ERIC ED394171: The State and the School: An International Perspective.

142 Pages·1996·3.9 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
EA 027 488
ED 394 171
Turner, John D., Ed.
AUTHOR
The State and the School: An International
TITLE
Perspective.
ISBN-0-7507-0478-0
REPORT NO
PUB DATE
96
NOTE
142p.
Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis, Inc., 1900 Frost
AVAILABLE FROM
Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007 (paperback:
ISBN-0-7507-0478-0; clothbound:
ISBN-0-7507-0477-2).
Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers,
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*Accountability; British National Curriculum;
DESCRIPTORS
Centralization; Elementary Secondary Education;
Federal Regulation; Foreign Countries; *Government
Role; *Government Suhool Relationship; *Institutional
Autonomy; Privatization
*United Kingdom
IDENTIFIERS
ABSTRACT
This book discusses the controversy over the extent
to which a nation's government has the right to determine the nature
of the educational system, and the limits on that right. In Great
Britain, the government has established a series of Education Acts
and a National Curriculum. The concepts of accountability and cost
effectiveness are commonly used in discussions about education.
Contributors to the book--from Africa, Asia, South America,
Australia, and the United States--examine issues such as school
effectiveness, government control of the curriculum, the nature of
academic freedom, parental rights to information about schools and to
involvement in them, and the private provision of education. Chapters
(1) "The State and the Teacher in England and Wales"
include:
(2) "The State, Human Rights and Academic Freedom in
(Richard Pring);
(3) "Educational Contestability and
Africa" (Thandike Mkandawire);
(4) "Schooling and the
the Role of the State" (Geoffrey Partington);
State: A Review of Current Issues" (Beatrice Avalos-Bevan) ;
(5)
"Private Higher Education and External Control" (Joseph Stetar); (6)
"The Management and Mismanagement of School Effectiveness" (Lynn
Davies); and (7) "Failed Matrimony: Educational Projects and Their
Host Institutions" (Fiona Leach). Three figures and an index are
(LMI)
included. References accompany each chapter.
***********************************************************************
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
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The State
and the School
An International
Perspective
The State and the School
An International Perspective
Edited by
John D. Turner
Falmer Press
(A member of the Taylor & Francis Group)
Washington, D.C.
London
4
The Falmer Press, 4 John Street, London WC1N 2ET
UK
The Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101,
USA
Bristol, PA 19007
J.D. Turner, 1996
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any fom or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
without permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published in 1996
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are
available on request
ISBN 0 7507 0477 2 cased
ISBN 0 7507 0478 0 paper
Jacket design by Caroline Archer
Typeset in 11/13 pt Gararnond by
Graphicraft Typesetters Ltd.. Hong Kong.
Printed in C:reat Britain by Biddles I.td., Guildford and King's Lynn
on paper which has a specified pH value on final paper manufacture
of not less than 7.5 and is therefore 'acid-free'.
Introduction
1
John D. Turner
The State and the Teacher in England and Wales
6
1
Richard Pring
The State, Human Rights and Academic Freedom in Africa
18
2
Thandike Mkandawire
Educational Contestability and the Role of the State
37
3
Geoffrey Partington
Schooling and the State: A Review of Current Issues
55
4
Beatrice Avalos-Bevan
Private Higher Education and External Control
77
5
Joseph Stetar
The Management and Mismanagement of School
6
Effectiveness
91
Lynn Davies
Failed Matrimony: Educational Projects and Their Host
7
Institutions
108
Fiona Leach
Notes on Contributors
128
Index
130
Introduction
John D. Turner
'To whom do schools belong' was the question posed by the title of a
book by W.O. Lester Smith, a book which was well-known to earlier
generations of educationists. In 1942 the question was so novel that
it scarcely needed asking. The normal definition seemed a perfectly
acceptable one, that the British system of education was 'a national
system locally administered'. In my early professional career I derived a
that
great deal of satisfaction from telling students from other countries
in Britain the State employed virtually no teachers, that there was no
national curriculum, the head teacher of each school being responsible
for the curriculum of that school, that the State's views on methodology
of Suggestions for
were contained in a frequently revised Handbook
Teachers and that the 1944 Education Act had been scrupulous in in-
sulating the Minister of Education from the work of the schools. There
be left to
was a general agreement that education was too important to
politicians.
Now the view in Britain is rather that education is too important to
be left to teachers. Whereas the curriculum and syllabus were previ-
ously the concern of the professionals, the Government now deeply
distrusts professionals, not just in education but in every profession.
The Secretary of State has assumed massive powers in a series of Edu-
cation Acts, and there is a National Curriculum which is not just a cur-
riculum but which intrudes into the detail, and often the fine details, of
the syllabus. It is the Secretary of State who tells us when 'history'
stopped and what books constitute 'literature'. The teachers themselves
while the progress of
are subject to constant instruction and criticism,
students is measured by a series of externally administered tests, which
do not command the support of the majority of teachers. The results of
the tests are published, for the information of parents, in a series of
icague tables'. The twin concepts of accountability and cost effective-
education as they are in
ness are now as common in discussions about
discussions of industry and commerce.
Nor are these trends restricted to any level of education or to any
7
John D Turner
one country They are as widespread in the great universities as they
are in the primary schools, they are on the agenda not only in Butain
and Europe, but in Australia, the United States and indeed virtually
tvery country in the developed and the developing world. The chapters
in this book deal with many different cultures and many different coun-
tries from several different continents, but the central theme is universal
and of great significance: the contributors to the yob ime, however, hold
widely divergent views.
