From international aid to international cooperation: Some thoughts in retrospect (I)

With the definition of learning as an individual act, the author sees the first stage of education as the provision of a local infrastructure, so that international cooperation in education becomes a second stage which has constantly to be tested against the original purposes, individual and local. Five stages in international cooperation in education can be distinguished. In the first, unilateral power of decision deprived the term cooperation of its sense. Immediately after 1946 came the period of reconstruction, when the rejection of war led to an awareness of the need for education for international understanding and the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights.The 1950's institutionalized, and to some extent multilateralized, international cooperation. Although the principle was laid down that the country assisted should decide on its priorities and the form and type of aid, most developing countries could not discharge this responsibility, and educational aid mostly involved direct transfers of models and procedures. By the end of the decade the need for planning was met in part by regional and national targets for educational expansion.In the 1960's, the First UN Development Decade was aimed at growth in economic terms. The economics of education came to the fore. The problems encountered were largely due to the fact that the economic growth aimed at was not achieved, and equally, that international aid failed to reach the targets set for it. Increasingly the irrelevance or inadequacy of imported educational models became clear to developing countries.The Second Development Decade of the 70's was then directed more to social justice and the consequential growth rate. Here the developing countries have been led to define minimum or basic needs programmes which translate education into the process of creating learning opportunities and systems for the majority of the children and for unschooled adults. International cooperation has thus been channeled to nonformal educational procedures. Although the major constraints are still with us, the way is now clear for genuine international cooperation in education.

---

Zusammenfassung Ausgehend von der Definition des Lernens als individuellem Akt, betrachtet der Verfasser die erste Bildungsstufe als das Angebot einer lokalen Infrastruktur; damit wird die internationale Zusammenarbeit im Bildungswesen zu einer zweiten Stufe, die ständig anhand der ursprünglichen individuellen und lokalen Absichten überprüft werden muß. In der internationalen Zusammenarbeit im Bildungswesen kann man fünf Epochen unterscheiden. In der ersten beraubte einseitige Entscheidungsgewalt den Begriff Zusammenarbeit seines Sinnes. Unmittelbar nach 1946 kam die Periode des Wiederaufbaus, in der die Ablehnung des Krieges zur Erkenntnis der Notwendigkeit einer Erziehung zu internationaler Verständigung und zur Anerkennung der Erklärung der Menschenrechte führte.Im Laufe der 50er Jahre wurde die internationale Zusammenarbeit institutionalisiert und bis zu einem gewissen Grade nach vielen Seiten hin ausgebaut. Obwohl der Grundsatz festgelegt wurde, das unterstützte Land sollte selbst über seine Prioritäten und Form und Art der Hilfe entscheiden, konnten die meisten Entwicklungsländer diese Verantwortung nicht übernehmen, und die Bildungshilfe bestand meistens in unmittelbarer Übertragung von Modellen und Verfahrensweisen. Gegen Ende des Jahrzehnts wurde das Bedürfnis nach Planung teilweise erfüllt durch regionale und nationale Zielsetzungen für den Ausbau des Bildungswesens.In den 60er Jahren strebe das erste UN Entwicklungs-Jahrzehnt nach Wachstum in wirtschaftlichem Sinn. Die Wirtschaftlichkeit des Bildungswesens trat in den Vordergrund. Zum großen Teil erwuchsen die auftauchenden Probleme aus der Tatsache, daß das angestrebte Wirtschaftswachtstum nicht erreicht wurde und die internationale Hilfe die ihr gesetzten Ziele ebenso wenig erreichte. In zunehmendem Maße wurden den Entwicklungsländern die Unanwendbarkeit oder Unzulänglichkeit importierte, Bildungsmodelle bewußt.Das zweite Entwicklungs-Jahrzehnt der 70er Jahre richtete sich dann mehr auf soziale Gerechtigkeit und die daraus sich ergebende Wachstumsrate aus. Hier sind die Entwicklungsländer dazu gekommen, Programme der Mindest- oder Grundbedürfnisse zu definieren; in diesen wird Erziehung zu einem Prozeß der Schaffung von Lernmöglichkeiten und-systemen für die meisten Kinder und für ungeschulte Erwachsene. So wurde internationale Zusammenarbeit auf nicht-formale Bildung ausgerichtet. Wenn auch die wesentlichen Schwierigkeiten damit noch nicht ausgeräumt sind, steht doch der Weg offen für wirkliche internationale Zusammenarbeit.

