Balancing Economic and other Discourses in the Internationalization of Higher Education in South Africa

Since the end of the apartheid era in South Africa, “internationalization” of higher education has been a popular theme as the country takes its place as a regional leader in education and research in sub-Saharan Africa. However, competing discourses of internationalization have produced economic and moral dilemmas rather than the realization of philanthropic academic aims. The process of internationalizing higher education in South Africa has been greatly compromised by under-funding and over-crowding of post-secondary education institutions in the country.     

Reaching Out to All Learners: Some Lessons From International Experience

This article uses its author's experiences in leading an international research and development project in order to consider ways in which schools can be developed in response to pupil diversity. The analysis that is provided illustrates the potential of comparative discourse but, at the same time, cautions against the tendency to amalgamate research evidence across national borders. Use is made of illustrative vignettes in order to show how the introduction of strategies for responding to diversity can be a means of achieving improved arrangements for all learners within a school.     

PREDICTING THE RETENTION OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Survival analysis was used to model theretention of 8,867 undergraduate students at OregonState University between 1991 and 1996. Attrition wasfound to increase with age, and decrease with increasing high school GPA and first-quarter GPA.Non-residents had higher attrition rates than didresident and international students, and students takingthe Freshman Orientation Course appeared to be atreduced risk of dropping out. Statistically significantassociations of retention with ethnicity/race andcollege at first enrollment were also noted. Aproportional hazards regression model was developed topredict a student's probability of leaving school basedon these demographic and academic variables. Theseanalyses are helping to guide the university's effortsto improve retention through marketing, recruitment, and the development of orientation and otherprograms.     

Effective Tutoring and School Improvement

This article sets out to define effective tutoring and to establish links between effective tutoring and school improvement. Before identifying if a school has improved, one must first ascertain the function of schools. If one accepts Lodge's premise that the function of schools is 'to promote children's learning' (Lodge, 2000), then an improving school is one which improves learning itself. This paper argues that effective tutoring can play a part in helping schools to achieve this goal and outlines some practical ways in which this can happen. It draws on current practice at Greenshaw High School to explore some strategies for improving tutoring in order to impact on schools' effectiveness.     

Distance Education: The Experience of the University of Puerto Rico/Río Piedras Campus

The Río Piedras campus is the flagship institution of the University of Puerto Rico. It has made several attempts, throughout its history, to establish a distance education environment. None have succeeded. A new grass-roots movement is developing, which is conscious of the past history. Nevertheless, it is moving forward because it is situated in a conscious process of organizational culture change. Theory E and Theory O, developed at the Harvard University School of Business to analyze organizational change, is used to analyze the change process occurring at this academic institution.     

笨拙,但却美丽着

should we pity the poor young pelican?The ugly duckling, after all, grew up to be a beautiful swan, while the baby     

International Developments in Inclusive Schooling: mapping the issues

This introductory overview attempts to map out the rationale and scope of this edition of the journal, focusing on international developments in inclusive schooling. We describe some of the debate surrounding the search for an appropriate definition of inclusion and clarify the way in which we are using this term. Consideration is given to some of the main issues emerging from the literature on developing inclusive schooling which indicates the recency of this particular field of work and the need to bring together areas such as ‘special needs’, school improvement and teacher development in order to begin to identify the territory that research on inclusion might explore.