Scotland: Susan Quinn, Union president, highlighted members’ concerns.

Over the past month, reports from various countries have shown both the concerns of teachers and concern about teachers. For example, reports of teacher concerns include India and Argentina, where teachers are looking for reliable salary payments, decent facilities, and quality education for all; Finland, where teachers are concerned about a sharp increase in violent student behavior in the classroom; and Greece, where teachers are fighting for the right to protest in the midst of austerity measures that threaten the country’s education system itself. Additionally, in Scotland teachers are protesting a new curriculum and an unmanageable workload.

Reports of concerns about teachers include Lithuania, where students recently outperformed teachers on an exam created by the European Union; Israel, where teachers’ lack of expertise in mathematics has been blamed for student difficulties with the subject; and Malaysia, where the Education Ministry plans to conduct diagnostic exercises to benchmark Science teachers in terms of their content knowledge and pedagogical skills in the field.

Sources in many countries over the past few weeks highlight issues ranging from educational access and funding, to quality curriculum and government corruption. Here is a quick glimpse of what we’ve seen on the issues of access and funding:

Pia Philip Michael and Bridget Nagomoro visited the UK to discuss the challenges to girls’ education in South Sudan. Photograph: Leapfrog Public Relations

Reports have shown that the United Arab Emirates is struggling with the issue of high tuition and long student wait lists, while Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Education has suggested that the government link educational subsidies with evidence of high quality. Australia and the Philippines seek to increase investment in educational research by launching a partnership that aims to raise the quality of education in the Philippines through investing in research to support K-12 education. Meanwhile, union leaders in Peru met to develop policies that would defend the right of indigenous peoples to public education. Sudan aims to keep young girls in primary school by involving officials in the effort to spread the national message on educating girls. India is about to launch the second round of the Right to Education Act admissions, which will include a reservation of 25% seats in private schools for disadvantaged groups; however, reports reveals that word has not yet reached parents who would benefit most from the new provision. 

The Times of India (June 6, 2013)

The Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation, introduced by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), was designed with the intention of reducing stress on students and evaluating them “in a more rounded way”; however, the system is being criticized for adding a layer of bureaucracy that reveals a distrust for schools and teachers, adding tremendous paperwork. Some say the process can be streamlined, and once members receive training the new process seems like less of a burden. Students seem to be heavily in favor of the system, which has turned the academic year into two semesters and, as one student said, “made even boring topics interesting through various projects.” Parents are also supportive, saying, “Students are not cramming notes like we had to. Their interpersonal and co-scholastic skills are better and they become better leaders.”

For more information:

A study on implementation of the Contemporary Comprehensive evaluation in upper primary schools of Kerala

Bernadette Bayrhammer, Die Presse (May 20th, 2013)

The results of this year’s Viennese reading tests are similar to those of previous years – with a little bit of hope. Approximately one in five 10-to 14-year-old student is a poor reader. In elementary school, the group of pupils at risk has declined by two percentage points, and remained about the same size at the academic secondary school and lower secondary school. About 40 percent of students in grade 4 and grade 8 are good readers.

For the test, 15,000 children fourth graders and 16,000 eighth graders were tested the third time. In addition, students who had performed poorly in elementary school in 2012 were tested, and these students provide positive messages. Students who were particularly poor readers in the previous year and were promoted, did well this year: 60 percent reached a higher reading level, and about four percent are now even considered strong readers. For this reason, there is hope that special promotion can work.

For more information:

Educational Standards first tested in Primary School

Jennifer von Reis Saari

The recent riots in Sweden are drawing attention to how the assumption that Nordic countries, as well as their school systems, are equitable is oversimplified. Finland, for example, is often considered untracked.  However, visitors to Finland are sometimes surprised that the country has a system of competitive school choice at the upper-secondary level, after age 16.   In fact, despite the Finnish Minister of Education, Krista Kiuru’s resistance to the publishing of league tables of individual school performance, savvy students and parents are well aware of school rankings, and lists of upper-secondary school averages on national exams are published at the end of May each year. In addition, there is an increasing appetite for more differentiation and choice.  In neighboring Sweden, comparatively liberal school choice policies and the allowance of for-profit, publicly funded schools, have coincided with increasing social disparities in educational outcomes.  In a study of student persistence in mathematics and science, I found that students I surveyed and interviewed in both countries experienced ability grouping and tracking in mathematics and science during both compulsory school, and upper-secondary school. To characterize Finnish or Swedish school systems as equal, or un-stratified, obscures the ways these systems react to, and create, inequalities.

A closer look at the experiences of students I interviewed in Finland, Sweden, and the United States, however, highlights how critical aspects of these choice and tracking systems, such as the mechanism for allocation (the how, why, and when students choose, or are selected into, particular schools or tracks), the transparency of the system (how clear the different educational choices and their consequences are), and the permeability (the degree of mobility allowed between tracks and schools), can either promote or obstruct the pathways of students who aspire to careers in mathematics and science related fields. In particular, the Finnish education system can be described as more permeable than either Sweden or the United States; the Finnish secondary school students I studied could more freely choose advanced mathematics and science courses and tracks in contrast to their counterparts in Sweden or the United States.  They could make these choices even if they were not in advanced mathematics tracks before they reached the secondary level.   This seemed to result in a greater retention of passionate, interested students, particularly young men who may have struggled earlier in their school careers.