---

Résumé En définissant l'apprentissage comme un acte individuel, l'auteur voit dans le premier stade de l'éducation la disposition nécessaire à une infrastructure locale, de sorte que la coopération internationale en matière d'éducation devient un deuxième stade qui doit être constamment testé en fonction des objectifs originaux individuels et locaux.Il distingue cinq stades dans la coopération internationale. Lors du premier stade, un pouvoir décisionnaire unilatéral privait le terme de coopération de son sens. Immédiatement après 1946 vint la période de reconstruction, quand la fin des hostilités amena à une prise de conscience de la nécessité de l'éducation pour la compréhension internationale et conduisit à l'adoption de la Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme.Les années '50 ont institutionnalisé et, jusqu'à un certain point, multilatéralisé la coopération internationale. Bien que le principe posé ait été la liberté des pays assistés de décider de leurs priorités, de la forme et du type d'assistance appropriée, la plupart d'entre eux ne purent se prévaloir de cette responsabilité, et l'assistance en matière d'éducation consista essentiellement en des transferts directs de modèles et de méthodes d'application. A la fin de cette décennie on suppléa en partie au besoin de planification et déterminant les objectifs, à l'échelon régional et national, pour réaliser l'expansion de l'éducation.Lors des années '60, la Première Décennie de Développement des Nations Unies fut centrée sur l'essor de l'éducation vu sous l'angle économique. En effet l'économie de l'éducation commençait alors à être connue. Les problèmes rencontrés étaient alors dus, en grande part, au fait que la croissance économique poursuivie n'était pas réalisée et que l'assistance internationale n'était pas parvenue à atteindre les cibles qu'elle s'était fixées. L'inapplicabilité ou l'insuffisance des modèles d'éducation importés devint de plus en plus évidente aux pays en voie de développement.La Deuxième Décennie de Développement des années '70 fut axée davantage sur la justice sociale et sur la rapidité du développement consécutif. Les pays en voie de développement furent alors conduits à définir les programmes de leurs besoins minimums de base qui font de l'éducation un processus créateur de chances et de sources d'apprentissage pour la majorité des enfants et des adultes non scolarisés. La coopération internationale a ainsi été dirigée vers des moyens d'éducation non conventionnelle. Bien que les contraintes majeures subsistent, la voie est désormais ouverte à une véritable coopération internationale en matière d'éducation.

     

Career development in Mid-career: Practice and problems from a british perspective

Conclusion The practical starting point for the argument put forward in this paper is that a shift inweltanschauung is necessary for career guidance if the needs of adults are to be adequately addressed. Experience in the United Kingdom is showing the value of action planning in career planning but an inappropriate set of assumptions about the context of this activity remains. Specifically, too little account is given to the experience that mature adults bring to bear in making career decisions, particularly that experience that relates to finding congruence between one's personal life and the demands of life in organisations. With this in mind, it is argued that the process of career planning for the individual should mirror the process of strategic planning in the organisation.The enthusiasm which can be seen for action planning at the present time has a strong resemblance to that for management by objectives several decades ago. The disappointment which followed the reality of MBO has now been resolved by separating matters of purpose from those of objective setting. Attempting to make use of these ideas with mature adults facing significant career decisions revealed difficulties associated with (i) needing to take into account the significance of the group in which the individual works and (ii) some basis for choosing between individual purposes.Socio-technical systems theory may seem an unlikely source of stimulation to develop these ideas, but there is no question that conceptually the issues are the same. What is intriguing is that problems with an immediate, practical origin in career development should lead so directly to thinking from such a different area of applied social science. What has been presented is merely the outline of an idea, however, a sketch of what might be worth developing.An earlier version of this article was presented at the National Career Development Association National Conference, Albuquerque, NM, 13–15 January 1994. The author gratefully acknowledges the numerous helpful comments he has received.     

