Suchergebnisse

Over the five and a half millennia of the evolution of institutionalised education, two interrelated salient trends stand out. The first is the shift from elite to mass education. The second change involves the transition from schools being blatantly used to bludgeon a population into submission and uniformity—reinforcing an officially sanctioned hegemony and suppressing any trace of diversity—to a valuing of diversity. Since the 1960s, at least two major global societal tendencies have constituted a force working against schools being instruments for imposing dominant cultures. These two are the growing multicultural or diverse societies across the globe and the rise of the Creed of Human Rights as a moral code for a globalised world. Together, these trends have contributed to a one hundred and eighty degree change, as diversity has come to be valued in education (institutions and systems). Dimensions of diversity acknowledged include cultural diversity, religious diversity, diversity in terms of gender and sexual orientation, and diversity concerning ableism. This chapter focuses on the concomitant differentiation needed in teaching.

Humanity has come to look up to education to take on any challenge encountered on its way. Consequently, a massive education expansion project commenced some seventy years ago. By 2020, however, this project had still been far from complete and far from being perfect. Deficiencies and shortcomings are salient on all three fronts of access to education, equality of education, and quality education. The ravages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have also aggravated deficiencies in education worldwide and made it urgent to address shortcomings in education. The task's urgency to rebuild education to its rightful place in the post-pandemic world means there is no room for experimentation. Nations should be learning from one another regarding their experience with education. The thesis of this study is that the scholarly field of comparative and international education is ideally suited to guide this exercise, but in order to live up to its potential, one major challenge that has beset the field for most of its history, namely the theoretical-practical divide, needs to be overcome. If the pandemic can succeed in effecting such a change, it will be to the benefit of both the field and education. In using comparative and international education to guide the post-pandemic education project, education in the BRICS countries has a pivotal role. If the articles in this volume can assist in developing a vision for a post-pandemic global education project, it will be, also as a starting point to get comparativists to enter the realm of education praxis, worth the endeavour.

En America Latina, desde mitad del siglo XX, se viene haciendo un gran esfuerzo por implantar la educacion en todas las regiones. Dicha expansion ha progresado considerablemente, atendiendo al incremento de matriculas formalizadas en las ensenanzas primaria, secundaria y terciaria, asi como en la alfabetizacion de adultos. El proposito de este articulo es valorar la implantacion de la educacion en Latinoamerica y deducir la relevancia que pueda tener para Sudafrica dicha experiencia. Conociendo los paralelismos existentes entre Sudafrica y Latinoamerica en cuanto a los condicionamientos sociales, Sudafrica podria aprender mucho de la experiencia latinoamericana en pro de la educacion. (UNISA Lat Am Rep/DÜI)

