Tag Archives: Leading Futures Series

Learning From and Beyond PISA: Toward Achievement with Integrity

Posted on October 12, 2016 by | 1 comment

In this latest post in the Leading Futures Series, edited by Alma Harris and Michelle Jones, Dennis Shirley describes how “imperial” and “insular” imperatives may limit learning about educational policies across countries. Drawing from his new book, The New Imperatives of Educational Change: Achievement with Integrity, Shirley argues for more sophisticated comparative approaches that support learning from and beyond PISA. Dennis Shirley is Professor Education at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College, and a Visiting Professor in Venice International University in the fall semester of 2016.  

In a world of ever-increasing big data, the upcoming release in December of the latest rankings on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) should be cause for celebration. An abundance of international evidence should give policy makers, educational professionals, and the public a treasure trove of new findings about how well students are learning in reading, mathematics and science. With this information we can learn from those systems that excel. We can adapt some of their proven strategies to our own schools. In the process we can ensure that all children are enabled to reach their full potential.

It’s an entirely rational vision for a perfect world.  But we live in an imperfect world.  Policies are not made through careful studies of the available evidence or mindful interpretation when the evidence is ambiguous. In the real world policy is made through a crazy-quilt pattern of conjectures, hyperbole, and sound-bites. Only every now and then, is there reference to actual research.

Consider Australia and the adaptation in some of its states of policies piloted in England and the US. Under the slogan of increasing school autonomy, schools in Western Australia are becoming detached from democratically-elected local authorities. Teacher education throughout the country increasingly is disconnected from higher education and research capacity, with for-profit providers moving into new openings for service provision. International publishers that are located in England and the US such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill are among those taking advantage of increased standardized testing and new digital technologies to expand their market share. “Because of Australia’s close links with England the USA and their influence,” Stephen Dinham has observed in an article entitled The worst of both worlds, “it is not surprising that the myths and beliefs underpinning these developments have been accepted almost without evidence or questioning in Australia.”

The irony is that Australia has done better than either England or the US on PISA. Australia also does far better than the US on many international quality of life indicators, including life expectancy.  Australia is not in the position of developing countries that were compelled for many years to adopt testing and accountability strategies exported from the US to receive education funding from the World Bank.  Yet there seems to have been an imperial imperative at work that has led even some states in more successful countries on PISA like Australia to adopt policies from England and the US, even when there is broad agreement that those policies have led to disappointing results.

A century ago, one could have understood such policy borrowing.  Australia was part of what was unapologetically called the British Empire.  Ever since the London Declaration of 1949, however, Australia has been a free and independent nation.  While there still is an emotional attachment to England, England can no more compel Australia to change its education policies than it can any other nation.

For some critics, the OECD is responsible for spreading marketplace competition, test-based accountability, and curricular narrowing in education.  But matters are not so simple.  In a study on The policy impact of PISA, Simon Breakspear has shown that “Finland was the most commonly listed influential country/economy” in the wake of PISA. As Pasi Sahlberg and Andy Hargreaves and I have shown elsewhere, Finnish education is the opposite of the policies that have been adapted in Australia from England and the US.

So can we do a global scan and produce a slew of countries that have adopted Finnish-style reforms that emphasize collective responsibility, pervasive equity, and a gentle, child-centered philosophy of education? Not really. Right next door to Finland stands Sweden, which has suffered from a humiliating plunge in PISA results and shares a common border and history with Finland. But what Finnish policies have the Swedes taken over thus far? None to date.

A similar situation of a curious insular imperative can be found in Scotland, which rests on the northern border with England.  While it shares any number of similar policies with England as part of the United Kingdom, in education Scotland has endeavored to pursue different policies. As an aggregate, these have led to higher results on PISA. It would seem obvious that the English would be curious about what is going on with their northern neighbors, and would send delegations up to adapt elements from Scotland for their own schools. What independent Scottish educational policies have the English tried out? None so far.

Extending 5,525 miles, the United States has the world’s longest border with Canada, another country that has done well on PISA, especially in the four most populated provinces of Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec. Over 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US, making the overwhelming majority of their schools easily accessible for visitors from south of the border. What Canadian policies have been transferred into the US?  Zilch.

For all of the chatter about data-driven decision-making that has gone on for years now, an anachronistic insular imperative has characterized many nations when it comes to policy borrowing. Their policy makers have been tone deaf. Such policy makers have failed to learn from nations that have performed better, even when they share geographical proximity, a common language, and cultural similarities.