A critical review of the Daily Mile programme as a contributor to lifelong physical activity

ABSTRACT

This critical paper investigates one influential post-millennial initiative – the Daily Mile programme – which is designed to promote the multifarious lifelong enhancing benefits of running-based experiences. A textually orientated discourse analysis of the language used in media, policy and research-related documentary sources of evidence are used to critically review the role stakeholders, academics, researchers, civil servants and key individuals played in the development of the Daily Mile programme. Analysis revealed that the Daily Mile is experiencing some difficulty in being in control of its position and development due to the complex influences of multiple stakeholders. In this light, it is recommended that future research studies of the Daily Mile programme need to have the capacity to report their findings in a context where the full range of evidence are presented and where new findings are not re-contextualised and re-positioned in order to satisfy either the research funders’ or the views of politicians associated with the policy making process.     

Teachers' Assessment and National Testing in Primary Schools in Scotland: roles and relationships

The revised arrangements for national testing, introduced into primary schools in Scotland in January 1993, give the tests a role in confirming teachers' assessments of when pupils have achieved certain levels of attainment. The test units, in reading, writing and mathematics, are used at any time, with individual pupils or with groups, at teachers' discretion. This paper draws upon evidence gathered by questionnaire and interview with primary school teachers and headteachers during a 4‐year evaluation of the implementation of the non‐statutory guidelines of the 5‐14 development programme, the Scottish national curriculum. It explores how teachers are carrying out formative assessment and how they decide when a pupil is likely to succeed in test units at a certain level. There was evidence of considerable moves towards teachers' assessment becoming more systematic, wide‐ranging and more often recorded. However, the moderating role of the tests material has not been taken on board by the majority of teachers for reasons and with consequences which are explored in the paper.     

Proficiency in the explanation of procedures: A test of the intuitive understanding of teachers of undergraduate mathematics

A discussion of production system approaches to the representation of learned procedures, and of stage models of the acquisition of procedures, yielded four general principles applicable to the construction of effective explanations. The intuitive appreciation of these principles by tertiary teachers was tested in two studies. In the first, separate verisons of an explanation of a standard undergraduate mathematics problem solution procedure were prepared, these versions differing in the extent to which they exemplified the derived principles. Subjects ranked the explanations in terms of their perceived effectiveness. In the second study, subjects of varying experience at teaching tertiary level mathematics were video recorded while they individually explained three standard undergraduate problems. Their explanations were scored for the extent to which some awareness of the general principles was evidenced. In general terms the findings from these two studies suggested that mathematics teachers might be well able to discriminate between explanations which differ in their compliance with the derived general principles, but that they were not well skilled at employing these principles in explanations which they generated themselves.     

Are Academic Workloads Increasing? The Post‐War Survey Evidence in the UK

It is widely believed by current academics, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, that their workloads have increased significantly. This article examines this belief by analysing the findings of a series of surveys that have reported on this and related issues since 1945. These suggest that: while there has been an increase in academic workloads, much of this had occurred by the end of the 1960s; the position of research appears to have been maintained, though at a lower level in the newer universities/former polytechnics than in the older universities; much of the increased workload has come in the form of administrative demands. Possible explanations for the apparent contradictions between perceptions and the survey evidence are suggested.     

Occupational outcomes for Australian computing/information technology bachelor graduates and implications for the IT bachelor curriculum

ABSTRACT

In Australia, the IT workforce and employment outcomes for university IT bachelor graduates have a complex interrelationship. The likelihood of IT bachelor graduates to work in a professional IT role is infrequently discussed in the research literature. It has been suggested that “deficient” undergraduate IT curricula are one contributor to poor employment outcomes for graduates. Using the latest available Australian national census data, we present a detailed analysis of the occupational outcomes for graduates of undergraduate IT programmes, and the makeup of the IT workforce in Australia. This analysis presents important findings for those designing undergraduate IT curricula that seek to equip students to prepare for the best employment outcomes. The finding that, even immediately post-graduation, a significant proportion of Australian IT bachelor graduates do not work in IT roles, even though professional IT job roles outnumber IT bachelor graduates nearly two-to-one, has implications for undergraduate IT education.