There are currently visibly in many countries across the world an ideal and serious attempts to establish a world-class university. As examples could be cited China's Project 211 of 1993, succeeded by Project 985 in 1998 (Manzon 2008:213), Education City in Doha, Qatar (Wildavsky 2010:55) and a project in Germany (Fallon 2008:16). The objectives of the research reported in this article were the following: • What is a world-class university (definition, criteria, conceptual clarification)? • How do South African universities weigh up against the ideal of a world-class university? • Is the establishment of a world-class university in South Africa desirable? • Is the establishment of a world-class university in South Africa attainable? • Which opportunities and stumbling blocks exist in South Africa in the way of the realisation of a world-class university? • Would an Afrikaans-medium world-class university be a possibility or a contradiction in terms? The method of comparative education has been followed here. The method entails the distillation of suggestions for the improvement of the local education system from a contextualised comparison with educational experience abroad. The motivations for striving towards the status of a world-class university exist at both national and institutional levels. The motivations at national level revolve around the role of the university as a determinant of national power. At institutional level a confluence of factors resulted in universities setting the ideal of becoming world-class universities. These factors include the explosion of enrolments during the past two decades, the knowledge explosion, the need for ever more costly infrastructure and changing funding patterns. Dwindling governmental funding has resulted in universities being forced to compete more and more with one another for funding allocations (Reisberg 2011:128). Governments from Western Europe to China and Australia (Shen 2010:69–76) are tending increasingly to move from equal funding to all universities to investment in promising and performing universities. Private sector funding and attraction of students – who are expected to foot an increasing proportion of their studies bill themselves – depend upon the quality if an institution. Finally, the quality gets enhanced significance in Friedman's (2009:66–8) flat world, in which geographical advantage has been wiped out and universities are forced to compete with one another for students and staff (Gürüz 2008:3–5). A definition of the term world-class university does not exist in the scholarly literature. For lack of a definition this article attempts to construct a model of a world-class university (with model being used in the sense as used by Rosenblueth and Wiener 1945 in their classic publication on the role of models in science). A model is constructed from the basis of an analysis of the lexical meaning of the three components of the term world-class university. The word class refers to a category within a rank order; together with world, world-class then means the best or the highest order in the world. A university is an advanced educational institution for the promotion (teaching and research) of various branches of science. World-class then refers to the quality of the university. Quality in education consists, according to Bergman (1996:581), of four components: input quality, process quality, outcome quality and output quality. The university fulfils its functions (teaching, learning, research, service, innovation, cultural preservation, transmittance and progress, and social critique) in symbiosis with a societal context. This proposed model posits, then, that in order to be a world-class university, the best quality (input, process, outcome and output quality) of each of the structural elements and functions of the university should be realised, all in symbiosis with the context in which the university operates. A measuring instrument that includes all the elements of the model does not exist, forcing the scholar to resort to existing systems of university ratings, despite their shortcomings. Three South African universities appear among the top 500 and 400 respectively of the Times Higher Education and Shanghai ratings. Thirteen, or just more than half, of all South African universities fall within the top quintile of the Ranking web of world universities (only three South African universities lie below the median). By all measures South Africa already has world-class universities. While the call for more world-class universities in South Africa is present as urgently as elsewhere in the world, a summary concentration of public resources for the cause of promoting the establishment of (more) world-class institutions would be inadvisable, in view of contextual realities. A world-class university is an expensive undertaking. For the six campuses earmarked for the development to world-class status in Germany, for example, the federal German government has allocated 19 billion euros (Labi 2010) – more than ten times South Africa's total public education budget for primary, secondary and tertiary education. South African universities are obtaining ever decreasing state funding (Wolhuter 2011b), education is already the single biggest item on the public budget, and with many other pressing demands within primary and secondary education and outside of education (housing, health care and transportation infrastructure) a case could hardly be made for more investment in developing world-class universities. Furthermore, South Africa's gross tertiary education enrolment ratio of 17 percent is low compared with that of other upper middle-income countries, where this figure is typically 35 to 40 percent. Youth unemployment in South Africa is high. In view of these contextual realities it could be stated that the need for expansion and diversification is stronger at the lower strata of the higher education pyramid in order to provide relief for the growing numbers of unemployed young people. In this regard community colleges appear to be the most promising model on the international higher education landscape. With both the call for world-class universities and less exclusive forms of higher education equally pressing, the obvious solution seems to be to allow the private sector to play a larger role in higher education provision. The international experience also indicates that the idea of an Afrikaans-medium and/or mission-driven world-class university ; www.litnet.co.za/n-wereldklasuniversiteit-in-suid-afrika-ideaal-wenslik- haalbaar-werklikheid-hersenskim/

This is an Editorial

The aim of this research, as part of this Special Issue on the thematic and epistemological foci of social science and humanities research emanating in the BRICS countries, is to investigate and to assess the value of such research— firstly, for the BRICS countries mutually, then for the rest of the Global South as well as for the global humanities and social science community at large. The rationale of this research is that the BRICS countries have come to assume a growing gravitas in the world, not only on strength of geography, demography and economy; but also because of the diversity contained in each of these BRICS countries. These diversities offer opportunities to learn a lot from each other, in addition the rest of the gamut of countries in the Global South as well as the nations of the Global North can benefit much from learning from the experience of the BRICS countries. The research commences with a survey of the most compelling societal trends shaping the 21st Century world, which will form the parameters of the context in which scholarship in the social sciences and humanities are destined to be conducted. The state of scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences and the imperatives of context will be the next topic under discussion. Within this landscape, the potential role of research on BRICS soil is then turned to. The BRICS countries are surveyed, then a conclusion is ventured as to their potential as a fountainhead for social sciences and humanities research.

