FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES

________________________________________________________________________

HMEF 5033

COMPARATIVE EDUCATION

MAY SEMESTER 2016

ASSIGNMENT 1

________________________________________________________________________

NAMA :

NO. MATRIKULASI :

NO. KAD PENGENALAN :

E-MEL :

PENSYARAH / TUTOR :

DR. PUSAT PEMBELAJARAN :

PART A

(a) The concept of universal right to education.

Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all other
human rights. It promotes individual freedom and empowerment and yields important
development benefits. Yet millions of children and adults remain deprived of educational
opportunities, many as a result of poverty.

Normative instruments of the United Nations and UNESCO lay down international legal
obligations for the right to education. These instruments promote and develop the right
of every person to enjoy access to education of good quality, without discrimination or
exclusion. These instruments bear witness to the great importance that Member States
and the international community attach to normative action for realizing the right to
education. It is for governments to fulfil their obligations both legal and political in regard
to providing education for all of good quality and to implement and monitor more
effectively education strategies. Education is a powerful tool by which economically and
socially marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and
participate fully as citizens.

The right to education is reflected in international law in Article 26 of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The right to education has been reaffirmed in the
1960 UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education, the 1981 Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the 2006 Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the African Charter on Human and
Peoples' Rights.

In Europe, Article 2 of the first Protocol of 20 March 1952 to the European Convention
on Human Rights states that the right to education is recognized as a human right and
is understood to establish an entitlement to education. According to the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the right to education includes the
right to free, compulsory primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary
education accessible to all in particular by the progressive introduction of free
secondary education, as well as an obligation to develop equitable access to higher
 education in particular by the progressive introduction of free higher education. The right
to education also includes a responsibility to provide basic education for individuals who
have not completed primary education. In addition to these access to education
provisions, the right to education encompasses also the obligation to eliminate
discrimination at all levels of the educational system, to set minimum standards and to
improve quality. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has applied this
norm for example in the Belgian linguistic case.. Article 10 of the European Social
Charter guarantees the right to vocational education.

However, International law does not protect the right to pre-primary education and
international documents generally omit references to education at this level.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to
education, hence the right applies to all individuals, although children are considered as
the main beneficiaries.[20]
The rights to education are separated into three levels:

Primary (Elemental or Fundamental) Education. This shall be compulsory and

free for any child regardless of their nationality, gender, place of birth, or any other
discrimination. Upon ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights States must provide free primary education within two years.
Secondary (or Elementary, Technical and Professional in the UDHR) Education
must be generally available and accessible.

Higher Education (at the University Level) should be provided according to

capacity. That is, anyone who meets the necessary education standards should be able
to go to university.

Both secondary and higher education shall be made accessible "by every appropriate
means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.
The realisation of the right to education on a national level may be achieved
through compulsory education, or more specifically free compulsory primary education,
as stated in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
 (b) The complexities that emerges from three aspects of education.

There are three aspects of education that create particular complexities. First, education
exists in a variety of different forms, some of which may in fact be negative. Second
education points beyond itself, being a preparation for other activities as well as a
potentially valuable experience in itself, and therefore decisions also need to be made
about these external goals. Third, students do not necessarily leave the classroom with
what has been presented to them (and it is very difficult to predict exactly what they will
take away with them).

All students, regardless of age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status, have a history,
a present, and a future that is situated within a set of socially constructed societal
expectations that create limitations for some and not others. In other words, they have
an identity. What is missing from education research is a lack of admission that there is
a set of socially constructed societal expectations that parallel both society and teaching
and learning, which, as a consequence, serve to continue to enfranchise and
disenfranchise the same students. For example, in a review of literature for the teaching
and learning of science for Latino/a populations, I found very little evidence of
complexity. Indeed, much research talked about or reported in their findings a Latino/a
population, but it did not mention, for example, how language ability influenced their
Forum on Public Policy 9 findings. In a chapter entitled We are more different than
alike: latinos/latinas-hispanics, main writing was : Teaching and learning science is not
complicated but complex because identity is critical to the academic success of
Latinos(as). Identity is critical because Latinos(as) can incorporate themselves into the
learning process if they are understood and accepted. However, as long as researchers
and science teachers treat teaching and learning science as a way to contrast
differences between Latino(as) and an Anglo society, it will always be complicated. A
complex framework for analysis or making sense that has as its center point the notion
of identity is critically needed. Identity is the same as acceptance, and this means that a
tension between understanding us as we are versus how you think we should be must
be created. However, until it is made clear by the bulk of my colleagues how they
incorporated culture, economics, language, and sociological issues, which are part and
parcel of the past and present of the disenfranchised, then we are simply subsets
contrasted against Anglo values and interpretations, which is a hegemony in and of
itself.

