2.4 education and globalisation Flashcards
(19 cards)
What did Hancock(2012) argue about education exports?
- the estimated education exports from Britain by independent schools, sixth forms and further education colleges and universities, etc to ‘priority markets’ such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey and the Gulf States were in 2012 worth £18 billion
What have surveys and comparisons of international school data led to?
- political ‘moral panics’ about the state of our education in this country
- politicians look to other countries to get ideas on how to improve school performance
What does Anthony Kelly(2009) argue?
- the British govt tailor education to meet the needs of the economy - education has to produce workers
- there is less emphasis on social objectives e.g. producing good citizens
- improvements made by schools are driven by large multinational corporations
What two policy implementations has globalisation led to?
- an emphasis on lifelong learning = the economy needs a flexible workforce
- greater emphasis on individual learning = people are encouraged to think about their own style of learning and try to develop skills and qualifications
What are the two main ways that globalisation has impacted educational policy?
- the privatisation and marketisation of education
- international comparisons
Which international organisations have promoted the marketisation and privatisation of education?
- the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
- the World Bank
- World Trade Organisation (WTO)
What do tests like the PISA tests involve?
- conducting tests in maths, science and reading among representative samples of between 325,000 and over 600,000 9-15 year old students drawn from around 50-65 countries every 3-5 years
- the data is then ranked in the form of league tables to show the relative performance of different countries
How have PISA tests and other surveys began to influence educational policies?
- they often result in reassessments of existing policies for educational improvement, including curriculum reform and improving teaching and learning
What does Alexander (2012) argue about the effects of PISA tests?
- they have led to educational, economic and political moral panics (PISA panic) over the state of British education and the search for miracle cures
What are some examples of policies that were implemented as a result of international comparisons (Alexander 2012)?
- the national literacy and numeracy strategies
- slimming down the national curriculum
- raising the academic entry requirements for trainee teachers from 2012
- ‘master teachers’
What is meant by the national literacy and numeracy strategies?
- introduced by the Labour government (1998 - 2010)
- imposed on every primary school in England a requirement to teach two hours of literacy and numeracy every day
What is meant by slimming down the national curriculum?
- the coalition govt (2010-2015) slimmed down England’s national curriculum from 2014 to ‘essential knowledge’ in English, maths and science and some other subjects
- Michael Gove defined it as ‘the essential core knowledge which other nations pas on to their pupils’
What is meant by raising the academic entry requirements for trainee teachers from 2012?
- generally derived from comparisons with Finland, which has for years been a world leader in international assessments for its successful approach to education
What is meant by ‘master teachers’?
- in 2014, the Labour party announced plans that if it won the 2015 elections to create a new elite grade of ‘master teachers’ in all state schools
What are some strengths of international comparison?
- they are useful to see whether education spending matches educational achievement
- they aren useful for benchmarking standards internationally - they help to show what is humanly possible for young people to achieve at different ages
- they provide evidence, for policy makers wanting to learn from other countries on what policies seem to work and what policies don’t
What are some limitations of international comparisons?
- PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS tests are based on a very narrow conception of education which can be measured
- test results don’t necessarily mean that the education received by students is better or worse in different countries, and there are concerns about the validity and reliability of the tests used
- they can have damaging and wasteful effects on policy
What is Kelly (2009) concerned about regarding the globalisation of education?
- it has led to education being viewed as a primarily economic activity that focuses on preparing people for work and meeting the needs of the economy and employers
What does Alexander note about comparisons between the UK and high-performing countries?
- they are pointless because the cultures are so different and the educational systems are not remotely comparable in scale e.g. England has 23,000 schools while Singapore has just 350
What does Alexander note about the effects of comparing international tests on policies?
- it can lead to policy changes based on ‘ill-founded assertions about educational cause and effect, inappropriate transplanting of the policies to which success is attributed, and even the reconfiguring of entire national curricula to respond less to national culture, values and needs than to the dubious claims of ‘international benchmarking’