Focusing on permeability is important not only from a standpoint of equity, but also in terms of efficiency, for retaining and fostering skilled talent in STEM fields.   The lack of permeability of math and science tracks may be a particular concern in the United States, where the high cost of post-secondary education and widening disparities between universities and community colleges, which once served to increase opportunities for mobility, compounds lost opportunities during primary and secondary school. Fostering passion for mathematics and science among students may require structures that respond to increasing commitment and performance by providing clear, built-in pathways for upward mobility.

For more information:

“Equity trends in the Swedish school system: A quantitative analysis of variation in student performance and equity from a time perspective”

“School choice and its effects in Sweden”

“Middle class children’s choices to avoid local schools”

“Tracking Effects Depend on Tracking Type: An International Comparison of Students’ Mathematics Self-Concept”

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (May 7, 2013)

Japan’s Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura. REUTERS photo

Mr. Shimomura, the Minister of Education, Culture , Sports, Science, and Technology, has just returned form his visit to European nations. Reflecting on his tour, he commented on the urgent necessity of shifting the paradigm of Japanese language education abroad. In the past, the target population of Japanese language education abroad was children of Japanese citizens, who intended to return to Japan in the near future. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of Japanese children who are not planning to return to Japan. Many of these children are biracial, having a Japanese parent who hopes to instill and nurture his/her children’s identity as Japanese. In response to this need, the MEXT will generate an plan on how to spread Japanese language education globally.
In addition, the MEXT plans to suggest other nations to teach Japanese in public schools. For example, the UK, has a plan of teaching seven foreign languages in elementary schools soon. However, in the current plan, Japanese is not included as one of those seven languages. The MEXT will communicate the ministry of education in the U.K about how important it is to teach Japanese to prepare global citizens, who can contribute to the world economy.

For more information:

Council proposes lowering age for English education

Japan’s ambitious proposals for higher education and language sectors

LDP takes aim at English education, seeks to boost TOEFL levels

Professor Dr. Alma Harris
Director
Institute of Educational Leadership
University of Malaya

Professional collaboration is increasingly being used in various countries to raise the performance of teachers and to improve student achievement and outcomes. Different countries are inevitably approaching this in their own way but the common denominator factor is inter-dependent professional learning. In some countries, like Singapore, Wales, Finland, and parts of Canada (e.g. Ontario), professional collaboration, in the form of professional learning communities, is a mandated part of the school reform process supported at the Ministerial level. In other countries such as Russia, Australia and Malaysia, professional collaboration is being promoted as a means of improving teacher quality and maintaining the highest standards but is not yet a national expectation.

The debates about professional collaboration range from discussions about the best models to follow, about the time and resources available to support these activities, and the issue of impact. It is important that countries investing in professional collaboration see a return on their investment in terms of better learning and better teaching.

In the next few years, it will be important to look out for how countries that engage in collaborative professional learning fare in international comparisons of educational performance like PISA, PERLS and TIMMs. Looking at high performing systems like Finland,Ontario, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, that all invest in collaborative and focused professional learning, it would suggest that this is a potentially important and powerful lever of educational change and improvement.

Curriculum:

Upon surveying primary teachers, the Scottish government has discovered deep concerns over the level of resources the government will provide to support the new Curriculum of Excellence. In Denmark and France, academics are concerned about plans to teach in English, yet Malaysia is introducing new English tests for young teens. The French government plans to give children lessons on “dignity, freedom and equality,” while in Japan and Russia, debate rages over the content of history textbooks.

Protests:

On April 2, Danish teachers were “locked-out” of school by the Social Democratic Party government because they rejected demands that they work extra teaching hours. With nearly 69,000 teachers barred from classrooms, 900,000 students could not go to school for almost one month. As a result, Denmark saw teacher protests and a recent survey revealed that Danish teachers have lost faith in their government.

In Chile, students have been protesting private universities, fighting for an improved and free education, which has led them to be called  a “generation without fear.” Meanwhile, teachers in Mexico showed their anger with recent state education reforms by storming the offices of four different political parties. Spain’s education community is planning a peaceful strike for May 9^th in rejection of the Education Ministry’s reform plans.

Since 1995, children have been required to sit literacy and numeracy tests in their last year of primary school. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Over the past month, a number of reports indicate a variety of concerns about testing around the world.  For example, Israel’s new Education Minister, Shai Piron, has decided to introduce reforms that would de-emphasize testing in order to “promote learning.” Similarly, China is taking small steps towards allowing educators to have input in test design (as opposed to government only). In contrast, the British government is acting in opposition to educators and parents to fight off an unprecedented alliance of hundreds of students, schools, local councils, and teaching unions, who brought a legal challenge over last year’s GCSE English exam grades. UK teachers are also protesting primary literacy exams, which they say leave little time for art, music, and books, and make children feel like failures. Chile has announced sweeping changes to the country’s university entrance exam, which has received criticism for flaws and bias; however, the concern in this case was not raised by educators and parents, but by Pearson, a company that describes itself as a leading provider of test development, processing and scoring services to educational institutions, corporations and professional bodies around the world. Pearson’s analysis revealed significant flaws and bias in the design of the exam.