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.     

Neoliberal versus social justice reforms in education policy and practice: discourses,politics and disability rights in education

This article uses critical discourse analysis in order to discuss the equity and social justice implications of an envisaged education reform agenda in Cyprus, as articulated by two consultation reports commissioned by the World Bank. The reports highlight, inter alia, the imperative to improve teaching and enhance accountability regimes with regard to students’ learning. Selected extracts from these documents are analyzed in order to highlight the absence of a social justice discourse in the rhetoric of educational reforms, despite the alleged centrality of a social justice discourse in official policy. The reports fail to include issues of social justice and learner diversity in discussing the necessity to strengthen the existing teacher policy framework and to mobilize structural educational reforms. This omission is indicative of the neoliberal imperatives that drive the envisaged education policy reforms as well as the low priority attributed to issues of equity and learner diversity, with particular reference to students designated as having special educational needs and/or disabilities.     

Cybernetic institutional management theory and practice: A system of flexible workload for university teachers

In the past three decades, higher education reforms have taken place almost everywhere in the world, and governance or the way that higher education is or should be coordinated has become a global topic. The governance reform in Chinese higher education emerged against such a background. The current studies on Chinese higher education reforms mainly tackle the reform processes and treat the Chinese government as the driver of the reforms, whereas how the Chinese government is susceptible to international pressures has remained under‐researched. This article examines the mechanisms that facilitate the spread of global governance reform ideologies in Chinese higher education through the Chinese government, drawing on the concept of institutional isomorphism. Based on analysing recent literature and documents, it concludes that the Chinese government is affected by the global reform ideas and practices that have been legitimatised through international organisations' rhetoric and other countries' successful experiences.     

为什么高等教育市场不遵循经济学教科书

2013年11月1日至3日,第十届北京论坛教育分论坛成功举行。论坛以"高等教育的全球参与和知识共享"为主题,邀请了来自中国、韩国、马来西亚、老挝、以色列、美国、加拿大、巴西、德国、英国、希腊、挪威、澳大利亚、南非和中国香港等15个国家和地区的30位学者到会演讲,来自校内外的50多位师生参与了会议讨论。     

Rethinking Social Policy

The swift nature of school reform enacted by the new Conservative-led coalition government has sparked debate over the future of state education in Britain. While the government rhetoric suggests a decisive break with past policies, there is evidence to suggest that these reforms constitute the next stage of a long revolution in education reform, centred around neoliberal market discourse. In the following paper, I examine the current government’s education policy discourse and, by employing techniques of post-structuralist discourse analysis, reveal the government’s attempts to rearticulate education around the logics of market, responsibilisation and self-esteem, which act to shift responsibility for social problems from the state to the individual. Furthermore, I shall argue that such rearticulation has been coupled with an ideological fantasy of ‘empowerment’, which conceals the subordination of actors to these neoliberal logics by constituting the parent and, more recently, the teacher as powerful actors who have been freed from legal and bureaucratic constraints forced upon them by central government.     

美国大学终身教职制度改革

面对来自各方的改革压力,美国大学终身教职制度存在多种改革方案,并且一些改革方案在多样化的美国高等教育系统中得到部分施行。但是,这并没有改变终身教职制度的主导地位。终身教职制度仍然是美国大学选拔和激励教师最有效的制度安排。     

Systems,ideologies and history: a three-dimensional absence in the study of assessment reform processes

This paper makes the case for the need to study assessment reform processes from a broader and more complex perspective that takes the historical, ideological and systemic aspects of assessment policies into account. It draws on a larger study to demonstrate how the understanding of Assessment for Learning (AfL) reforms is enriched by such a perspective, taking the Chilean case as an illustrative example. The study draws on polysystems theory as an overarching theoretical tool and on critical discourse analysis and intertextuality as a means to reconstruct the polysystem of assessment reforms. These tools are used to analyse two types of sources: documents from different periods of Chilean history of education where reforms relevant to assessment were carried out, and interviews with policy authorities involved in the AfL reform as well as with teachers from different backgrounds and contexts.     

锐意改革的美国名牌大学

本文较为客观系统地介绍了美国若干名牌大学在新世纪到来之际,紧紧抓住全球经济教育一体化的宝贵契机,大刀阔斧地实施高等教育改革的一些做法。美国的高等教育改革不仅是向传统的教学理念发起挑战,而且还试图从诸多大学以往改革的成败中不断探索捷径,闯出一条富有时代特色的教改之路。     

Problematizing global educational governance of OECD PISA: Student achievement,categorization, and social inclusion and exclusion

Abstract

This study problematizes the global educational governance of OECD PISA and its statistical data as a governing technology in contemporary discourses of education reforms. The study examines principles that order the discourses and practices of the international comparative assessment. The effort of analysing the impact of an education reform regime led by OECD PISA reveals how statistical reasoning defines problems in educational systems and forms social discourse surrounding educational reform to solve such problems. In doing so, this article focuses on standardization, classification, and normalization for measuring and comparing student achievement and national effectiveness. The study also offers an alternative way of considering the politics of inclusion and exclusion embedded in practices of education reforms propelled by the international comparative assessment.     