Why is this?  Long-standing and deeply ingrained attitudes of one country towards another play a role. The Swedish economy is larger than the Finnish one. The same can be said of the English in regard to Scotland or the US in relation to Canada.  Countries that lead in economic clout appear to have a hard time admitting that they might learn from others who do better in education.  It’s easier to be insular.

The insular imperative has been related to the imperial imperative in paradoxical ways. How can an imperious stance be connected with insularity at one and the same time? This is possible if a nation projects its own policies and practices abroad for others to learn from while failing to model the position of a curious and open-minded learner in its own conduct. It is possible if a nation assumes that the answers to change all lie on one side, and that others, perhaps smaller and less powerful, have little to impart. It’s hard not to connect a certain arrogance to the ways that the imperial and insular imperatives have interacted over the years. This would not matter so much at a purely political level, if students were not the ones who pay the price in terms of lost learning opportunities. It would not matter on the level of theory if teachers did not suffer from a sense of diminished professionalism in practice.

For these reasons we should welcome the publication of the new PISA results in December. We should be honest about the many factors that make for a given country’s educational policies, and shouldn’t overstate the significance of PISA in this regard. In part the lack of response could be a good thing, since PISA doesn’t measure important aspects of a country’s national cultural heritage. I am a Visiting Professor at Venice International University in Italy this fall, and many of my students studied ancient Greek and Latin in the country’s classical secondary schools. These are popular and precious parts of Italy’s identity. Simply because they don’t fit neatly into economic quests to maximize human capital does not mean that they do not have their own disciplinary integrity and should not be passed on to future generations. That we should learn from PISA does not mean that we should not also think beyond it.

When the new PISA results are published in December, let’s examine the evidence anew to see what we can learn. Let’s pass from an obsolete imperial imperative to a more balanced interpretive one that sustains education as an enterprise that is both deep and wide. Let’s abandon the insular imperative to look only within and replace it with a global imperative to learn from schools and systems wherever they may be. If we can do these things wisely and with sensitivity, we can combine achievement with integrity.  We can, and we must, create an enduring and sustainable legacy of all that we hold most dear.

 

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A Tale of Two Countries: Improvement in Germany and Decline in Australia’s Educational Performance

Posted on August 4, 2016 by | 2 comments

This post by Dr. Stephen Dinham offers his observations and reflections on educational policy and performance in Germany and Australia. Dinham has over forty years of experience in Australian education as a teacher and academic, and has been visiting Germany since 2008 under the auspices of the Robert Bosch Stiftung [foundation]. A visit of three months in late 2014-early 2015 as a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy enabled him to spend a longer period in Germany visiting schools, observing classrooms, teaching, presenting, interviewing in schools, universities and various government departments, and engaging with educators, relevant ministers, officials and others. The focus of his fellowship was on comparing the German educational landscape with that of Australia, including structural and regulatory arrangements, policy, and current trends and developments. This is the second post in the Leading Futures series, which is designed to share different views on the process and practice of changing education systems for the better. The first post in this series, by Alma Harris, Michelle Jones, Jan Heijmans and Job Christians, focused on the success of the educational system in The Netherlands.

When I first visited Germany in 2008 I was struck by several concerns many Germans had about their educational system.

The first concern grew from the ‘PISA shock’, still being felt from Germany’s results on the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000. Germany had believed its education system to be amongst the most effective in the world. PISA indicated otherwise.

The second, possibly related concern, focused on the educational attainment of growing numbers of migrant and refugee children. Many of these children had non-German speaking backgrounds, from nations such as Turkey, Russia, Poland and the Balkans, and some wondered whether they might have contributed at least in part for the unexpectedly unfavourable results.

My other major impression of German education was that of its tightly regulated nature, in contrast to Australia.

Today, in 2016, however, I am struck by the contrast between Germany’s steady improvement in international measures of educational performance and Australia’s general decline. Below, I explore these differences in performance and then describe some of the major similarities and differences in the two systems.

Comparing Educational Performance in Germany and Australia (2000-2016)

The “Pisa shock” in 2000 reflected the fact that German policy makers and the general public were of the opinion that Germany had one of the most effective and highest performing education systems in the world. Although there were warning signs that were largely ignored when Germany first took part in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1995 and the nation scored relatively poorly, the first PISA results made it clear that many German schools were under-performing compared with other participating countries. Germany reacted strongly to these adverse findings, however, and Germany’s PISA results have improved in every iteration since 2000.