On the one hand are those like Richard Pring, who value the
liberal tradition in education. He, and others like him, believe that
education is:
the initiation of a learner by a teacher into the conversation
which takes place between the generations of mankind in which
the learner is introduced to the voices of poetry and literature,
of history and of philosophy, of science and religion. The State's
job is to make that conversation possible
not to structure it
Teachers play the central part in this practice of education.
. .
They are the central players. They mediate the culture
the
conversation between the generations. They have the knowl-
edge both of that which needs to be passed or, and of the state
of .eceptiveness of the learner. It is a difficult and delicate task
and one that requires both kinds of expertise.
This view is shared by a number of the contributors. They see the
intrusion of the State into detailed educational issues not just as foolish,
since the Government does not possess the skills and knowledge which
would permit it to make good decisions, but also as threatening aca-
demic freedom. This is a threat to which Dr Mkandawire points as he
considers it in the Afiican context.
He argues that repression of academic freedom 'constitutes only a
part of the matrix of the violation of human rights and the web of
authoritarian rule'. It is one of the signs by which, he says, incipient or
actual tyranny and repression can be recognized; for that reason such
repression is to be strenuously resisted.
Some of the other contributors, however, do not see the situation
quite so clearly. They draw attention to the rights of the various stake-
holders in the education enterprise, the parents and the chi:dren, as
well as the right of those who pay for the enterprise, to insist on obtain-
ing value for money. Is it not true that the professionals have been
allowed to escape public scrutiny for decades, and to work without
close scrutiny either of their methods or of the quality of their product?
2
Introduction
Partington believes that parents who have a choice of school re-
quire the same quality of factual information as they would expect if
they were be 7ing a car. He is not Fepared to accept 'educational
monopoly without adequate monitoring and public information'.
One country which is quite clear about the role of the State in
education is Chile, as Beatrice Avalos-Bevan indicates:
From a past history in which the State was mainly responsible
for educational provision and wh,:re education was described
in the 1925 Constitution as having the 'preferential attention of
the State', the new Organic Law for Education (1989) defined
the role of the state as largely a subsidiary one, and opened the
education system to competitive bids in the market square.
It is fascinating to see the movement towards teacher and school con-
trol of the curriculum moving, as in a number of other countries, in a
diametrically opposite direction to that in Britain, and it is interesting to
and Chile the
note Beatrice Avalos-Bevan's view that in both Britain
reforms are a response, not to changes in educational theory, but to the
political strategy of the party in power. Her study of the interaction of
political and theoretical assumptions in the determination of educa-
of
tional policy draws richly on the systems of education in a number
countries, hut particularly that of Chile, and her classification of educa-
tional issues indicates the similarity of current matters of concern as
much as it underlines the variety of solutions which are being applied.
is our task to decide whether to increase our work on those issues
It
which still require definitive research, or whether, since decisions are
made predominantly on the basis of political reality, such research is
unlikely radically to affect the situation.
The question of public choice in education is examined also by
the United
Joe Stetar who concentrates on private higher education in
States. His study is not relevant only to that context, however. In many
developing, as well as rcher countries, private institutions are often
regarded as an important way of extending educational opportunities
with minimal cost to the state. In the CIS and other former communist
place.
countries experiments in private education are already taking
need of a
Stetar suggests that the relevant question is not 'Will the
nation to infuse new life and vigour into its higher education system
privatization?' but rather
cause educational leaders to experiment with
highly
'Can such countries, trying to recover from the constrictions of
centralized planning and control afford not to have a vibrant private
question is 'How
sector of higher education?". But the accompanying
will quality be assured in such a system of privatized higher education?".
John D Turner
This question, a relatively new one in higher education in Britain
but of longer standing in the United States where the difference of
achievement among different institutions has long been recognized, is
a difficult one to answer at all levels of education.
Many people are now thinking and writing about school quality
and school effectiveness, which is another relatively new entry in edu-
cational indices. When a topic can give birth to a specialist journal
one
can assume that it is a respectable subject for research! There is now a
thriving literature dealing with the characteristics of the good school.
Not everyone, however, would agree that it is easy to recognize a good
school when we see one. Indeed Lynn Davies argues that the State
could not tolerate a fully effective school system. In good schools:
more and more children would pass examinations. More and
more children and parents would have high expectations of
their futures. Demand for the next level of education would
increase dramatically. Demand for jobs associated with high
achievement at school and beyond would increase similarly.
. . .
Really improving school effectiveness in terms of full academic
achievement for all would lead swiftly to a situation totally out
of control
(In England) every time the examination results
.
show a rise in standards, powerful sectors within the Depart-
ment for Education claim that standards of assessment must be
falling and that more means worse
The immediate response
.
.
.
when the system appears too successful is to instigate immediate
'reforms', sidetracking schools and teachers onto other activities
to diminish their efficiency.
The same factors, says Davies, operate in developing countries:
taking the cynical view, schooling in many developing coun-
tries is highly effective for what it is needed for.
It provides
avenues for the few to gain specialized knowledge while con-
taining the mass in the myth of opportunity and promise
It
.
. .
is important not to have too many (high achieving schools),
otherwise tt...t shaky pyramid of selection starts to bulge and
crack.
It is a frightening diagnosis.
Lynn Davies' chapter is not the only one which considers the role
of the State in education in developing countries. Fiona Leach exam-
ines the reasons why so many educational projects fail to produce the
4
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