Noel F. McGinn

The implementation of educational innovations: Lessons from Pakistan

Abstract Under what conditions will innovations in education be successfully implemented? A study of five innovations in Pakistan allows us to explore that question. They include the use of learning coordinators to improve school supervision; the adoption of teaching kits; adding primary schools to mosques; building residences for women teaching in rural schools; and the Nai Roshni project of drop-in schools for students who had never attended or had left school. Information about these innovations comes from interviews with over 100 Pakistani officials and experts on education and from a random sample survey of nearly 500 primary (elementary) schools and 1000 teachers. ∗ The paper draws on the five cases to illustrate a model of implementation that can be used for planning, managing, or evaluating educational innovation. The summary of each innovation contains only those details necessary to show key features of the model. Further information about the cases can be found in Warwick et al . (1991) The Implementation of Educational Innovations in Pakistan: Cases and Concepts . Development Discussion Paper No. 365 ES (Education Series) Harvard Institute for International Development, Cambridge, MA.

The impact of supranational organizations on public education

Abstract The growth of supranational organizations reduces the sovereignty of nation-states, weakening their willingness and ability to provide high quality public education. Expanded mass media controlled by trans-national corporations compete directly with schools for attention, and offer content that often contradicts the values and knowledge taught by schools. Supranational organizations have changed patterns of dispersion and employment of educated persons, reducing the capacity of education systems to anticipate what they should teach. Supranational organizations have directly encouraged decentralization and privatization of education, and have competed with national, public organizations for control of public education. Efforts to defend endogenous national development seem unlikely to succeed. A call for improving education to enhance the global competitiveness of national economies is feasible only for economically powerful states. A more helpful alternative to re-design education to contribute to integration at a trans-national level, overcoming problems of conflict and injustice endemic in a system of nation-states.

Toward an alternative strategy for international assistance to education

Priorities and strategies for education: a World Bank review (World Bank, 1995; hereafter the Review) is the most recent in a series of documents published by the World Bank describing its policies with respect to loans for educational projects in developing countries. The Review makes a strong case for continued efforts to improve education. To accomplish this, it recommends increased spending on public education and the expanded use of research-based knowledge to identify effective policies. The Review goes further, prescribing specific policies that the World Bank will support. Finally, the Rev/ew calls for increased participation by national stakeholders in the formulation of educational policies, and co-ordination of the activities of international assistance agencies. These recommendations constitute a strategy for international assistance to education. The central axis of the Rev/ews strategy--increased use of research to inform policy making--is highly laudable, but the means proposed to accomplish this aim make realization of other objectives, particularly national participation in policy formulation, unlikely. The first section of this paper summarizes the Review and identifies the weaknesses of its argument. The second section of the paper proposes an alternative strategy for international assistance to education that is more likely to achieve the worthwhile objectives set out in the Rev/ew.

Learning through Collaborative Research : The Six Nation Education Research Project

Foreword, Susan Fuhrman 1. International Cooperation in Comparative Education Research, Noel F. McGinn 2. Predictors Of National Differences In Mathematics and Science Achievement Of Eighth Grade Students: Data From TIMSS, Erling E. Boe, Henry May, Gema Barkanic, and Robert F. Boruch 3. Pedagogical Practices in English Language Education, Rita Skuja-Steele and Rita Silver 4. Vocational Training and Education, Christoph Metzger, Hidenori Fujita, Song-Seng Law, Robert Zemsky, Jean-Etienne Berset, and Marcus Iannozzi 5. Higher Education Reforms: Determinants and Directions, Akira Arimoto 6. Education Evaluation and Indicators in P. R. China, Singapore and the USA, Zhang Li 7. The Six Nation Project as an Experience in Collaborative Research, Noel F. McGinn

Build a Mill, Build a City, Build a School: Industrialization, Urbanization, and Education in Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela.

The book opens with a brief description of patterns of industrialization and urbanization in Latin America. The authors then shift to consider the economy of the Venezuelan Gyayana development zone, which spawned the city that bears the regions name. Industrialization and rapid urban growth have created educational complexities and opportunities, and most of Part I of the book focuses on the Ciudad Guayanas future and the schools.Part II describes the creation of a means to implement the plan developed by the authors. They recomend decentralization of decision making and planning from the capital, and the concentration of local efforts into a Guayana Center for Educational Research, Planning, and Services.Part III reviews the founding of the Center and its activities between 1966 and 1968 as well as development in the educational institutions of Ciudad Guayana, This section comments on the successes and failures of the Centers three main programs: informal education (literacy and basic education), math and science (middle-school level), and the technical education. The authors suggest where they may have gone wrong in their attempts at implementation.There are technical appendixes on the sampling scheme and the survey instrumentation, and a detailed description of the factor analysis, canonical correlation, multiple stepwise regression, and multiple discriminant analysis used in the sections offering multivariate perspectives on the barrio families and progress of children through school.

Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods (2nd edition)

Book ReviewComparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods (2nd edition)By Mark Bray, Bob Adamson and Mark Mason (Eds.) (2014), 453p ISBN: 978-988-17852-8-2, Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre and Springer

Collaborative Research by Chilean and North American Scholars: Precedents and Projections

This chapter provides a snapshot of recent experiences in collaborative research between scholars in universities in Chile and in the United States, from the perspective of Chilean researchers. International research collaboration was severely constrained during the military dictatorship (1973–1989) but, in the following years, democracy and rapid economic growth contributed to a significant increase in the number of projects of cross-border research production involving universities in Chile and elsewhere. Results from a survey of a non-representative sample of research projects in Chile indicated that at least 79 collaborative research projects involving Chilean and US universities were initiated between 2010 and 2014. Data were obtained from participants in 11 of the projects. Overall, Chilean participants indicated a high level of satisfaction with their collaborative research experience.

University Strategies to Improve the Academic Success of Disadvantaged Students: Three Experiences in Chile

This chapter analyzes initiatives by three Chilean universities. These are: the Propedeutico Program of the University of Santiago (USACH); the Priority Admission System (SIPEE) of the University of Chile; and the PENTA Program of the Catholic University. The objective of the chapter is to assess the impact of these initiatives on student access and performance once enrolled.

Factors that affect post-graduation satisfaction of Chilean university students

ABSTRACT Universities’ reputations are built in part on graduates’ assessments of the quality of education they received. What do these assessments tell us? Are graduates’ judgments of quality based on their experiences as students or on their later job satisfaction, that is, on process or on outcomes? The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which Chilean university graduates’ satisfaction with their professional training is associated with experiences during the degree program they pursued, employment experiences including salary level, or the prestige level or image of the university they attended. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data from recent graduates of professional programs in Primary-Secondary Teaching and Psychology in three universities that differ in prestige. A linear regression model shows that graduates’ satisfaction with their degree program is a joint function of family background, program quality and university image, but not salary once graduated.

The Process of Learning

The problems, and opportunities, of today’s world make learning more important than ever. In this book, we end with proposals for how to improve the capacity of our school systems to generate that learning. We arrive at these proposals after first discussing what learning is, how it occurs, and the actions and organizations most effective in bringing it about.