Anne Welle-Strand

E-learning policies, practices and challenges in two Norwegian organizations

This article reports a pilot study on the uses of technology to enable learning within a formal educational setting in a higher education institution and within a corporation. These two Norwegian cases were selected due to their commitment to technology-enabled learning, as expressed in policy and strategy documents. The aim was to investigate the commitment and actual use of information and communications technology (ICT) for learning as well as what key actors think are the major challenges for successful large scale implementation of ICT for learning. The findings indicate that there is insufficient follow-up on e-learning policies and that there is a general lack of strategic direction and leadership in this area. The key challenges respondents highlight relate to the need for a systematic and pedagogical approach to e-learning in which three equally important considerations must be balanced: organization, pedagogy and technology. Key perspectives of a coherent pedagogical and organizational framework for planning e-learning are discussed.

The Norwegian Unified School: A Paradise Lost?.

Norway has a legacy of educational policies for equal opportunity in a comprehensive learning environment - envisaged in the model of the Unified School. A peak of success was reached in the third quarter of the 20 th Century. Everybody got the opportunity of secondary and tertiary education free of charge. Education had a distinct equalizing effect. In the last quarter of the last century, indications of serious problems started to appear. Research indicated that the Unified School was producing inequality in learning conditions, achievements and opportunities. Problem solving has been attempted along two opposing policy lines: Educational Populism for restoring the Unified School, and New Public Management for creating a Quality School. Justifications for the present policy changes reside in claims about goal conflicts and the alleged dysfunctional effects of welfare state education policies, ideological changes and economic globalization. The Unified School reflects an equality-driven education policy, while the Quality School reform is competitiveness-driven. Because of particularities of Norwegian culture and economy, a residue of concerns with equality can be traced in the present Quality Reform.

Bosnia-Herzegovina's Higher Education System: Issues of Governance and Quality.

Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) is seen as an intriguing case. Often described as a “miniature” of the Balkans due to its demographic pattern, the country has been exposed to a number of dramatic events during the past fifteen years. Today, international actors administer it as a sort of “semi-protectorate” concept, the definition of which is unclear even to its designers. Consequently, most of the reforms that took place and still take place at BiH’s universities are part of an agenda funded by international agencies. At the same time, one of the main critics of these international aid programs was that better appreciation of the existing universities’ structures is important in achieving the effective reforms (Temple 2002). This is in line with Castells’s argument that “effectiveness of the international aid will be conditioned by the ability to design policies that take into account the specificity of universities as institutions, and are able at the same time, to link the science and

Vietnam – A New Economic Dragon in Southeast Asia?

This study investigates and identifies some of the primary determinants of Vietnam’s growth during the Doi Moi era and provides an assessment of their relevance and application to contemporary challenges. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has an impressive record of economic growth and poverty reduction over the past two decades. Capitalizing on the advantages of its cultural and economic features, the strategy of incremental Doi Moi reforms has demonstrated the strength and commitment of Vietnam’s political leadership. The country has achieved middle-income economy status in 2009 and is aiming to become an industrialized nation by 2020. However, on the background of mounting domestic challenges and less favorable international economic conditions, the achievement of this ambitious goal seems uncertain. Growing economic affluence may have hampered some of the positive features, which had previously been instrumental in catalyzing growth and development, and the current reform processes appear to be stalling.