Moving ‘social reform’ to center stage: lessons from higher education in Ecuador

Systemic reform of Latin America’s ‘social sectors’, such as higher education, has progressed at a much slower rate than economic reform. The reason is that such reform efforts are derivative or ‘finance-driven’, and have been undertaken only as a reflection of economic reform policies. This outcome is explainable using the observations on Latin American reform formulated 40 years ago by Albert Hirschman. The experience of Ecuador with higher education reform provides the empirical basis for this case. All recent reform programs have followed Hirschman’s ‘Route C’, which suggests they will not have support necessary for enactment and if enacted will have minor impact. There are other experiences of more effective, Route B, reforms in higher education. This study concludes that only if a new understanding of the role of higher education in development is brought to maturity will systemic reform occur, guided by the implications of this new conceptualization. It must also be guided by new conceptualizations of how the social sectors, and higher education in particular, can help realize this new understanding.     

Troubling the discourse of teacher centrality: a comparative perspective

The belief in the central role of the teacher has a long and comparative history. This article aims to critically analyse the discourse of the centrality of the teacher by both historicising and problematising the ideas and practices associated with this discourse. First, the article describes the discourse as it was taken up during the twenty‐first century when the teacher was viewed as the linchpin to building universal education systems. The idea that the ‘master makes the school’ is examined and the policies that stemmed from this thinking (e.g., the establishment of formal teacher training, teacher testing and certification) are outlined. The contemporary manifestations of this discourse are then described to show how the pervasive belief in the central role of the teacher has influenced education policy reforms, which like teacher policy reforms in the nineteenth century operate to shape and regulate the profession. Further discursive effects are analysed including the de‐contextualisation of educational reform and the de‐professionalisation and de‐politicisation of teachers and their work. The relationship between effective schools research and the centrality of the teacher discourse is also considered within the contemporary moment. This comparative study refers to the discourse of the centrality of the teacher in Australasia, Europe, Great Britain and North America, and suggests that our collective focus on the teacher has had some serious, unexpected effects on teachers and the work they do.     

Widening participation in higher education: the role of professional and social class identities and commitments

Since the neoliberal reforms to British education in the 1980s, education debates have been saturated with claims to the efficacy of the market as a mechanism for improving the content and delivery of state education. In recent decades with the expansion and ‘massification’ of higher education, widening participation (WP) has acquired an increasingly important role in redressing the under-representation of certain social groups in universities. Taken together, these trends neatly capture the twin goals of New Labour’s programme for education reform: economic competitiveness and social justice. But how do WP professionals negotiate competing demands of social equity and economic incentive? In this paper we explore how the hegemony of neoliberal discourse – of which the student as consumer is possibly the most pervasive – can be usefully disentangled from socially progressive, professional discourses exemplified through the speech and actions of WP practitioners and managers working in British higher education institutions.     

近代国外大学课程改革对我国高等教育的启示

大学课程内容是高等教育的重要方面,直接影响高等教育的质量。近年来,发达国家课程改革取得可喜成就,本文以美、英、日为例,通过对发达国家课程改革的分析,为我国的大学课程改革提供参照。     

市场经济与高等教育：基于区域发展的理论议题与行动路向——习近平主浙时期关于高等教育发展论述初探

习近平关于高等教育的论述是其中国特色社会主义教育理论体系的重要组成部分。习近平主政浙江时期关于高等教育发展的论述是其高等教育论述体系的重要构成和最初形态。习近平精准地把握完善社会主义市场经济体制这一宏观背景,从高等教育体制改革切入,揭示高等教育与经济社会发展、高等教育数量与质量“两个基本关系”,进而创造性提出文化基因、创新活力、高教品牌等“三大关键要素”,同时明晰了从内源式到跨越式发展、从高教体制改革到现代大学制度建设、从浙江特点到中国特色的三个行动路向,凸显了区域高等教育跨越式发展的主线和脉博。研究习近平在浙江关于高等教育发展论述,具有深远的历史意义和强烈的现实意义。     