(c) The concept of education cannot be equated with schooling.

Education is the culmination of facts, experiences, and thought that is gained over a
lifetime.

Schooling is a formal process generally associated with the institution of education- Pre-
kindergarten through 12th grade schools + university level courses and degrees. You
can gain a great deal of education from "schooling," but there is so much more to
education than the bricks and mortar, and textbooks and lectures, etc. that is
"schooling."

As communities grew, knowledge expanded, inventions came more frequently, and a

greater need for the next generations to have a more formal educational process
developed. The educational process began with the basic skills of reading, writing, and
arithmetic; eventually adding additional instruction, such as history, geography, music,
sciences, philosophies, religion, social studies, and arts. Advanced mathematics,
sciences, and many other disciplines, became part of the educational process.

No one actually knows when formal schooling began. Could it have been with the
cavemen training their children with the survival skills to continue their lives, and pass
their skills on to countless generations of descendents? Prior to written languages,
learning processes existed solely as oral traditions; societies were developed based on
communicating this knowledge, or schooling the next generation. One of the earliest
examples of schooling found, was in Egypt, around 3000BC.

Todays schools are pressure-packed places narrowly focused on producing results,

specifically in reading and math, on standardized tests. The emphasis on test scores,
rank in class, grade point averages, or other numeric indicators has caused teachers to
prepare students for these tests. Sometimes an inordinate amount of time is spent on
teaching test format familiarity, test-taking skills, and drill. Other subjects history,
science, and the fines arts are being squeezed out or curtailed as a result. Appropriate
skill tests are helpful if they assist teachers to make sound instructional decisions for
individual students. But one-time, high-stakes test events can compromise time for
creative and imaginative lessons and projects that promote reasoning, problemsolving,
questioning, analyzing, synthesizing, and understanding. Consequently, we are
teaching students the game of schooling as if it were a shortterm competitive exercise
do what you must to get the number you need. Hence, many high school students are
concerned with passing, not learning; short-term grades, not in-depth understanding;
and building rsums, not following their bliss. We are teaching that competition is the
only approach to reaching excellence, as if passion, commitment, and hard work over
the long-term do not matter. And, we emphasize that human worth can be quantified by
a set of numbers, discounting the intangibles of heart, perseverance, and long-term
commitment. The recent admission of scoring errors by test companies on high stakes
tests should send a shudder through us all. The idea also seems to be that what is not
metrically measurable is not important. This is a cousin to the idea that if you cannot
see it, don't believe it. But that flies in the face of the very concept and principles under
which this country was founded. The great philosophical questions of life truth, beauty,
justice, liberty, equality, and goodness cannot be assessed through as computer
scored test. Searching for these answers to these issues is at the very core of our
society and the essence of becoming well-educated. These great ideas should be
studied in school and understood by our children if they are to live a life of depth,
understanding, and principle. This requires a broad education in the academics, fine
arts, and culture. An education is more than simply getting a job or meeting a career
goal. There is a difference, too, between education and training. Chasing the brass ring
without a strong foundation in principle can be corrupting. One only has to look at the
business world or professional sports to see obvious examples. All of our children, rich
and poor, should be educated so they can contribute to the common good, be
responsible and active citizens, and adapt to changing times.

