The Diploma Disease and the Educational Reforms in China: Twenty Years on

This essay will discuss the educational reforms in China since1978, explore the features and consequences of "the diploma disease"and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the actions taken toremedy the dilemma. It concludes with the argument that the educational reforms in China have made contributions to controlling the situation and developing the system while also giving rise to some negative effects. The success of the reforms remains open to time for testing.     

单疱性脑炎近20年的临床回顾分析

本文回顾了近20年我科收治的单疱性脑炎84例的临床诊治经过,前10年35例,后10年49例,死亡率有显著性差异(P>0.05)。前10年为68％,后10年为31％。并发现临床医师对本病的充分认识和早期应用无环鸟苷抗病毒治疗是降低死亡率的关键。     

CBI研究二十年:回顾与思考

CBI外语教学已经经历了萌芽、缓慢发展和走向全面繁荣的三个阶段。以学科内容为依托的外语教学模式研究为我国大学英语教学改革指明了方向,同时,我们也需拓展研究对象与范围,完善研究方法,加深相关问题探讨,使CBI教学效果最优化。     

近二十年山东茂腔研究述评

茂腔是山东土生土长的民间戏剧之一,2006年,高密茂腔被国务院公布为第一批国家级非物质文化遗产名录。随着对地方非遗的关注,地方加大对茂腔的资料收集,学术界也慢慢开始从人类学、民俗学等多维视角深化茂腔研究领域。     

二十年来国内图书馆知识转移研究综述

二十年来许多学者从定位、研究方法、管理因素、思想的移植应用、技术变革的推动作用、绩效研究、图书馆建设及新实践等方面对图书馆知识转移进行了系统研究,文章既指出已有的研究成果所表现出的新意,同时也提出了其存在的不足之处和笔者的期望。     

Treating the Diploma Disease in Kenya: a modest counter‐proposal

In the 20 years which have elapsed since Ronald Dore's celebrated diagnosis, the ‘diploma disease’ has continued to take its toll. In many countries, pupils still prepare for major national examinations by ritualised learning, involving the rote memorisation of large quantities of poorly understood factual material. Dore proposed a radical cure: students should no longer be selected for scarce and highly valued opportunities in further education or employment on the basis of their scores in achievement‐based examinations. Instead other instruments—aptitude tests, school quotas, or even lotteries—should be used. The argument of this paper is that reform of examinations is a more viable alternative. It is not examinations per se that are the problem, but rather examinations of low quality. The most pervasive weakness of many national examinations is their propensity to focus on the testing of passive, inert knowledge: they require candidates to do no more than reproduce what they have remembered, in unchanged form. Good examinations, by contrast, test active ideas: they require candidates to think about what they know, and to restructure it in some way. Such examinations can be supportive, not subversive, of attempts to improve pedagogy. The fact that an education system employs achievement‐based examinations to allocate scarce opportunities does not mean that passive pedagogy and ritualised learning—the twin indicators of the diploma disease—are inevitable.     

Radicals reflect: The first twenty years of the caucus for a new political science

B. Nelson Ong is Assistant Professor Political Science at the College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY 10805. He is also the Secretary of the National Association of Scholars.     

Clio in 2013: The writing and teaching of history in the next twenty years

This essay is a slightly adapted version of a talk presented to the History Disciplinary Subsection at the National Association of Scholars general convention in San Francisco, California, 17 April 1993.     

The ambiguous embrace: twenty years of IT (ICT) in UK primary schools

School inspection reports, at the end of the 20th Century, in both Scottish and English primary schools, clearly identify the use of ICT as the weakest aspect of professional practice. On this evidence, despite initial certainty of political purpose and considerable optimism regarding its effects on teaching and learning, ICT remains, after twenty years, a marginal force in the education of 5–12 year–olds. Though numerous research studies in the 1980's and 1990's seemed to have identified the conditions for the effective transfer of ICT into primary schools and repeated governmental initiatives invested heavily in both infrastructure and training, teachers have not embraced ICT within their core practice. This paper suggests that the adoption of exclusively rational, perhaps hyper–rational, methodologies, by researchers working in the mainstream of schools and teacher education institutions has resulted in a failure to understand the complex cultural, psychological and political characteristics of schools. Alternative avenues for research are proposed.     

The Diploma Disease in Egypt: learning,teaching and the monster of the secondary leaving certificate

Eygpt's education system is dominated by the secondary leaving certificate, the thanaawiya aama examination. From the earliest primary years, schooling is characterised by examination orientation and ritualisation. These features, in addition to Egypt's relatively late drive towards modernisation accompanied by centralisation and newly forged social divisions, clearly categorise Egypt as a victim of the ‘diploma disease’. Attempts to reform the assessment system are being hampered by the continuing perception of current school qualifications as the means to success, whether in the public or private sector, within Egypt or abroad.     

The global growth of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme over the first 40 years: a critical assessment

The year 2007 was a highly significant one for ‘international education’ in an ‘internationally minded school’ context. It marked the fortieth anniversary of the first trial exam of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). This paper charts the rather random global growth of this programme, from it being a long‐awaited experiment in international education sat by 147 students in two schools, to it being a curriculum offered in 1779 schools in 128 countries. It is shown how the initially Eurocentric bias of the global spread has become a distinct North American one. At present 35% of schools can be found in the US, whilst Africa accounts for only 2%. In 38 countries there is a single school offering the programme. The wider implications of this regional disparity are explored, concluding that perhaps the programme requires a more critical and planned growth strategy.