Comparative Education Policy

Manon Giovinazzo, Fangzhou Liang, Toyo Kawabata and Sacha Alanoca China's education system has been experiencing major challenges in the last two decades, which have, unfortunately, not been tackled properly and deeply enough to disappear. Also, those challenges are only known by a few since the collection of data in China is almost impossible, except in the Shanghai and Beijing regions. The two main challenges that China is currently facing are, on the one hand, an exam-oriented system, making life a nightmare for high school students and on the other hand, the development of major inequalities of performance between urban and rural regions. As a result, our group of students came up with policy recommendations for the Chinese government to include to their undergoing reform plan, which you will discover in the last part of the PowerPoint.   Case study : Education in China   by Manon Giovinazzo, Fangzhou Liang, Toyo Kawabata and Sacha Alanoca

Raphaelle Desrousseaux, Stephanie Hagen, Sophia Kissa and Giulio Catanzariti Amongst OECD countries, the case of Turkey is of paramount interest. With 30% of the population aged under 14, 10.5 million pupils enrolled in primary education, a rapid migration from rural to urban areas and a high fertility rate the Turkish educational system is facing big challenges in the coming years. This presentation starts analyzing the structural transformation that Turkish educational system encountered in the last century,  and then it investigates what are the most pressing issues for th e students and for the governance of the educational system and tries to understand how institutions could adapt  to better cope with the present challenges.  Education in Turkey   by Raphaelle Desrousseaux, Stephanie Hagen, Sophia Kissa and Giulio Catanzariti

Alice Escande and Marie-Aimée Altmeyer "Vocational Education Training (VET) aims to equip people with knowledge, know-how, skills and competences required in particular occupations or more broadly on the labour market" (European Training Foundation). In this post, we focus on Initial VET (IVET), different from Continuous VET (CVET), which focus on training individuals entering the labour market or already working. The objectives of IVET focuses on better preparing students for the future, matching their skills with labour market demands and providing them with adequate career guidance. IVET usually takes place at the elementary, middle to high school level but can also in some cases, take the form of short post-secondary education programs. In Europe, about half of students enter IVET programs. How has the conception of IVET evolved throughout time? 300 years ago, VET existed mostly in the form of Apprenticeship. 13-14 years old students would go on to pursue a s...

Alice Escande, Gwimoon Park, Sarah Bensmail, El Ghali Fikri Experiencing tough history and indigence after war, investing in and training human resources became a priority task for the government. Education has thus been key in the reconstruction and growth of the country. While Korea quickly attained high level of enrollment and performance, this success didn’t come without drawbacks. The intense competition in education gradually led to seriously jeopardize student’s well-being. In this context, this presentation will assess and diagnose the strength and weakness of the Korean education system and provide recommendations focusing on the following question: How can Korea combine outstanding academic performance with students’ well-being? by Alice Escande, Gwimoon Park, Sarah Bensmail, El Ghali Fikri Korea case study - Education Policy from G C

Stephanie Hagen During our recent class on trends in comparative education policy, one of the students’ team school improvement presentations focused on the South Korean education system, the extremely heavy pressure it places on students to succeed academically, and approaches to reduce it.  Following the presentation, the class had a lively discussion about how an education system may be able to mitigate this pressure when high expectations are already embedded so deeply in the society or culture.   This reminded me of my own academic experience in the United States since I attended a school district in an extremely multi-cultural community. A majority of the students are of Asian descent and many of them are children of immigrants who have arrived from China, South Korea and India. As the demographics of the community have shifted, so has the school district's approach towards education.  Many of these parents are demanding that the school board provide grea...

Zoé Lerouge These past years, the Project on International Student Assessment (better known as PISA) launched in 2000 has taken more and more importance in the Education Ministers’ agendas throughout the OECD countries. By ranking the countries according to their students’ performances, the international study creates pressure for reforms among numerous policy-makers. To understand more precisely how does PISA works and what it really says about our education systems, we had the pleasure to receive Francesca Borgonovi, policy analyst at the OECD, in our SciencesPo Master of International Affairs Comparative Education Policy class. She revealed to us the inner workings of the famous test. Ms Borgonovi, to set the scene for our readers, could you first tell us more about large-scale educational assessments (LSEAs)? Sure! Large-scale educational assessments, studies containing direct measurements of individuals’ cognitive proficiency, have become an increasingly useful tool to e...

