Welfare Reform on the Web (December 2005): Education - Overseas

Asia's educational edge: current achievements in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and India

Y. Guo

Oxford: Lexington, 2005

The United States relies heavily on the talent of foreign-born scientists and engineers. As Asia's emerging economies expand their own higher education capacity in the sciences and their research and development infrastructure, the US faces great and growing competition in attracting talented students and professionals. The US education system needs to succeed in training enough high-quality students in the sciences to meet the ever-growing demand.

Contextualizing inclusive education: evaluating old and new international perspectives

D. Mitchell (editor)

London: Routledge, 2005

Inclusive education is one of the most dominant and controversial issues confronting educational policy-makers and professionals around the world today. The main theme of the book is that social, political, economic and cultural contexts play a central role in determining whether or not inclusive education is implemented in a range of regions and countries around the world. The main conclusions are:

• Inclusive education means creating a single system of education, which serves all children
• Inclusive education is a site of conflicting paradigms of children with special needs, centred on conflicting psycho-medical socio-political models.
• While many countries seem committed to inclusive education in their rhetoric, legislation and policies, their practices often fall short.

Co-operation as a new mode of regulating and planning occupational and technical training: Québec’s sectoral committees

D.-G. Tremblay, P. Doray and C. Landry

Socio-Economic Review, vol.3, 2005, p.517-543

Québec has recently implemented a variety of reforms in the field of occupational training, including setting up sectoral (industry-level) committees. These consist of representatives of government, unions and employers. Article presents some results regarding the structure, operation and initiatives of these committees, and their impact on the supply of training.

The end of modernist approaches to school funding policy in Australia: a new rationale for funding with inclusive implications for all Australian schools?

M. Furtado

International Journal of Inclusive Education, vol.9, 2005, p.431-448

The Australian Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee has been asked to examine the principles of Commonwealth funding for schools, with particular emphasis on how these principles apply in meeting the needs of government and private schools and whether they ensure efficiency in the allocation of school funding. The Committee will also investigate accountability arrangements including and through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. This paper provides a critical discourse analysis of recent developments, tracking two themes: the construction of "efficiency and effectiveness" in the allocation of school funding in Australia and the impact of such a construction on a discourse of inclusive education for all schools in Australia.

The future of higher education: rhetoric, reality, and the risks of the market

F. Newman, L.Couturier and J. Scurry

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004

The book looks at the risks inherent in the trend towards making higher education a market rather than a regulated public sector and reveals the findings of an extensive investigation into the major forces that are transforming the American system. It explores the challenges of intensified competition among institutions, globalization of colleges and universities, the expansion of the new for-profit and virtual institutions, and the influence of technology on learning.

Incrementalism and strategic change: a university’s experience

M. Arnaboldi and G. Azzone

International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19, 2005, p.459-468

Reform of the Italian higher education system in the 1990s gave universities greater financial freedom and autonomy in staff recruitment. At the same time the government introduced systems for evaluating performance. Article presents a case study of how these changes impacted on an Italian university.

Integrating work-based and academic learning in international and cross-cultural settings

R. Webber

Journal of Education and Work, vol.18, 2005, p.473-487

In recent years higher education students have had more opportunities to gain work experience outside their own culture. Based on interviews with a range of stakeholders in universities and community colleges in the UK, USA and Canada as well as host organisations, this paper reports on the ways in which higher education organisations prepare students, academic staff and site supervisors to work in international and cross-cultural work-based placements.

Interrogating the crisis in higher education marketing: the CORD model

F. Maringe

International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19, 2005, p.564-578

Higher education marketing is still in its infancy in many parts of the world and is under attack on three fronts. It is facing fierce internal resistance to marketisation; it has failed to identify itself with a specific product, i.e. research or teaching; and it has failed to domesticate the marketing idea, resulting in continued reliance on practices imported from business. This paper explores these problems using evidence from international research and proposes a curriculum focused marketing model which, it is argued, will help re-focus HE marketing, domesticate it appropriately and reduce internal resistance.

