Education For All: Quality Counts Reflections from a School Improvement Perspective UKFIET Colloquiu

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Education For All Quality Counts -Reflections
from aSchool Improvement PerspectiveUKFIET
ColloquiumInstitute of Education, LondonTuesday
23rd November 2004Professor David
HopkinsChief Adviser on School Standards, DfES
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EFA Dakar Goals

• Early education and childcare
• Free and compulsory primary education of good
  quality
• Life skills programmes
• 50 improvement in adult literacy
• Gender equality
• Improved quality of education

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EFA Millenium Goals

• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women.

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EFA Development Index

• The Education For All Development Index measures
  the extent to which countries are meeting 4 of
  the 6 EFA goals
• UPE
• Gender parity
• Literacy
• Quality
• Several countries - including some of the
  poorest sharply improved their EFA achievement
  levels between 1998 and 2001. This indicates that
  poverty is not an unavoidable barrier to rapid
  progress towards EFA. On the other hand, massive
  educational deprivation continues to be
  concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab
  States and South and West Asia.

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Defining Quality Koichiro Matsuura

• Quality must be seen in light of how societies
  define the purpose of education. In most, two
  principal objectives are at stake the first is
  to ensure the cognitive development of learners.
  The second emphasises the role of education in
  nurturing the creative and emotional growth of
  learners and in helping them to acquire values
  and attitudes for responsible citizenship.
  Finally, quality must pass the test of equity an
  education system characterized by discrimination
  against any particular group is not fulfilling
  its mission.

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Defining Quality Five Major Factors

• Learners, whose diversity must be recognized
• The national economic and social context
• Material and human resources
• The teaching and learning process
• The outcomes and benefits of education.

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Defining Quality A Framework

• Enabling inputs

• Teaching and Learning
• Learning time
• Teaching methods
• Assessment, feedback, incentives
• Class size

• Learner Characteristics
• Aptitude
• Perseverance
• School readiness
• Prior knowledge
• Barriers to learning

• Outcomes
• Literacy, numeracy and life skills
• Creative and emotional skills
• Values
• Social benefits

• Teaching and learning materials
• Physical infrastructure and facilities
• Human resources
• School governance

Context including factors such as

• Competitiveness of the teaching profession
• National governance and management strategies

• Economic and labour market conditions in the
  community
• Socio-cultural and religious factors

• Parental support
• Time for schooling and homework

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Enhancing Quality Action Points

• Present styles and methods of teaching are not
  serving children well
• Investment in teachers is critical
• The quality and availability of learning
  materials strongly affect what teachers can do
• Those who work in and with schools need help to
  find their own solutions to improving quality
• Relationships among different parts and aspects
  of the education sector can be exploited to help
  improve quality
• The existence of special needs in education often
  needs to be more strongly acknowledged
• Knowledge can make a major difference to the
  quality of education.

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The Breakdown of the Culture of Learning and
Teaching (Pam Christie)

• Recognise the complex group and organisational
  dynamics crippling the work of schools
• The major task is the regeneration of schools as
  functioning organisations.
• The substantive task of learning and teaching
  needs to be bolstered.
• Organisational failure needs to be remedied in
  terms of school management and leadership.
• Build a sense of agency and responsibility at the
  school level.

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How Schools Improve (Per Dalin)

• Many people assume that there are certain
  obvious truths about reform
• reforms should be incremental and gradual rather
  than wide-ranging
• tight inspection and control are essential for
  success
• the issue is designing a reform and its materials
  so well that it can be implemented faithfully and
  well with minimal training and assistance, in
  other words teachers are consumers of new
  reform ideas
• success depends mainly on the quality of the
  reform ideas
• schools in general are resistant to reforms
• either top-down or bottom-up strategic work
  depending on the educational context referred to.
• In line with the EFA approach, Dalin notes, all
  these obvious truths have been shown to be
  false.

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How Schools Improve Study Findings

• Educational reform is a local process.
• Central support is vital.
• Effective system linkages are essential.
• The reform process is a learning process.
• Think systemic and big.
• Focus on classroom practice.
• See teachers as learners.
• Commitment is essential at all levels.
• Both local and central initiatives work.
• Parent and community participation contribute
  to success

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Lessons from the Aga Khan School Improvement
Programme

• The commitment to child centred learning
• Curriculum versus pedagogic development
• The focus on teacher learning, professional
  development and leadership training
• The school as the unit of change and capacity
  building
• Local support infrastructure
• Sustainability

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Towards a Policy Framework

• Focus unrelentingly on student achievement,
  learning and empowerment.
• Create professional learning communities within
  schools.
• Fund the development and evaluation of a range of
  curriculum and teaching programmes.
• Help schools make informed choices across a range
  of models.
• Target funding and support for implementation of
  proven practices.
• Establish support networks at all levels of the
  system.

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EFA Better Learning

• Teachers achieving UPE alone calls for more and
  better-trained teachers
• Learning Time instruction time is a crucial
  correlate of achievement
• Core subjects literacy is a crucial tool for
  the mastery of other subjects
• Pedagogy many commonly used teaching styles do
  not suit children well
• Language initial instruction in the learners
  first language improves learning outcomes and
  reduces subsequent grade repetition
• Learning Materials the quality and availability
  of learning materials strongly affect what
  teachers can do
• Facilities unprecedented refurbishment and
  building are needed in many countries. Clean
  water and sanitation are crucial
• Leadership central governments must be ready to
  give greater freedom to schools.

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Implications for UNESCO

• Fit for Purpose
• Principles
• International Challenge
• Regional Capacity Building

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Implications for UNESCO

• Principles
• Equity
• Quality
• Ownership
• Efficiency
• Prevention
• Systemic

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Implications for UNESCO

• International Challenge
• Advocacy and Principles
• Monitoring
• Challenge
• Co-ordination and Key Partners
• Innovation and Regional Capacity
• Intervention

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Implications for UNESCO

• Regional Capacity Building
• Ensuring the basics
• The focus on learning
• Teaching materials
• Teacher education
• School leadership
• Community involvement and networking

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Implications for UNESCO

• A Final Thought
• Education for All (EFA) is a bold and innovative
  educational programme redolent with moral
  purpose. The goals of EFA reflect cutting edge
  educational aspirations. It is important that we
  do not just realise the aims of EFA but also
  raise standards of achievement and learning in
  all United Nations member countries. At present
  international policy is largely predicated on
  structural reform and this has a poor track
  record in terms of raising standards and ensuring
  equity. An approach that focuses on improving
  the quality of classroom practice, on capacity
  building and systemic reform offers far more
  promise.