Table Of ContentTRUST, ACCOUNTABILITY AND
CAPACITY IN EDUCATION
SYSTEM REFORM
This global collection brings a new perspective to the field of comparative educa-
tion by presenting trust, capacity and accountability as the three building blocks
of education systems and education system reform. In exploring how these three
factors relate to student learning outcomes across different international contexts,
this book provides a powerful framework for a more equal system.
Drawing upon research and case studies from scholars, policymakers and
experts from international agencies across five continents, this book shows how
trust, capacity and accountability interact in ways and with consequences that
vary among countries, pointing readers towards understanding potential leverage
points for system change.
Trust, Accountability and Capacity in Education System Reform illuminates how
these three concepts are embedded in an institutional context temporally, socially
and institutionally and offers an analysis that will be of use to researchers, policy-
makers and agencies working in comparative education and towards education
system reform.
Melanie Ehren is a professor in educational governance and the Director of research
institute LEARN! at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and an honorary professor
at the UCL Institute of Education, UK.
Jacqueline Baxter is an associate professor in Public Policy and Management and the
Director of the Centre for Research and Innovation in Online Business and Legal
Education at The Open University, UK.
TRUST,
ACCOUNTABILITY
AND CAPACITY IN
EDUCATION SYSTEM
REFORM
Global Perspectives in
Comparative Education
Edited by Melanie Ehren
and Jacqueline Baxter
First published 2021
by Routledge
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© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Melanie Ehren and Jacqueline
Baxter; individual chapters, the contributors
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CONTENTS
List of contributors vii
Acknowledgements x
Foreword xi
1 Trust, accountability and capacity: Three
building blocks of education system reform 1
Melanie Ehren and Jacqueline Baxter
2 Governance of education systems: Trust, accountability
and capacity in hierarchies, markets and networks 30
Melanie Ehren and Jacqueline Baxter
3 Trust-based accountability in education:
The role of intrinsic motivation 55
Frédérique Six
4 Distrusting contexts and cultures and capacity
for system-level improvement 78
Jacqueline Baxter
5 Accountability to build school and system
improvement capacity 102
Melanie Ehren and Reinhard Bachmann
6 Inner group trust and school autonomy in a segregated
school system; parental self-segregation in the Netherlands 124
Melanie Ehren
vi Contents
7 Trust, professional capacity and accountability in school
improvement: Austria’s quality management system 144
Herbert Altrichter
8 Hierarchical structures with networks for accountability
and capacity building in Singapore: An evolutionary approach 164
Shu-Shing Lee, Jeanne Ho and Tay Lee Yong
9 Educational technology to improve capacity – integrating
adaptive education programmes in public school in Kenya 182
Tom Kaye
10 From hierarchy and market to hierarchy and network
governance in Chile: Enhancing accountability, capacity
and trust in public education 201
Carmen Montecinos, Álvaro González, and Melanie Ehren
11 Contrasting approaches, comparable efficacy?:
How macro-level trust influences teacher
accountability in Finland and Singapore 222
Yue-Yi Hwa
12 Distrust, accountability and capacity in South Africa’s
fragmented education system 252
Nomancotsho Pakade and Thokozani Chilenga-Butao
13 Downward spiral or upward trajectory?:
Building a public profession to meet the shifting
technical, social and political demands of education 274
Joshua L. Glazer and Jal Mehta
14 Trust, capacity and accountability: A triptych
for improving learning outcomes 288
Melanie Ehren and Jacqueline Baxter
Index 305
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Herbert Altrichter is a professor of Education and Educational Psychology and the
Director of Linz School of Education, Linz School of Education and Johannes
Kepler University.
Research interests: Educational governance, school development and system
reform, evaluation, teacher education.
Reinhard Bachmann i s a professor at SOAS University of London. Reinhard
Bachmann teaches and conducts scholarly activities at SOAS University of
London, UK. He is a professor of International Management and the Founder
and Director of the Centre for Trust Research at SOAS. His research focuses
on issues of strategic management, organizational analysis and comparative
management. Specifically, the role of social mechanisms (trust, power etc.)
and societal influences (institutional arrangements, cultural traditions) on the
structure and strategic organization of business relationships is emphasized in his
work. Reinhard specifically published seminal work on trust in journals such as
Organization Studies, Cambridge Journal of Economics, International Sociology
and Journal of Managerial Psychology, and he edited the ‘Handbook of Trust
Research’, 2006, the ‘Landmark Papers on Trust’, 2008, and the ‘Handbook of
Advances in Trust Research’, 2014 (all three volumes with Akbar Zaheer).