Being able to think critically, to pose questions as well the seek answers, and to
understand and develop an ethical and moral framework are a part of being well-
educated. Educated people have strong academic skills, but they also have the values
and principles that form the foundation for their lifes decisions. Unfortunately, some of
our schools are becoming too narrowly focused and our competitive society has pushed
some of our high school students to say "I have to cheat" to get ahead. Cleverness,
cunning and cutting ethical corners are not standards of an educated person. Well-
educated people revere knowledge and apply values and principles to guide them as
they seek a meaningful life of purpose. They try to make "wise" decisions premised on
strong ethical and moral ideals and broad academic understanding. Education is a
lifelong process of continuous learning and examination. Being welleducated means
having a sense of stewardship and a concern for the common good, not simply tending
to self-interest and ego needs.

(d) Schooling sometimes infringes with the rights of the child.

Education is something we have all experienced. Whether we remember our days in the
old school yard as the happiest days of our lives or whether we were glad to escape
from school into the adult world, nearly all Australians either as students or as parents of
students have at some time had personal experience of the school education system.
Education is not easily fitted into a 'service provider' and 'service consumer' analysis.
Who are the service providers: departments of education, school councils, school
principals, teachers? The New South Wales Education Reform Act 1990 states that
'education is the primary responsibility of the child's parents', and one might even argue
that parents are the primary service providers. Some States and Territories have
devolved some responsibility to school councils with representatives from various
sectors of the educational community.

Deciding who are the consumers of education is equally difficult. Students, whether
willingly or unwillingly, spend most of their weekdays sitting in the classroom and could
be said to be the primary consumers. Parents of school children have a real interest in
the availability and quality of educational services and the legal responsibility for
ensuring that children go to school. Parents make most of the choices about their child's
education and, in the private system, have an added financial interest in the quality of
the educational services they are paying for. The relationship between students, parents
and educators can be complex and confusing, and the boundaries are often unclear.
This lack of certainty frequently works to the disadvantage of students.
Education is seldom seen as a social service and the notion of schools providing a
service for students and their parents is not often expressed. Schools are often viewed
as self-enclosed communities, part of a separate sphere governed by their own
ideology, rules and priorities, and for which there are historical and pedagogical
reasons. The school world is often resistant to interference from other disciplines such
as the social services and the law. The notion of schools somehow being above the law
has never received acceptance from the courts, but courts have traditionally shown a
reluctance to intervene in internal school matters. The courts have generally accepted
that school principals and teachers are the best suited to make such decisions.

The concept of 'consumer power' in education is not well developed in many states
education system, and an analysis of education in terms of the rights of children and
their parents is strongly resisted by many educationists. The approach is often that
schools have been entrusted with the difficult task of imparting knowledge and skills to
children; that teachers are professionals with a specialist expertise and they should be
free to get on with the task without outside interference.
This approach is enhanced by the traditional lack of community control and community
accountability in state schools. While there has been some move in the last decade to
devolve the power of education departments and increase the input of parents, students
and the community, the steps forward have been tentative and faltering. There is an
understandable fear that devolution is likely to be an excuse for reduction in resources,
closure of schools, redundancies and worse employment conditions for teachers

Compulsory education means a loss of autonomy and personal freedom for the child
and extends the child's dependency on adults beyond the time when such dependency
is essential for the child's survival and development. Children of compulsory school age
face significant restriction of their freedom of movement and assembly, their freedom of
expression and their freedom of thought, conscience and religion. They are denied the
right to work during school hours and thus to earn money. In Australia, as in most
industrialised societies, this loss of freedom is seen as a necessary sacrifice for
children's greater good and for that of society, which has an interest in its citizens
attaining a high level of education.

Children can no longer be treated as passive objects about whom parents and teachers
can make decisions. They are independent people with increasing powers of self-
determination as they grow in maturity and understanding. With very young children the
protectionist role of adults predominates, but as children move towards adulthood they
are empowered to make more and more important decisions for themselves. Adults can
advise and suggest, but children move to a situation where they are increasingly able to
make their own choices and determine their own actions.

There is a discernible resistance amongst educators to the idea of children having

independent rights in education. Historically, school education has placed considerable
emphasis on the teacher's authority and control. It is believed that effective education is
most likely in a disciplined and firmly controlled environment and there remains
considerable emphasis on conformity, respect and obedience. Educational philosophies
which encourage informality, experimentation, selfmotivation and innovation have had
some influence on educational approaches, but most state and independent schools
remain firmly rooted in the English pedagogical tradition.

