is retiring from his post at the University of Manchester, considers the global implications of inclusive education.     

Distance education for managers: an international perspective

The last few years have seen an enormous expansion, in different countries, of distance education for managers. Paul Northcott, of Deakin University, Australia, has first‐hand experience of several of these developments and charts their key features.     

Higher education in Israel: an historical perspective

Through an analysis of the origins and development of Israel's universities, the paper illuminates the Israeli variation of the wide-spread phenomenon of transfer and adaptation of western concepts of higher education to developing countries. Following the examples of the German university and the use of scientific research in the German colonization effort, the World Zionist Organization supported the establishment the Technion (opened 1924) and the Hebrew University (opened 1925). From the beginning there has been a strong utilitarian emphasis which is examined in three areas: contributions of higher education in settling the land and developing the economy, in the regeneration and redefinition of a national culture, and in enhancing national security. It is further suggested how an emphasis on utlity as defined by perceived national needs has contributed to the structure of institutions, defining areas of research and shaping the curriculum. It is argued that even with independence (1948) and the enormous expansion of Israeli higher education since the 1960s in size and number of universities, continuities with the pre-State practical ethos still dominate. Continuities have also been maintained in governance and finance for, unlike other national systems, foreign citizens still play a significant role in the management and support of Israeli universities. This phenomenon may even contribute to maintaining well-established patterns of service since it is the opportunity to participate in nation-building that continues to excite the imagination and define the responsibility of Diaspora Jewry which initially defined the purposes of Israeli higher education.     

营销理论视角下的高等学校管理

营销的实质是对需求的管理,营销理论视角下的高等学校管理要求在做总体规划之前,要对高等教育需求有较全面的了解与分析,在此基础上对高等教育市场进行细分,再以营销观念为导向规划总体发展战略,实施内部管理改革,开创品牌建设。战略的具体实施则可根据营销的4P制定相应的组合策略。     

Higher education reform in perspective: The Japanese experience

Japanese colleges and universitiesare in an age of great transition. Currentreforms can be counted as some of the mostextensive and radical changes in the history ofJapanese higher education. Although the agendaof recent reforms has been conditioned bycontemporary socio-political circumstances,many of the ongoing changes are rooted inhistory. In this article, the reforms ofJapanese higher education are examined from along-range historical perspective. Thoughpre-war years are briefly mentioned, the mainconcern here is with reforms after World WarII.     

Higher education reform in Estonia: a legal perspective

This article looks at the higher education reform in Estonia since 1988. Author shows how over a few years ‘university education’ as the meaning of higher education was replaced by much broader ‘post-secondary education’. Another important issue to be covered is the dynamics of the legislative reform—starting with the creation of normative regulations for new institutional groups, and as a second step bringing them into conformity with the Civil Code adopted in 1994. The final part of the article discusses various implications of the new legislation—related to funding, content of studies, and governance—on higher education. Particularly as related to private education it is concluded that most recent reforms do not encourage private initiative to offer higher education, and support orthodox positions with regard to content of higher education studies. This is considered of being not helpful for the development of the learning society.     

Rough winds do Shake: Higher education in transition

The Management of Change: universities, state and economy in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, HENRY D.R. MILLER, 1995, Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University Press. viii + 183pp, ISBN 0-3355-19089-8 (hardback)

The Postmodern University? Contested Visions of Higher Education in Society, ANTHONY SMITH & FRANK WEBSTER (Eds), 1997, Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education/Open University, Press. xi + 125pp. ISBN 0-335-19958-5 (paperback), ISBN 0-335-19959-3 (hardback)     

Returns to education and economic transition: an international comparison

This paper compares the returns to education in transitional economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republic and the Ukraine in the 1990s, and in China in the 1980s and 1990s. In the pre‐transition period, the returns to education in the six CEE countries were low at about 2–4%, while those in China were even lower at less than 2%. As the process of transition towards a market economy evolved over time, the returns to education steadily increased, and non‐state sector workers and young workers were rewarded with higher returns to their education than their counterparts in the state sector and older age categories. The marginal returns to university education are the highest of all of the marginal returns to various education levels. Moreover, the results show that it took about a decade for the six CEE countries, and two decades for China, to raise their respective returns to education to the 10% level.     

Issues and trends in teacher education in international perspective

Abstract

Many education systems worldwide have undergone major reforms over the last two decades or more. Educational reform cannot take place without major consequences for teacher education. This article focuses on the way teacher education has responded to education reform in two countries, namely the United States of America and England. In the former, the reform efforts were widespread but each endeavour was guided by different priorities. In particular, the trend towards Professional Development Schools has been viewed as encouraging but ultimately their success must be measured by longitudinal research over a period of time. In England the reform movement can be described as a shift towards school-based training of teachers with schools as the lead partners in educating novice teachers. The experience of these countries has particular relevance for the South African education system. It shows that what is needed is a revitalisation of research on teacher education. Successful teacher education institutions and programmes share distinct features, inter alia, a clear shared vision of good teaching, well-defined standards of practice and performance, intensively supervised practical experiences, and strong relationships between training institutions and reformminded local schools.     

从国际经验看研究型大学本科教学改革的基本原则

以2001年博伊委员会对美国研究型大学落实其1998年报告建议的跟踪调查结果为主要依据,反思欧美发达国家改革的经验和教训,研究型大学本科教学改革应当遵循以发展知识为根本的科研与教学同生共进原则,以集体智慧为特征的新型学术自由原则,以因材施教为基础的新式精英教育原则。本科生研究和研究性教学则是实现这些原则的“阿基米德支点”。