Multicultural education knowledgebase, attitudes and preparedness for diversity

T.A. Wasonga

International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19, 2005, p.67-74

While students in US schools are becoming more racially and socio-economically diverse, teachers are increasingly white, middle-class females. Article explores how trainee teachers could be better prepared to achieve success with children from diverse backgrounds. Study showed that an increase in multicultural knowledge positively impacted on trainee teacher preparedness to work with students from diverse backgrounds. However improved knowledge had no correlation to multicultural attitudes. Neither did improved multicultural attitudes correlate with feeling prepared to teach.

Navigating social partnerships: central agencies-local networks

T. Seddon, S. Billett and A. Clemans

British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol.26, 2005, p.567-584

Social partnerships are increasingly prominent in public policy and education. Such partnerships can be community movements that operate through the formation of horizontal localised networks. They can also be policy instruments through which governments intervene in communities as a way of building social capital and encouraging democratic participation. Paper explores these horizontal and vertical relations within social partnerships in the light of empirical research from Australia.

A new management element for universities: satisfaction with the offered courses

M. Marzo Navarro, M. Pedraja Iglesias and P. Rivera Torres

International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19, 2005, p.505-526

Universities in Spain and worldwide are faced with the emergence of a new group of customers, mature students who wish to extend and update their professional knowledge. In response, universities have developed a wide range of short courses, seminars, master's degrees, etc. This study endeavoured to analyse the factors that influence consumer satisfaction with these courses, and to explore the relationship between customer satisfaction and institutional loyalty. The key factors that determine the satisfaction of the new breed of students and their subsequent loyalty are teaching staff, teaching methods and course administration.

On curriculum change: the developing role of preschool heads in Hong Kong

Ho Choi Wa Dora

International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19, 2005, p.48-58

Article presents an illustrative case study of the impact of the imposition of performance indicators on kindergartens in Hong Kong. It reflects particularly on how the change was managed by the principal.

The quest for world class university: quality assurance and international benchmarking in Hong Kong

K.-H. Mok

Quality Assurance in Education, vol.13, 2005, p.277-304

Paper sets out to examine the specific reform strategies adopted by the government of Hong Kong to reform its universities to compete in a global higher education market. Academics working in Hong Kong currently are under increasing government pressure to engage in international-level research, offer high quality teaching and contribute to professional and community activities. As Hong Kong universities have tried to become equal to top universities worldwide, they are competing for limited resources. "Doing more with less" and "doing things smarter" are becoming fashionable guiding principles in university management.

Recess: its role in education and development

A. D. Pellegrini

Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005

Many schools question the role of recess (break) in the school day. This book broaches two views of recess: the perceived value of recess and the movement to eliminate or reduce the school recess period from the primary school day.

Reformation of the Macedonian teacher education programme, 1999-2001

J. Clarkson

Educational Research, vol.47, 2005, p.319-331

Paper discusses issues around power conflicts occurring in an EU-sponsored international project to reform teacher training in Macedonia. The project was undertaken by a consortium of four European universities, including Liverpool Hope University College. The group was charged with advising the University of Skopjie, Macedonia, on the modernisation of its teacher education programme. The paper explores the management of change and the role of partnerships in an international project.

Researching the trade in knowledge between the West and developing countries

K.E. Shaw

International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19, 2005, p.459-468

Paper researches the trade in knowledge as a commodity between advanced and less developed nations. It emphasises the need to understand how local knowledge in receiving countries engages and meshes with the new, bought-in knowledge from the West. While bought-in knowledge is a vital resource for less developed countries as they seek to improve their position in the global marketplace, it is essential that the material is adapted to local conditions and the local culture.

TAPing into high quality teachers: preliminary results from the teacher advancement program comprehensive school reform

J. Schacter and Y.M. Thum

School Effectiveness and School Improvement, vol.16, 2005, p.327-323

The US Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) is a comprehensive school reform with the goal of attracting, retaining and motivating high quality teachers. By aggressively recruiting new teachers, providing career progression, introducing teacher-led professional development, implementing rigorous teacher accountability, and paying teachers based on their position, teaching skills and how much their pupils achieve, TAP schools change their organisational structure to support and reward high-quality instruction. This study examined TAP's preliminary impact on student achievement and teacher attitudes