(e) Kenyas education reform resulted in significant gains in ensuring

availability and accessibility to education but the aspect of acceptability
has been less successful.

In 2003, Kenya introduced free primary education, following other sub-Saharan

Africancountries such as Malawi, Uganda and Zambia. In the year after
implementation, grade one intake rose by a staggering 35%, although enrolments
declined slightly afterwards(Somerset 2009). The initiative has made significant
gains in ensuring availability and accessibility of education (in the language of the 4
As [Tomasevski 2006]), removing direct fees, making the purchase of school uniform
voluntary and limiting parental contributions (Somerset 2009). However, the aspect
of acceptability has been less successful.

Evidence from randomized evaluations suggests a number of key cost-effective

interventions that could be introduced to address the inequities in access and
achievement in primary school. Large-scale deworming programs, for example, have
been shown to be extremely cost-effective at increasing schooling and could go a
long way in boosting participation, especially among the poor. For example a
 program where local school committees are provided with grants to hire remedial
education instructors could have even larger effects. Programs that allow teachers to
tailor their lessons to better suit the level of preparation of their students are effective
at boosting students academic performance. The existing evidence shows that a
merit scholarship program can raise achievement. Since primary school fees have
been abolished, providing merit scholarships for students who gain admission to
secondary school is a possibility that warrants further exploration. Additional
programs that provide teachers or head-teachers with incentives to raise the levels
of learning in their students could also be piloted and evaluated on a small-scale
before implementation on national-scale.

With the increasing demand for secondary school as a result of the FPE program, it is
becoming increasingly important to implement programs that address the primary-to-
secondary school bottleneck. Introducing programs that reduce the financial barriers to
secondary schooling especially for females and students from disadvantaged families
could have important implications. For example, a merit scholarship program for
students from poor backgrounds who gain admission to a national or provincial school
could both alleviate the financial barriers and stimulate student performance in primary
schools. Lack of information has also been identified as a constraint that prevents many
individuals from adequately investing in education or from accessing quality schools.
With limited information about the quality of schools and the secondary school selection
process, children and parents often make many judgment errors in the process leading
to unfavorable outcomes. Data from the 2004 KCPE records shows that over 20% of
students made judgment errors in selecting their preferred schools that led them to miss
opportunities to enroll in higher level schools. In 7 7 addition, data from other settings
has shown that individuals in developing countries are often misinformed about the
economic (or pecuniary) benefits of education. Overall, the research has shown that
individuals from poor backgrounds are more likely to be constrained by information.
Providing individuals with more information on the benefits of education, the quality of
secondary schools and on the school selection process could boost secondary school
enrollments and also allow students from poorer backgrounds to access better quality
schools. This is a very cost-effective way of improving the outcomes of students from
disadvantaged backgrounds. Given the high incidence of judgment errors committed by
students in the secondary school selection process, it may be instructive to explore
reforms to the secondary school assignment system.

(f) Learning outcomes as the basis for the right to education.

Education progress has many benefits, but behind that progress is a problemone that
grows with each additional child that walks through the classroom door. Some children
in those classes are learning nothing. Many more are learning a small fraction of the
syllabus. They complete primary school unable to read a paragraph, or do simple
addition, or tell the time. They are hopelessly ill-equipped for secondary education or
almost any formal employment. The crisis of learning is both deep and widespread. It is
a crisis for children, too many of whom leave school believing they are failures. And it is
a crisis for their communities and countries, because economic analysis suggests it is
what workers knownot their time in schoolthat makes them more productive and
their economies more prosperous.
School systems in many developing countries are chronically underfunded. Many are
filled with undernourished children of illiterate parents and staffed by poorly trained
teachers who lack mastery of the subjects they teach. But the crisis of learning is about
far more than funding, training, or the socioeconomic status of students. It is about
education ministries that have measured success on inputs such as budget, student
numbers, teachers, and schools rather than outcomes such as students who can read.
It is about parents and parliamentarians who demand schooling and simply assume
learning will result.

Fixing the learning crisis will take systemic reform stretching beyond the education
sector. It will take teachers, headmasters, and education officials with the mandate to
focus on learning. And it will take those officials being held accountable for learning
outcomes by informed stakeholders including parents, parliamentarians, and employers.