Dr Jacqueline Baxter is an associate professor in Public Policy and Management
and the Director of the Centre for Research and Innovation in Online Business
and Legal Education at The Open University, UK. Her research interests lie
in the area of public policy, accountability and governance. She is a fellow of
the Academy of Social Sciences and the Editor-in-Chief of the Sage Journal:
Management in Education.
viii List of contributors
Thokozani Chilenga-Butao is an associate lecturer, Department of Political
Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research interests
include decentralization, public administration, public policy and the governance
of education. Her PhD focuses on national government interventions in South
Africa’s provincial education departments. Her ongoing research examines
South Africa’s national education department and its decentralized relationship
with provinces and schools.
Melanie Ehren is a professor in educational governance and the Director of
research institute LEARN! at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and an honorary
professor at the UCL Institute of Education. Her academic work focuses on the
effectiveness of accountability and evaluation systems and aims to contribute to
a greater understanding of the interplay between accountability and the broader
education system in tackling inequality and improving student outcomes.
Joshua L. Glazer is an associate professor of Education Policy at George
Washington University. His research and teaching examine multiple approaches
to improving underperforming schools in high poverty, urban environments;
the political dynamics of state takeovers; and the design of research practice
partnerships.
Álvaro González i s postdoctoral researcher at the Instituto de Ciencias de la
Educación of the Universidad de O’Higgins, Chile. His academic work focuses
on educational improvement and change, addressing topics such as educational
leadership, professional and organizational learning, accountability and evaluation
and education policy.
Jeanne Ho is a teaching fellow at the Office of Education Research – National
Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. She has taught in
primary schools for more than two decades. His research interests are in the field
of ICT in education, metacognition and teacher professional development.
Yue-Yi Hwa i s a research fellow at the Research on Improving Systems of
Education (RISE) Programme, based at the Blavatnik School of Government,
University of Oxford. The research in this chapter was conducted as part of her
PhD at the University of Cambridge on teacher accountability and sociocultural
context across countries.
Tom Kaye is an education consultant with the World Bank Grou p who focus es
on implementing EdTech to enhance learning outcomes in low-performing
education systems. He has experience working in countries across Africa, Asia,
Australia and the Middle East.
List of contributors ix
Shu-Shing Lee i s a research scientist at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and
Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore. Her research interests include understanding teacher learning from
a social–cultural perspective as well as understanding contextual factors and
leverages that influence teacher learning.
Jal Mehta is a professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
His work focuses on how to create schools and systems that enable all students and
adults to thrive, with a particular interest in the professionalization of teaching.
He is the author, most recently, with Sarah Fine, of In Search of Deeper Learning:
The Quest to Remake the American High School and The Allure of Order: High Hopes,
Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling. He is
the proud recipient of the Morningstar Award for Teaching Excellence at the
Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Carmen Montecinos is a professor in Educational Psychology and the Executive
Director of the Educational Leadership Centre PUCV at Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Valparaiso in Chile. She is a principal investigator with the Centre for
Advanced Research in Education at Universidad de Chile focusing on policies
and practices around school practitioners’ workplace configurations and learning
and their impact on school outcomes.
Nomancotsho Pakade has extensive working experience in community
mobilization and advocacy within the NGO sector. She has been involved
in research projects focusing on health and education. She holds an MA in
Research Psychology from the University of Witwatersrand. Currently, Noma is
a researcher at the Public Affairs Research Institution (PARI).
Frédérique Six is an associate professor for Public Governance at the Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on public governance and in
particular the relationship between trust and control/accountability, applying
this to how professionals are governed and to regulation.
Tay Lee Yong is a teaching fellow at the Office of Education Research – National
Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. Tay Lee Yong has
taught in primary schools for more than two decades. His research interests
are in the field of ICT in education, metacognition and teacher professional
development.