高等教育如何传承和发展试点改革的中国经验

试点改革作为中国经验兼具重要性、特殊性与合理性,高等教育现代化进程中也颇多试点改革。我国高等教育试点总体上呈现出运动式治理、行政化运作、竞争性获取、零风险改革等特点,也存在着项目化、工具化与形式化等问题,在高等教育现代化进程中所发挥的作用并不理想,未能充分引领或推动高等教育体制机制创新,相关研究也几乎是空白。展望未来,试点改革应以加快高等教育现代化为基本指向,在坚守试点初心、推进分类试点、做好试点评估、建立试点制度、完善试点体系等方面积极作为,努力探索和积淀高等教育现代化的中国经验。     

日本高等教育市场化述评

20世纪90年代以来,日本进行了高等教育市场化改革。进入21世纪,日本高等教育市场化改革更加频繁和深入,推行了国立大学法人化、事后监督制度和认证评价制度等改革措施。这些改革措施的目的在于通过"放宽对大学的限制"和"让大学具有像民间机构一样的活力"来增加大学的自主性和自律性,在高等教育领域引进市场竞争机制。但是,这些改革的实际影响却并非一定符合改革的初衷,而改革的很多副作用也在改革实施之后渐渐显现出来。     

Market as metaphor in central and East European higher education

Markets constitute the very centre of the post-communist reforms in the countries of Central and East Europe and the former Soviet Union. The two alternative approaches available for framing the market reform conceptually are, however, both inadequate. Those in favour of revolutionary theories fail to see the strong inertia of the academe and its desire for stability. Proponents of evolutionary theories of market reforms do not recognise qualitatively new relationships in many areas. Those eager to demonstrate the success of the market reforms as well as those presenting the success of the centralised higher education in a number of areas fail to realise the lack of legal framework for market reforms and missing political decisions on which the reforms could be based on. This article discusses the role of labour markets, markets of degrees and qualifications as well as the market of educational services as related to higher education reforms. It is proposed that downsizing the State has shifted many of its previous functions to random, often external agents. This creates a meta-level market - the market of market reforms in higher education. Through this quasi market formerly unified higher education systems and even institutions are broken into segments often ignoring each other's existence and seeking individual short term goals. As a result markets' pressure on higher education has taken extremely aggressive forms limiting access to quality higher education while the systemwide enrolment is rapidly growing through theactivities of new low calibre universities and diploma mills.     

Globalization or Glocalization? Higher Education Reforms in Singapore

Globalization and the evolution of the knowledge‐based economy have caused dramatic changes to the character and functions of higher education in most countries around the world. However, the impacts of globalization on universities are not uniform though business‐like practices have been adopted to cope with competition in the global marketplace. The pressure for restructuring and reforming higher education is mainly derived from growing expectations and demands of different stakeholders in society. In recent years, widespread concerns over widened access, funding, accountability, quality, and managerial efficiency are perceived as the prominent global trends related to university education. Because of the divergent political, social, economic, cultural and historical backgrounds, national/local governments may adopt similar strategies in response to pressures generated from globalization. Nonetheless, through a close scrutiny of the ways that national policies are made, we may find that governments around the globe, particularly in East Asia, have tried to make use of the globalization discourse to address/justify the local policy/political agendas. This paper aims to examine the latest higher education reform initiatives proposed by the Singapore Government, with particular reference to reflect upon how the Singapore Government reforms its university systems in the context of globalization. It is argued that the latest comprehensive review of public university governance and funding brings about a changing role of the government in the regulation, finance and provision of higher education in Singapore and eventually alters the state‐university relationship.     

The tension in turkish teacher education: Conflict and controversy during the transformation from an academic approach to a professional approach

Most of the reforms, which have been undertaken in the last 30 years in the Turkish educational system, are about teacher education. When we examine the teacher education curriculum from the perspective of these reforms, it has been observed that there is a controversy between the academic and professional approaches used in these curricula. While the reforms undertaken in 1982 and 1997 were in favor of the academic approach, the latest reform undertaken in 2006 was made to strengthen the professional aspects of teacher education curriculum. In this paper, Turkish teacher education reforms are introduced in the light of the professional and the academic approaches, which have always been the topic of discussions about teacher education.     

Restructuring Teacher Education in Australia

Debate on teacher quality and quality in teaching and teacher education has been as vigorous in Australia as it has been in the UK and the USA. In Australia, however, reform in teacher education has been subsumed within a national metapolicy of corporate federalism which is an amalgam of beliefs or discourses including neo‐corporatism, economic rationalism, corporate managerialism and human capital. The paper analyses the most recent document on reform of teacher education in Australia (the Ebbeck Report) and shows how its policy formulation is influenced by the discourse of corporate federalism. It also shows how micro‐economic reform in this sector is related to reforms in other sectors of education.