The key purpose of this study is to survey the BRICS education project, that is, education in the BRICS countries. The final objective is, fitting in the framework of this special issue, to identify the value of the epistemology that has been developed and tested by BRICS education scholars, as well as their thematic focus for the broader, global social science community. The unfolding 21st Century world and its imperatives for education are outlined. How this education-societal context is studied by the scholarly field of Comparative and International Education is then explained. The BRICS education project is then surveyed and analysed by a model which distinguishes between three dimensions of a national education project, namely the quantitative, the qualitative, and the equality dimension. It is concluded that the BRICS education project has a lot to offer in a global social science scholarship enterprise. However, to bring this promise to fruition, two recommendations are made. These are prioritisation of research on the societal outcomes of education in the BRICS countries, and that scholars in the BRICS countries should assume ownership for a scholarship of education in the BRICS countries.

This article compares the state of the field of Comparative Education in Lithuania with developments internationally. As in most of the countries of the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, the confluence of circumstances in the past decades resulted in Comparative Education being strongly and visibly present in courses taught at pre-graduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Lithuania since 1990. What is absent are research institutes of Comparative Education, also established chairs of Comparative Education, Comparative Education departments and academics exclusively occupied with (teaching and conducting research in) Comparative Education. Comparativists in Lithuania are also not strongly connected with each other and with the international Comparative Education community. While Comparative Education research gets done vigorously and the themes of research are very topical and include equity issues (including gender equity), quality and quality assurance, internationalization of higher education, the societal effects of education (e.g., the effect of education on values, including the political values of students, the effect of education on economic development or on social mobility) and research on the learning of students. ; Straipsnyje aptariama lyginamosios edukologijos plėtra Lietuvos universitetuose tarptautiniame kontekste. Apžvelgiama istorinė lyginamosios edukologijos raida pasaulyje ir Europoje. Lyginamosios edukologijos disciplina atsirado XX amžiaus pradžioje JAV ir Kanadoje, kurioje ryškų pėdsaką paliko mūsų tautietis, Otavos universiteto profesorius Antanas Paplauskas-Ramunas. Pirmaisiais XX a. dešimtmečiais lyginamoji edukologija pradėta dėstyti ir Vakarų Europos universitetuose. Penktajame dešimtmetyje lyginamosios edukologijos plėtra pasiekė savo zenitą. Dėl įvairių priežasčių šeštuoju ir septintuoju dešimtmečiais dėmesys lyginamajai edukologijai sumažėjo. Nepagerino padėties ir XXI amžiaus pradžioje sustiprėjusi švietimo globalizacija. Lietuvoje lyginamosios edukologijos ištakos taip pat siekia XX amžiaus pradžią. Ketvirtajame praėjusio amžiaus dešimtmetyje lyginamosios edukologijos srityje dirbo tokie žinomi Lietuvos mokslininkai, kaip antai P. Dielininkaitis, J. Laužikas ir kt. Sovietiniu laikotarpiu lyginamoji edukologija aukštosiose mokyklose nebuvo dėstoma; apsiribota "buržuazinio švietimo" kritika. Lyginamosios edukologijos atgimimas Lietuvoje prasidėjo po nepriklausomybės atgavimo. Šiuo metu lyginamoji edukologija dėstoma daugelio šalies universitetų pedagogų rengimo programose. Kita vertus, Lietuvos lyginamosios edukologijos mokslininkai vis dar mažai bendrauja su užsienio kolegomis ir yra nepakankamai matomi tarptautiniame kontekste. Lietuvos atstovai kol kas nedalyvauja Europos lyginamosios edukologijos draugijos veikloje. Tam tikslui lyginamosios edukologijos specialistai turėtų susiburti į akademinę bendriją. Didesnio šalies mokslininkų dėmesio taip pat turėtų sulaukti lyginamieji švietimo kokybės, lygybės ir socialinio teisingumo, švietimo kokybės užtikrinimo, socialinio mobilumo, švietimo ryšio su ekonomikos plėtra ir kt. aspektai.