The OECD summarised the major factors contributing to Germany’s strong recovery and improvement on PISA since 2000:

  • Changes made to the structure of secondary schooling to enable greater accessibility to the various qualifications including the Abitur and other measures aimed at overcoming the effects of socio-economic background on student achievement, which are greater than for any other OECD country.
  • The high quality of Germany’s teachers including the strong focus on initial selection, state-based examinations, training and certification.
  • The value of Germany’s dual system whereby workplace skills can be developed in children before they leave school.
  • The development of some common standards and curricula guidelines and the assessment and research capacity to monitor these.

Because of near universal public education in Germany, coupled with strong Land control, it may have been easier to introduce reforms across systems and schools than might be the case in a more diverse and less ‘controlled’ system such as Australia, which has a large (by world standards) and growing non-government school sector.

International tests are only one indicator of teaching and learning achievement but the following comparisons between Germany and Australia may be instructive.

While Germany’s PISA results have shown steady improvement since 2000, that is not the case for Australia, where PISA results have been in general decline and measures such as PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) and TIMSS have recorded primary school results that are inferior in comparative terms to Australia’s secondary TIMSS and PISA results.

In fact, on every aspect of TIMSS, PIRLS and PISA – with the exception of PISA Reading Literacy where Australia narrowly leads Germany and with the difference in performance not significant – German students now outperform their Australian counterparts, a startling turnaround from the beginning of this century.

Germany, along with Mexico and Turkey, are the only countries to have improved in both PISA mathematics and equity since 2003, with these improvements largely the result of better performance amongst low-achieving and disadvantaged students, and with Germany’s performance in mathematics, reading and science now above OECD averages. Possibly the one negative amongst this pattern of significant improvement is that PISA data show Germany also has one of the highest rates of grade repetition among OECD countries (in 2012, one in five German students had repeated a grade at least once). However, some might argue the improvements in performance are partly attributable to this repetition.

 

Similarities and Differences in Educational Policy and Organisation

Germany and Australia are similar in that constitutionally education is a state responsibility. In Germany there are 16 Bundesländer/Länder educational ‘systems’ rather than one, with each state determining its own educational policies, regulations and mechanisms for standards, innovations and quality assurance. Similarly in Australia there are eight states and territories with primary responsibility for school education, although since 2007 there has been more of a nationally consistent approach in the areas of national testing, national curriculum, professional teaching standards, teacher development, teacher appraisal and certification, and the accreditation of teacher education courses.

Thus, while some aspects of education and schooling in Australia have become ‘looser’, for example government funded independent schools, greater school autonomy, moving teacher education to schools, and a greater emphasis on ‘choice’ and the free market, some aspects have become more uniform, regulated and ‘tighter’ as a result of national agreements and developments.

In comparison, Germany does not have the same level of federal involvement in education as Australia, although there has been greater federal and Länder ‘soft’ cooperation since 2001 in areas such as aggregated national reporting on education, along with reporting on special issues such as diversity and inclusion, commissioning of international and national studies into certain priority areas and the collaborative formulation of national standards for students at three levels, although the adoption and utilisation of many of these initiatives has been optional and thus take-up has been varied across Länder.

While federal authorities in Germany provide funding to universities for initial teacher education, there is little federal involvement in continuing professional development for teachers, which is commonly regarded as the responsibility of Länder and schools.

A key difference between the countries is in the proportion of students attending government schools. In 2012, around 65 per cent of school age students in Australia attended government schools, a small proportion by world standards and one that is falling. In Germany, the proportion of students attending non-government schools is increasing slightly, but fewer than eight per cent of students in Germany attend such schools.

Another point of difference is that local government in Germany plays a more active role in school education than in Australia, with local government taking substantial responsibility for the provision and operation of schools, apart from teachers’ salaries. This involvement of local government extends beyond financing, however, with local elected officials and communities demonstrating a high degree of engagement with and ‘ownership’ of local schools.

In both Germany and Australia there is thus a lack of direct federal government influence and control over education, with a commensurate need to gain consensus among the states/Länder in order to implement uniform national policies, structures, programs, standards and change agendas.

A Critical Difference: ‘Tracking’ versus ‘Comprehensive’ schooling

The most significant difference between German and Australian schooling lies in the organisation of primary and particularly secondary schooling.

In Germany primary schooling (Grundschule) begins at age six and ends at the age of 10 (grade 4) after four years (except for Berlin and Brandenburg where students leave primary school at 12), whereas in Australia there are seven years of primary schooling – Western Australia and Queensland have adopted this structure in recent years – from the ages of five to 12, ending in grade 6.

