Education & Pedagogy

In this article, relevance of practice during university studies is highlighted, as well as the main stages of its organisation, qualitative parameters, as well as criteria and indicators that validate them are defined. Discussion on the idea that taking into consideration qualitative parameters of organising practice as a component of studies in the system of higher education helps achieving quality of studies and closer cooperation between the labour world and universities is provided. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)

This article shows how universities, like education and social services in general, are increasingly pressured to adopt neoliberal principles that encourage privatization, entrepreneurship, standardization, assessment, and accountability. The authors examine recent efforts in the United States to develop measurement and accountability systems that commodify higher education, and show how they reflect a neoliberal rationale that undermines the historical purposes of higher education, reduces faculty autonomy, and harms the common good. However, they propose ways in which assessment and accountability might be implemented in higher education so as to promote teaching and learning responsive to the interests of students, faculty, the university, and wider communities.

This paper reviews the findings of a participatory research project conducted with Nepali high school and university students. It examines the feelings and motivations of those students who leave the country in pursuit of higher education, and those who intentionally, or due to circumstances, stay in Nepal. An analysis of the latter is particularly important to the shifting discourse on higher education to the global South. This study promotes the inclusion of those students, and institutions, of higher education in developing nations who have been excluded from the discourse on globalization. (Contains 10 notes.)

Public engagement is one of the three legs which support and underpin a restructured and transformed post-apartheid higher education system in South Africa (along with teaching and research). This third sector role of higher education is widely implemented in South Africa and is described differently by different institutions and entails a diverse range of activities, which include service learning. In the South African context we argue that building our understanding of the meanings of public engagement through engagement is vital. In this paper we explore teacher education students' engagement with service learning as a form of public engagement in higher education in South Africa.

This article examines current debates surrounding British higher education funding from a political economy perspective, drawing on "positive" and "institutionalist" political economy. Adopting the lens of political economy enables a critical assessment of the use of terms drawn from economics by many higher education decision-makers. Current discussions embody particular assumptions about the nature of producers and consumers in higher education, the relationship between supply and demand, and the role of information in the higher education "market". They also frequently fail to acknowledge the active rather than passive role of higher education institutions in shaping policy discussions surrounding higher education funding. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.)

The development of higher vocational education in China embodies a global trend of vocationalism that values skills and skilled workers, which is opposite, in some ways, to the Confucian tradition in Chinese education that values theoretical knowledge related to good governance. As the cultural trend supporting the development of higher vocational education, vocationalism is implicated in certain challenges including high tuition fees, limited upward mobility, and neglect of the humanities in education. Humanities for moral education, and mechanisms for upward mobility on equal terms for all, which are fundamental elements of Confucianism, may help resolve these challenges. This paper embodies the dialectic of a global trend and local culture in educational reform within the context of globalization.

In this conceptual paper we discuss the value of doubt in teacher education for ourselves and, by implication, more broadly. We develop an argument for the value of doubt in teacher education that grows out of the recognition of the complexity of teaching. We interrogate meanings of doubt in this context and debate the value of doubt and certainty. We also indicate the challenges of fostering and nurturing doubt in teaching and teacher education. We suggest that doubt is a necessary element of teacher education as its presence helps to prepare our students for their careers as teachers in a complex and uncertain world. It is also more fundamentally honest than a professed certainty on the part of the teacher educator.

The proposed changes in the further education sector, including the rationalisation of the VEC into Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs) and the closures of the Senior Traveller Training Centres (STTCs), have implications for guidance counselling provision to the Traveller community. This article discusses female Travellers' experiences of guidance based on exploratory research in one STTC. The findings highlight low levels of participation in education and employment, as well as the types of barriers experienced by the learners. It also suggests that female Travellers have particular guidance needs that require culturally sensitive interventions to support their progression.

This article reviews the literature on the roles that schools, peers, and parents play in young people's sexuality education. We argue that the sexuality education children receive is far from just the facts; rather, it is an education in the maintenance of inequality. Sexuality education, as it is currently conceived, includes implicit and explicit messages that reinforce a hegemonic sexuality that is rooted in and bolsters inequalities of race, class, gender, and sexuality. After reviewing the contemporary sociological research on the sexuality education of children, we offer curricular directions for fostering more equal and empowering models of sexuality education.

Based on a nation-wide survey of higher education graduates, this paper analyzes the impact of family background, using paternal occupation and education as indicators, on their scores in the National College Entrance Examination, the level and type of higher education institutions they attend, their employment after graduation, and the income they receive from their first job. It has been found that there are wide disparities among students with different family backgrounds in both access to higher education and their potential employment in China nowadays. This paper also studies how those influences happen.

Finland is experiencing increased immigration and therefore increased cultural diversity in its schools. This paper examines the multicultural education discourse in Finland by analysing the national and municipal curricula for the comprehensive school, educational policy documents and teacher education curricula. The focus is on how multicultural education is talked about and whether it is aimed at all students or only at immigrant students. The analysis shows that the existing diversity associated with bilingual students, two national churches and an indigenous population is not considered as part of multicultural education. Instead, cultural diversity is seen narrowly as ethnic, immigrant language and immigrant religious diversity. Multicultural education is therefore only intended for immigrant students.

Inclusive education has become an international educational priority with the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This article compares and analyses in depth two different educational systems on two continents with regard to their development of inclusive education and their current issues with this policy. France and Nova Scotia, a Canadian province, have two different traditions of schooling and of the education of children with disabilities. The article will compare the educational systems, educational policies, definitions of inclusive education, and the shifting teachers' roles and responsibilities. Two case studies will be used to contextualize the layers of meaning underlying inclusive education. (Contains 6 notes and 1 table.)

This paper explores the integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in technology education and the extent to which it is currently addressed in curriculum documents and state examinations in technology education at post-primary level in Ireland. This analysis is conducted amidst the backdrop of considerable change in technology education at post-primary level. The analysis of the provision of technology education found, that among the range of technology related subjects offered, the study of Technology and Society is only addressed in one in a comprehensive manner. The paper discusses the implications of this limited integration, examines the factors inhibiting greater integration of ESD and outlines opportunities for future development.

This article deals with the politics of aid partnerships in the education sector of Benin following an anthropological policy research approach based on empirical data. I present local debates on primary education and the New Study Programmes, the latest education reform introduced nationwide in 1999. The different perceptions of the reform content, its implementation process and its outcomes, articulated by education experts, policy makers, donors, intellectual critics, teachers and parents, illustrate the complexity of educational policy making and, implicitly, of state-building in transnationalised arenas.

A typical definition of distance education is the delivery of instruction in a format that separates the teacher and learner, often both in time and space. It tends to be an umbrella term that may encompass more specific forms of education such as distributed learning, independent study, correspondence education, satellite education, etc. This article describes a distance education approach that has been developed and implemented in Mauritius, Seychelles, and Botswana to help overcome limited teacher training opportunities and so help meet the demand for well-qualified technology teachers. It outlines the principles of course design, the mixed mode of delivery, and some of the issues of course delivery derived from program evaluations. (Contains 1 table.)