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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, Books (010) PUB TYPE Essays, etc.) (120) MF01/PC06 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *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. *********************************************************************** ATION U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 13,,ven,ent Circe or Eaocational Researcn Ann Imprnvemont ORMATION EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) euced as document has been reproeuced as le<his gar' zal received bum the pe Son o organ zal On Originating it e to 0 Minor changes have Peen made to improve reproduction quality ed in this Points Of view or opinions staled in this epresent document Co not necessarily represent official OERI Position (p' poliCy CE THIS PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS NTED BY MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY r OURCES TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES -II INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) NE A 141 BEST COPY AVAILABLE a* -0 a O 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 curriculum 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 countries 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 knowledge 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 academic 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 require 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 control 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 educational 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 educational 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 countries 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 1 0