Whilst comprehensive secondary education was progressively introduced in Australia from the mid-1950s, it is still rare in Germany. While comprehensive secondary school is an option in some places, it is not universal, meaning such schools are not truly comprehensive in the usual sense of the term.

Traditionally in Germany, entry to the secondary ‘tracks’ was determined by primary school staff after students’ completion of grade 4. More recently, parents in some cases now have a choice in (or try to influence) the type of school their child will attend. Some educators I have spoken with see this as a retrograde step, in that the decision has been taken out of teachers’ hands, with greater pressure now being exerted by ‘pushy’ and/or ‘middle class’ parents. In some communities, entry to the highest status and more sought after Gymnasium schools is through ballot.

German secondary education varies from Land to Land and regionally within Länder but typically there are now five major forms. The first three types are the traditional pathways or forms of secondary schooling in Germany. Although it is possible to change tracks, this is usually ‘downwards’ and not to a ‘higher’ track):

  1. Gymnasium (or grammar schools) – the most ‘academic’ schools, operate until grades 12 or 13 and enable those who meet the general standard for entry to university (Hochschulreife) and passing of the Arbitur examination to qualify for university entrance. (The Arbitur – a combined written and oral examination – guarantees admission to a university but not to a particular field of study.)
  2. Realschule – grades 5-10 with the Mittlere Reife exit exam and Realschulabschluss
  3. Hauptschule (Main School) – the least ‘academic’ stream usually ending in grade 9 (with the qualification of Hauptschulabschluss and in some cases Realschulabschluss after grade 10, and in the case of Mittelschule [grades 5-10] combining Hauptschule and Realschule in some Länder).
  4. Fachoberschule – vocational/technical school, [sometimes leading to a Berufsschule that offers academic study combined with an apprenticeship] with admission after grade 10 until grade 12 (or 13 in some cases), with the Arbitur available/obtained subject to certain conditions.
  5. Gesamtschule – grades 5-12 or 5-13 comprehensive/community school effectively combining the three main types of secondary school. The Arbitur is available/obtained subject to certain conditions.

An overall impression is that Germany has and continues to place great emphasis upon formal education and training. There is compulsory school attendance (Schulpflicht) from age 6 until 15 and home schooling is illegal. There is strong belief in the contribution effective public education makes to personal, social and national prosperity.

There are pathways to obtaining certificates, diplomas, degrees and other qualifications that are long established and well-known, including the highly regarded ‘dual system’ with industry. (As OECD explains it, “Germany’s dual education system … combines apprenticeships in a company and vocational education at a vocational school … In the company, the apprentice receives practical training which is supplemented by theoretical instruction in the vocational school. Around 60% of all young people learn a trade within the dual system of vocational education and training in Germany.”) Training for any occupation is usually lengthy with the payoffs being tenure, security, salary and status.

While Germany is prepared to invest in education and training, In Australia governments are moving away from supporting technical education through cutting funding to traditional technical and further education (‘TAFE’) colleges, encouraging alternative vocational education and training (VET) providers and importing skilled labour rather than training local people.

Two Different Approaches: The Roles of Regulation and Deregulation

While it could be argued that strong traditions and tight government regulations in education might hinder innovation and change in Germany, these can also act as a form of protection from international trends and forces and ensure that standards are not compromised. Whilst Australia is moving down the road of greater deregulation, there is strong resistance to this in Germany. As noted, federal agencies in Germany are relatively less influential in education than is the case in Australia and this might also act to protect the country as a whole from some of the fads and fashions that are becoming endemic in other countries such as the USA and England.

There is no context free recipe or model for educational success, however defined and measured. Australia is not Germany, nor Finland, Singapore or Shanghai for that matter. However Germany has been successful in lifting its performance at a time when Australia’s is in decline, and so there may well be lessons to be learned.

Conclusion

Whilst challenges remain for education in Germany and educators and officials express dissatisfaction with the current performance of schooling, there are impressive features that contrast with the current state of education in Australia.

Overall, the education sector in Germany is highly valued, well-supported financially, tightly regulated and stable, yet it has shown itself to be responsive, serious about and capable of reform.

Finally, the strong emphasis within German education on regulation, standards, evidence, reform and improvement appears preferable to the current situation in Australia where there seems to be a headlong rush to deregulate, dismantle and open (public but also private) education to market forces, without, or at times despite, available evidence, whilst overall performance and equity are declining.

