BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL MALAYBALAY CITY, BUKIDNON AE 204 Trends and Issues in Education (Global Educational Reform Movement) Reporter: James Denesion Emata

Global Educational Reform Movement Finnish education policy has been built upon periodic change and systemic leadership led by commonly accepted values and shared social vision that resonate closely with contemporary ideas of sustainable educational change. Importantly, the main features for developing an equitable, high-performing education system are similar to those underlying the social and economic transformation into a welfare state and a competitive knowledge society. It is, therefore, difficult to identify particular reforms or innovations per se that served as driving forces in raising the level and quality of Finnish education.

It is necessary to identify broader policies – and especially how different public sector policies are interconnected with the education system. It is also essential to emphasize that the Finnish education system has remained quite uninfected to viruses of what is often called the global education reform movement or GERM. And the reason for that is clear: professional strength and moral health of Finnish schools.(Pasi Sahlberg)

GERM has emerged since the 1980s and has increasingly become adopted as an educational reform orthodoxy within many education systems throughout the world, including in the U.S., England, Australia and some transition countries. Tellingly, GERM is often promoted through the interests of international development agencies and private enterprises through their interventions in national education reforms and policy formulation.

Since the 1980s, at least five globally common features of education policies and reform principles have been employed to try to improve the quality of education and fix the apparent problems in public education systems. 1. standardization of education 2. focus on core subjects in school 3. the search for low-risk ways to reach learning goals 4. use of corporate management models 5. Adoption of test-based accountability policies

Standardization of Education  Outcomes-based education reform became popular in the 1980s, followed by standards-based education policies in the 1990s, initially within Anglo-Saxon countries.  Consequently, a widely accepted – and generally unquestioned – belief among policy-makers and education reformers is that setting clear and sufficiently high performance standards for schools, teachers, and students will necessarily improve the quality of expected outcomes.

Focus on Core Subjects Focuses on literacy and numeracy, and in same case science. Basic student knowledge and skills in reading, writing and mathematics are elevated as prime targets and indices of education reforms. Reading, mathematical and scientific literacy have now become the main determinants of perceived success or failure of pupils, teachers, schools, and entire education systems.

The search for low-risk ways to reach learning goals. This minimizes experimentation, reduces use of alternative pedagogical approaches, and limits risk- taking in schools and classrooms. Teaching and learning are narrower and teachers focus on ‘guaranteed content’ to best prepare their students for tests. “The higher the test-result stakes, the lower the degree of freedom in experimentation and risk-taking in classroom learning.”

Use of Corporate Management Models This process where educational policies and ideas are lent and borrowed from business world is often motivated by national hegemony and economic profit, rather than by moral goals of human development. 1.It often limits the role of national policy development and enhancement of an education system’s own capabilities to maintain renewal, and perhaps more important. 2. It paralyzes teachers’ and schools’ attempts to learn from the past and also to learn from each other.

Adoption of Test-based Accountability Policies In doing so school performance – especially raising student achievement – is closely tied to processes of accrediting, promoting, inspecting, and, ultimately, rewarding or punishing schools and teachers. student achievement in mathematical and reading literacy exit examination results intended teacher classroom behavior.

Elements Of GERM 1. Standardization of education 2. Focus on core subjects in school 3. The search for low-risk ways to reach learning goals 4. Use of corporate management models 5. Adoption of test-based accountability policies

This, of course, does not imply that education standards, focus on basic knowledge and skills, or accountability should be avoided in seeking better educational performance. Nor does it suggest that these ideas were completely absent in education development in some countries. But, perhaps, it does imply that, “a good education system can be created using alternative approaches and policies orthogonal to those commonly found and promoted in global education policy markets.”

Suggested Features in Educational System high confidence in teachers and principals as high professionals; encouraging teachers and students to try new ideas and approaches, in other words, to put curiosity, imagination and creativity at the heart of learning; and purpose of teaching and learning is to pursue happiness of learning and cultivating development of whole child.

How to avoid infections of GERM? “prepare teachers and leaders well” This ensures that they are good in what they do in classrooms and also understand how teaching and learning in their schools can be improved. School principals are also experts of educational change and can therefore protect their schools and school system from harmful germs.

THANK YOU and GOOD EVENING… GOD BLESS US ALL