Fangzhou Liang Growing inequality is nowadays a global concern, to which education is seen as a key solution. But how well are today’s education systems responding to such a call, and what are the challenges faced? Are today’s education systems equitable? There is increasing research evidence that achieving equity and quality in an education system at the same time is actually possible. For example, according to PISA 2012 results, countries like Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Canada, Estonia and Australia succeed in combining high performance and high levels of equity. Failure in reaching equity not only limits economic growth and innovation, hampers social cohesion and mobility, but also generates higher public expenditures, for instance in health and public welfare or security. As this has been proved by more and more research (See note 1) , policy makers are more aware of the need to invest in equity in education. However, education systems around the world still face...

El Ghali Fikri There is wide consensus that education is essential for development and growth. A society that does not provide its pupils with (quality) education is deemed to fail in today’s competitive global economy. But one might probably want to precise the kind of growth that schools are expected to deliver. To be sure, we want our education system to provide inclusive growth. In other words, for competition to be fair, schools ought to provide a level playing field to all pupils and equally enable them to be emancipated actors in their economic sectors of choice. An equal and inclusive education system is expected to reduce social inequalities related to gender, race, origin, religion or class. The latter consideration drives us from a pure economic perception of education policy to one that incorporates a social approach. In other words, not only do schools have to enable pupils integrate the labor market with appropriate skills and knowledge but they also have to ensure tha...

Stephanie Hagen Is education policy-making a science or an art? If you work for your national education ministry, how would you attempt to create reforms in your country's school system? It would be tempting to take a scientific approach by analyzing the various policy-approaches used around the world, eliminating those deemed ineffective enough until one “end all be all” approach stands which can be applied to your national school system. However, a policy-maker who neglects to consider context will be as fruitful as a painter without a brush. Professor Pont called education policy-making an   “art of the possible,” it is what one can do in a constrained environment with the data, evidence and actors available to him or her. It is diverse, dynamic, messy and very much embedded in its context. According the PISA 2015 Education Policy Outlook there are five primary governance approaches which are summed up in the table below. Each approach has its advantages and disadvan...

Amélie Reichmuth Over the last years, policy makers throughout OECD countries undertook numerous reforms (over 450 in 7 years!) aiming at improving their respective education systems in order to ensure both the equity and quality of education for all students. These reforms have taken various forms going from teacher training reforms (France and Nordics) to defining national priorities for education (Japan). More generally, what these reforms have in common is the fact that they focus on broad areas such as governance and funding (focusing on systems), school improvement and evaluation (focusing on schools), as well as the preparation of students for the future (focusing on students).  The core of the efforts so far has been concentrated around three pillars: 1. Preparing students for the future by investing in vocational education and training (VET, 29% of the reforms, see relevant reforms in Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Hungary). 2. Improving schools by focusin...

André Rebeiz Observing and understanding the context of education across OECD countries is important in crafting policy that supports education systems in mutual learning, the goal ultimately being to ensure that children in school learn for the future. This is one of the messages of the introductory session to the course “Trends in Comparative Education Policy” by Professor Beatriz Pont.  The Importance of Context  With this message in mind, it is important to consider that schools reflect the societies that they belong to. It is thus important to take into account the impacts of globalization, migration, inequality, and technology. Such issues impact education, or can be impacted by education, in the following ways: Globalization and Education : the interdependency of economies increases the need for transferable skills so that countries can be competitive. How can education systems, then, deliver what the labour market (or the labour market of the futur...

Provincial governments run education in Canada, and Ontario shows how high-school students can do well whatever their family background, first language or place of birth. Ontario, Canada - Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education From: EduSkills OECD 

Welcome to the Blog of the 2015/2016 course in Trends in Comparative Education Policy!