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Leading Futures: Alternative Perspectives on Education Reform and Policy

Posted on May 25, 2016 by | 2 comments

Series Editors Alma Harris and Michelle Jones

The global discourse about educational policy and change has narrowed considerably because of a preoccupation with the high performing systems, as defined by large-scale international assessments, and the factors that contribute to their success. Building on Alma Harris and Michelle Jones’ book, Leading Futures: Global Perspectives on Educational Leadership, the Leading Futures series is premised on the contention that more contextual and culturally sensitive accounts of educational change are needed in order to consider broader attributions and explanations of educational performance.

The Leading Futures series provides a platform for sharing different views on the process and practice of changing education systems for the better. Its intention is to open up the contemporary debate on school and system performance through critical policy analysis, empirical enquiry and contextualized accounts of system performance.

This post by Alma Harris, Michelle Jones, Jan Heijmans and Job Christians is the first in the Leading Futures series.

The Dutch Way: Is the Netherlands a best kept educational secret?

Alma Harris, Michelle Jones, Jan Heijmans and Job Christians.

Unlike many other education systems, the Netherlands appears to be delivering both educational quality and equity. So why does the Dutch system do so well? To attribute its success to a handful of structural features or to certain strategies is one way to go. However, accurately identifying causal attributions for better system performance is far from straightforward or fool proof. In complex education systems there are often multiple reasons for better outcomes that interact and intersect.

In this post, we argue that the Dutch system provides an example of “principled educational performance,” combining a focus on democratic values with an approach to policymaking that relies on both collaboration and autonomy.

The Dutch system in context: Educational quality and equity

The global interest in the high performing education systems shows no signs of slowing down. The interest in borrowing from the best has placed the international spotlight on a select group of education systems and not others. Earlier this year, the OECD published “Supporting Teacher Professionalism,” drawing upon the 2013 TALIS survey in order to explore teachers’ and principals’ perceived professionalism. Thirty-four countries were scored on three measures: teachers’ professional knowledge, work autonomy, and access to peer networks. Of all the education systems that scored highest on the index of professionalism, seven were in Europe and the Netherlands placed fourth in this group.

The Dutch education system is not necessarily on the radar of policy makers in search of better performance but a quick look at the Dutch system makes interesting reading. The evidence shows that Dutch students perform very well in international student assessments and as a country, the Netherlands has remained just outside the PISA top ten, for successive rounds. At the primary level, results from both the 2011 TIMSS and PIRLS assessments indicate an exceptionally good performance for Dutch students aged nine to ten. Among all participating countries, in these international assessments, the Netherlands was only outperformed by seven countries in mathematics and science, and by nine countries in reading.

Turning next to the all important PISA scores. In 2012, 15-year-olds in the Netherlands achieved results significantly above the OECD average in the 3 areas tested (mathematics, reading and science). Only two other OECD countries achieved significantly higher performance levels in mathematics. In 2011, the Netherlands had the lowest rate of 15-29 year-olds not in employment, education or training across all OECD countries: 7% compared to an OECD average of 16%. While there are some who argue that above average is not good enough, from different vantage points and using different indicators it would appear that Dutch education system is performing well.

Yet, the Dutch seem to be remarkably quiet about their educational successes and accomplishments. Possibly this is because unlike some of their near European neighbours, they are not among the big hitters in PISA. Yet, they have a track record in educational equity that should be the envy of many countries in Europe and beyond. Take for example the fact that the Netherlands has fewer low performers and more high performers than the OECD average. Significantly fewer Dutch 15-years-olds scored below the PISA performance level 2, which is believed to mark the basic competency which enables active participation in a society. The impact of student socioeconomic background on performance in mathematics was less pronounced in the Netherlands than at the OECD average. The Netherlands also has an above average proportion of resilient students i.e. students who manage to overcome difficult socio-economic circumstances and exceed expectations, when compared to students in other countries.

It is no accident that the Netherlands is one of the OECD’s most devolved education systems, with schools enjoying a high degree of autonomy. This particular brand of autonomy however is not to be confused with increased privatization of schooling or the erosion of local control of schooling. Rather, this particular brand of localalized empowerment is based upon the principle of freedom of education where public and private schools are on an equal footing and all schools receive public funding, provided that they meet the requirements for schools in their sector. In the Netherlands, all teachers receive high quality teacher training at bachelors and masters level plus there is a great emphasis on teacher autonomy and professionalism. The Education Cooperative, which involves over 200,000 teachers, is run by teachers for teachers with the chief aim of safeguarding the quality of the profession.