This article compares the state of the field of Comparative Education in Lithuania with developments internationally. As in most of the countries of the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, the confluence of circumstances in the past decades resulted in Comparative Education being strongly and visibly present in courses taught at pre-graduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Lithuania since 1990. What is absent are research institutes of Comparative Education, also established chairs of Comparative Education, Comparative Education departments and academics exclusively occupied with (teaching and conducting research in) Comparative Education. Comparativists in Lithuania are also not strongly connected with each other and with the international Comparative Education community. While Comparative Education research gets done vigorously and the themes of research are very topical and include equity issues (including gender equity), quality and quality assurance, internationalization of higher education, the societal effects of education (e.g., the effect of education on values, including the political values of students, the effect of education on economic development or on social mobility) and research on the learning of students. Also, the ways of solving conflicts differ in the groups depending on age and sex.

This article compares the state of the field of Comparative Education in Lithuania with developments internationally. As in most of the countries of the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, the confluence of circumstances in the past decades resulted in Comparative Education being strongly and visibly present in courses taught at pre-graduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Lithuania since 1990. What is absent are research institutes of Comparative Education, also established chairs of Comparative Education, Comparative Education departments and academics exclusively occupied with (teaching and conducting research in) Comparative Education. Comparativists in Lithuania are also not strongly connected with each other and with the international Comparative Education community. While Comparative Education research gets done vigorously and the themes of research are very topical and include equity issues (including gender equity), quality and quality assurance, internationalization of higher education, the societal effects of education (e.g., the effect of education on values, including the political values of students, the effect of education on economic development or on social mobility) and research on the learning of students. Also, the ways of solving conflicts differ in the groups depending on age and sex.

This article compares the state of the field of Comparative Education in Lithuania with developments internationally. As in most of the countries of the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, the confluence of circumstances in the past decades resulted in Comparative Education being strongly and visibly present in courses taught at pre-graduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Lithuania since 1990. What is absent are research institutes of Comparative Education, also established chairs of Comparative Education, Comparative Education departments and academics exclusively occupied with (teaching and conducting research in) Comparative Education. Comparativists in Lithuania are also not strongly connected with each other and with the international Comparative Education community. While Comparative Education research gets done vigorously and the themes of research are very topical and include equity issues (including gender equity), quality and quality assurance, internationalization of higher education, the societal effects of education (e.g., the effect of education on values, including the political values of students, the effect of education on economic development or on social mobility) and research on the learning of students. Also, the ways of solving conflicts differ in the groups depending on age and sex.

This article compares the state of the field of Comparative Education in Lithuania with developments internationally. As in most of the countries of the erstwhile Eastern Bloc, the confluence of circumstances in the past decades resulted in Comparative Education being strongly and visibly present in courses taught at pre-graduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Lithuania since 1990. What is absent are research institutes of Comparative Education, also established chairs of Comparative Education, Comparative Education departments and academics exclusively occupied with (teaching and conducting research in) Comparative Education. Comparativists in Lithuania are also not strongly connected with each other and with the international Comparative Education community. While Comparative Education research gets done vigorously and the themes of research are very topical and include equity issues (including gender equity), quality and quality assurance, internationalization of higher education, the societal effects of education (e.g., the effect of education on values, including the political values of students, the effect of education on economic development or on social mobility) and research on the learning of students. Also, the ways of solving conflicts differ in the groups depending on age and sex.