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While many criticize the media for reproducing oppression, mass media can also be used to enact social change. In Peace Education, the authors take a look at Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces Sesame Street and other locally created co-productions worldwide. Sesame Workshop’s programming exposes children to peace education content with the goals of ‘[empowering] children between the ages of three and eight years old with the skills, attitudes, and behaviors necessary to promote nonviolence’.
What exactly is confidence? Throughout the years, many have wrestled with the ‘possibly intractable questions of whether dispositions such as confidence are skills, competences or “capabilities”, attitudes, personality traits, particular mind-sets, feelings or emotional responses to situations’. In Reinventing the Curriculum edited by Mark Priestley and Gert Biesta, read about confidence as a high-stakes educational and social goal.
How do you define transitions, especially within an educational context?
In the chapter “Agency, Participation and Transitions Beyond School” by Caroline Sarojini Hart, the author discusses developing different understandings of transition and the different aspects and angles that come with it. Drawing on data from two different studies with young people undertaken in Yorkshire in the UK, Hart looked at factors such as relationships with communities, families, and peers, to study how these factors influenced change.
Read about conversion factors and agency and transition in Agency and Participation in Childhood and Youth
There has been a flurry of great activity in educational policies applied in Chile since 1980. During the 1980s, Chile reformed its education system so that it would function according to market logic. This promoted expansion of private education and encouraged competition among schools. In the 90s, the return of democracy brought about programmes for educational equality: curricular reforms, longer school days, and improved teacher training. In the 2000s, the student movement proposed ways to enhance public education and eventually, the Quality Assurance System was born. Read more in Education in South America.
Amongst OECD countries, Chile has the lowest level of social inclusion in their schools. In this policy report, the authors’ note causes of social segregation of Chilean schools and how parents’ attitudes contribute to this issue.
One of the main factors of quality education is the quality of teachers. For quite a few years, Latin American countries have been heavily critiqued in preparing competent teachers. In The Struggle for Teacher Education, learn about the teacher education issues in six South American countries and the possible solutions.
Albania has seen an increase in efforts to introduce significant pre-university and higher education reforms in the past two decades. Up until 1991, the country was one of the most economically disadvantaged countries of Europe, as it was under a totalitarian regime for many years. With the end of communism: , Albania looked to international agencies and organizations not only for educational models and policies, but also financial assistance. The early 1990s saw curriculum revisions that included new ideas about democracy. In 2001, the country adopted the United Nations framework of the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction and education and health sector reform. And in 2004, basic compulsory education changed from an eight-year system to a nine-year one. Read all of the details in ‘from Education in Non-EU Countries in Western and Southern Europe: Education Around the World.
Generally, participatory action is needed to hold educational officials and institutions accountable for malfunctions or misdeeds. In this policy report, the authors conduct research on participatory accountability and collective action with parents and teachers in Albania and note how this relates to elections of parent class representatives and voting in the latest national elections.
Since 1995, teachers in Albania have been faced with evolving demands. The 2005 National Report on Albanian education revealed that there is a lack of standardized criteria for teachers, evaluation and self-evaluation systems and competent people to do training. In moves to address this, Albania has had an uptick of teacher education programs undergoing accreditation procedures and the development of a mentoring system.
Education in Singapore is managed by the Ministry of Education and today is regarded as one of the world’s best education systems, despite being a young country that is scarce in resources. It has sought to create a modern society that values and rewards hard work, and culture of excellence combined with policy focus and targeted investment over the last four decades has resulted in high academic achievement for Singapore’s students.
In Education in South-East Asia the Singapore section is focused on the theme of “Transition.” The first part of the chapter details the key transitions and initiatives that are responsible for the development of the education system. The second part discusses the demands and challenges, such as ensuring that graduates remain competitive in a global space.
Read the entire chapter to get all the details about Singapore’s education system.
Images above are courtesy of Getty Images and Pixel Bay.