Before concluding that the Netherlands is some educational utopia where schools and teachers are blissfully free from any interference, think again. The central government sets learning objectives and quality standards that apply to both public and private schools. The Inspectorate of Education monitors school quality and compliance with central rules and regulations. Unlike many other education systems however the Dutch system balances support and pressure in a positive way. While there is a framework of standards, with broadly formulated goals, there are also additional resources and teaching support in schools that need it the most. If schools improve, they are rewarded with more autonomy and freedom to innovate, if they are considered high performing they can apply for Excellent School status.

Of particular note is the fact that the Dutch education system is not overly encumbered with regulation, prescription and standardisation. There is no national curriculum in the Netherlands, however certain learning objectives are stipulated by the Ministry and are expected to be met at the end of primary and lower secondary education. There is testing in the Netherlands and notably, the system stands out internationally for its high-quality standardised assessments. While the issue of testing remains for some Dutch educators somewhat controversial, on balance, the pressure to compete and perform is not as acute as in many other countries. The norms of the Dutch society are collaborative and this threads its way through the very fabric of schooling. Competition hardly plays a role in Dutch educational culture; students are seldom graded against each other or expected to compete against one another.

In terms of equity, the Netherlands is a particularly strong system example. It is the only country participating in PIRLS where all students achieved, at least, the low international benchmark of performance in reading. In addition, 99% of the Dutch students achieved at least the low international benchmark in mathematics and science in TIMSS. Young people in the Netherlands, up to age of 18, must attend school until they attain a basic qualification and there is a strong policy on truancy and absenteeism. The Ministry has signed performance agreements on student dropout with municipalities and schools in 39 regions, which ensures that the most vulnerable young people are supported. In 2006, the government introduced a successful program (Aanval op de uitval) with a regional approach to promote school success and to avoid early school drop outs. A recent OECD report shows that in terms of low-performing students, the Netherlands is far below the OECD average. In the Netherlands, students from low socio-economic backgrounds are 1.72 times more likely to be low performers than their peers with high socio-economic status which is below the OECD average (2.37 times). A higher proportion of Dutch disadvantaged students attend schools with students from better-off backgrounds than the OECD average.

In summary, the Netherlands demonstates a strong comitment to collective and equitable development. As Professor Wilma Vollebergh, University of Utrecht and Netherlands Institute for Social Research reports, it has a social culture and Dutch educational policy-making reflects power-sharing and consenses in decision-making. Such strong cultural norms and values are at the heart of educational practice and largely explain the performance of its education system. The national belief in fairness, equity and justice not only drives the education system but also, at a practical level, translates into a collective effort to ensure success for every child in every setting. A recent study of 200,000 students from 42 countries concluded that Dutch students are happy and have high levels of well-being.

What can we take away from the Dutch approach? 

So what can we take away from the Dutch education system? Essentially, there are three things. First, that the Netherlands does not rely on school competition or market forces to secure better educational performance. Conversely, it relies on strong collaboration between teachers and schools to raise achievement and attainment. Second, it does not exclude students from its education system who are disadvantaged, marginalised or are refugees from another country. Instead, it makes every effort to ensure that young people, from all backgrounds, do not leave school early and that they enter the workforce qualified to participate.Third, the Dutch system shows that it is perfectly possible to combine educational equity and quality. While some may argue that there is more work to be done, compared to many other countries the Dutch education system is undoubtedly moving in the right direction.

For those interested in navigating the slopes of quick-fix, high performance, the Netherlands is categorically off-piste. The Dutch way is epitomized by a long history and a proud tradition of building civic society around democratic values that continue to define both an education system and a country. In years to come, when the high-octane remedies for better educational performance have been over-sold to the point where they have lost their lustre and attraction to policy makers, Dutch educators will still be striving, in their quiet but determined way, for educational excellence through equity. With hindsight, it might indeed be the case, that one of our most principled educational performers was there all along.

Notes on Authors

Dr. Alma Harris is Professor of Educational Leadership and Director of the Institute of Educational Leadership at the University of Malaya.

Dr Michelle Jones is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Educational Leadership at the University of Malaya

Dr. J. Heijmans is Chair of the Executive Board KPZ (teacher training Center Zwolle) in the Netherlands.

Job Christians is a former teacher and founder/director of Onderwijs Maak Je Samen (organization for professional development) in the Netherlands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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