The “A” factor: Coming to terms with the question of legacy in South African education

This paper attempts to offer an alternative framework for assessing education delivery in South Africa. Its purpose is to develop an analytic approach for understanding education delivery in South Africa in the last 11 years and to use this framework to pose a set of strategic questions about how policy might be framed to deal with delivery. The paper begins with a quick review of the country's achievements and challenges in education and shows that a failure to produce a high quality education system remains the country's primary challenge. The broad approach that is taken is to suggest that dominant approaches for understanding this lack of performance underplay the specificity of the country's context and specifically so its apartheid legacy. This legacy, it is argued, continues to be determinative in shaping, and accounting for the character of current social behaviour in the country, including the performance of children in schools.     

A National Curriculum for Wales: A Case Study of Education Policy-Making in the Era of Administrative Devolution

The 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a statutory curriculum in state-funded schools in England and Wales. This study explores how, out of a common curriculum framework for both countries, there emerged a school curriculum that was adapted to the distinctiveness of the linguistic and cultural context in Wales. The roles of those most closely involved in policy development in Wales are examined as is the relationship between the 'national' and 'territorial' arenas of policy-making in the months leading up to publication of the Education Reform Bill in November 1987. It is argued that a pragmatic approach to policy development in Wales during that period laid the foundations both for a reworking of the 1988 curriculum framework during the 1990s and for potentially more radical change following the 2002 Education Act.     

Does prior mathematics knowledge really lead to variation in elementary statistics performance? Evidence from a developing country

A model incorporating prerequisite mathematics performance and other variables deemed to be associated with learning elementary statistics (ES) is developed. The relationship between ES performance and the explanatory variables is well represented by the logistics form. Aptitude, effort and motivation are the only significant explanatory variables of ES performance. Since prerequisite mathematics is not significant, statistical thinking at the tertiary level may be mostly intuitive and non-mathematical. Students with low aptitude experience increasing returns to effort over the first half of the feasible effort interval, while high-aptitude students experience diminishing returns at all levels of effort. The levels of effort required to achieve a minimum pass are interpreted.     

世纪之交高等师范院校面临的挑战与抉择

世纪之交的中国高等师范院校面临着严峻的挑战,其中最主要的挑战来自五方面：即社会主义市场经济对现代师范教育体制的冲击;知识经济时代对高素质教师的要求;基础教育的发展对提高师资学历层次和专业素质的迫切需要,名牌综合性大学兴办师范专业对现行师范教育体制格局的打破;国家近年对重点大学的政策倾斜和重点投入拉大了差距;这些挑战,对于高等师范校的未来前途,都具有决定性、根本性、全局性的影响。中国的高等师范院校应     

Expectations versus reality: the case of Liberal Studies in Hong Kong’s new senior secondary reforms

This article reports the findings of a five-year longitudinal study investigating the introduction of Liberal Studies in the context of Hong Kong’s new senior secondary educational reforms. The aim of this empirical research, which adopted diachronic analysis to allow comparisons over time, was to compare teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the Liberal Studies curriculum before and after its introduction. Methodologically speaking, the study was informed by documentary inquiry, with approximately 560 newspaper articles and government reports collected to identify the issues surrounding the curriculum debate. Questionnaire-based surveys conducted in the pre- and post-reform periods revealed a sharp contrast between expectations and reality for both participant groups following the curriculum’s introduction. Whilst the students demonstrated favourable attitudes towards Liberal Studies before studying the subject, a certain degree of disappointment was expressed after the new curriculum came into effect. In follow-up interviews with teachers, they expressed a lack of confidence in teaching such a multi-disciplinary subject and criticised the overly ambitious nature of the curriculum. Liberal Studies, as currently taught, runs the risk of falling out of favour with Hong Kong secondary school teachers, and the question of whether it will play an increasingly important role in promoting patriotic education after the demise of Moral and National Education is deserving of research attention.     

我国教育政策价值的反思与前瞻

教育政策价值是教育政策理论与实践最根本、最核心的问题。近年来我国制定和实施的一系列教育政策还存在着诸多问题,而造成这些问题的一个重要原因是,我国尚缺乏对教育政策价值观的思考。从主体需要来说,我国未来的教育政策要重视其直接利益相应人的利益;要适当扩大教育政策制定、执行和评价主体的范围;要重视共同利益、长远利益、弱势利益和未得利益,做到共同利益与政治利益、长远利益与眼前利益、强势利益与弱势利益、既得利益与未得利益兼顾。从客体属性来说,我国未来的教育政策要重视其公共性,做到政治性与公共性的统一;要提升教育政策的合理性,做到合法性与合理性具体的、历史的统一;要加强教育政策的协调功能,做到管理功能与协调功能并重。从效应关系来看,我国未来的教育政策要提升其内在价值,做到外在价值与内在价值的统一;要重视教育政策应然价值,做到实然价值与应然价值的统一;要重视教育政策的隐性价值,做到显性价值与隐性价值的统一。     

论清末新政农业政策对中国近代农业的影响

清末新政农业政策的调整范围主要有：调整管理农业的行政机构；鼓励兴办农会；奖励垦荒；提倡改良农业技术。它在四个方面发挥了作用；促进中国新式农业教育事业的发展；改良、引进农产品种和生产工具以及改进农业技术；农产品商品化程度的提高；农业经营出现了有限资本主义化。但它对中国农业现代化所起的作用是十分有限的。     

关于建立民事举证责任制度的理性思考

民事举证责任制度是为弥合理性有限和法的整体性之间的非连续性而设置的一种特殊制度。这种制度是人们为追求社会的法治状态所作的一种价值选择。     

试析我国居民收入分配存在的问题、原因及对策

本试图对经济改革20余年来我国居民收入分配格局的变化，特别是近年来收入差距不断扩大问题进行初步研究。由于收入分配问题涉及面广，本只集中考察收入分配变化的一些重要方面。考虑到在我国经济转轨过程同现代经济发展过程并行这一特点，本从经济改革、体制调整等角度分析了我国居民收入差距变化的一般原因。章最后，本着公平与效率兼顾原则，就如何提高居民收入分配平等化程度提出某些有针对性的建议。