Assessment regimes are a central part of this reform effort. They can provide evidence
on the scale of the learning crisis as a lever for reform. They can track progress on
improvements and provide the evidence base for what works. They empower parents to
demand better outcomesor move their kids to where they can find them.

We want children to be in school because we think they will learn valuable lessons
from basic literacy and numeracy, to manners, workplace skills, and good citizenship.
But learning requires more than a students physical presence in a classroom. Hunger
and exhaustion can interfere with learning, and a lack of equipment, knowledge, or
motivation can prevent effective teaching.

The development and education communities have long recognized the problem of
failure to learn. Even so, developing-country governments and donors continue to focus
first on getting children to school, and second, on inputs such as staff numbers and
materials. Rarely do the development and education communities focus on whether
students are actually learning. Evidence is mounting, however, that learning is
stagnating in developing-country school systems, as demonstrated by low levels of
learning and small increments in learning across grades.

Learning stagnation is linked to educational institutions in developing countries: from

teacher incentives, through syllabus design, to the structure of the education sector as a
whole. Conditions outside of school, including household characteristics, remain by far
the best single predictor of student test scores, 2 but this fact itself signals a widespread
failure of the school system to level outcomes. In fact, learning stagnation is primarily a
problem of political economy, where senior education officials and staff focus on inputs
rather than the output of learning.
The first step in systemic reform is to understand the problem: many students are
learning close to nothing in school. And assessment can help shift the focus of citizens,
businesses, parliamentarians, governments, and development agencies to maximizing
outcomes rather than inputs.

Whether or not expanded educational opportunities will translate into meaningful

developmentfor an individual or for societydepends ultimately on whether people
actually learn as a result of those opportunities, i.e., whether they incorporate useful
knowledge, reasoning ability, skills, and values. The focus of basic education must,
therefore, be on actual learning acquisition and outcome, rather than exclusively upon
enrolment, continued participation in organized programmes and completion of
certification requirements.

According to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, education shall
promote [a childs] general culture and enable him, on a basis of equal opportunity, to
develop his abilities, his individual judgment, and his sense of moral and social
responsibility, and to become a useful member of society.

Parents and governments expect a return on this investment. Parents send their
children to school in expectation of improved employment opportunities, income, status,
and quality of life. Ministers and parliaments hope that expanded education will lead to
economic growth, improved health outcomes, and nation building.

Recent direct measures of the schooling-learning gap suggest that official literacy
statistics significantly underestimate the scale of the problem. In several developing
countries, many of the students who were enrolled in six full years of primary education
were unable to answer questions about a simple paragraph or solve simple math
problems. This suggests a dismal rate of return on years of school enrollment.

In an environment of limited learning opportunities (especially for disadvantaged

students), continued schooling can be a net negative to household wellbeing. Deon
Filmer and Norbert Schadys analysis of a Cambodian scholarship program found that it
increased school enrollment and attendance by 25 percent, but 18 months after the
scholarships were awarded, children did no better on math and vocabulary tests than
they would have without the program. 22 Absent the scholarship, then, many parents
and children made what appears to have been a rational choice to not go to school at
all. 23

Until school systems can guarantee that students will learn while sitting in class, it may
even be counterproductive to encourage longer periods of universal education. In fact,
expanded enrollments can actually harm overall learning outcomes if quality cannot be
broadly maintained.

(g) Educational processes as the basis for the right to education.

The education process needs to shift from focusing on education inputs to learning
outcomes. Significant emphasis should be given to build the overall system capacity to
improve learning outcomes this can only be done by fostering better teaching-learning
practices in the classroom, and by strengthening the school system and administrative
governance. High standards should be set for students and the curriculum needs to be
strengthened, without dilution in quality from the Centre to the State Boards, while
integrating local context and real-life connections.

Teachers should be equipped with the skills to look at classroom transactions and
assessments differently focusing more on inquiry, critical and analytical thinking, and
ability to make connections, numeracy, literacy, social and communication skills,
physical well-being, environment consciousness and citizenship. Evaluation needs to
move from testing the ability to reproduce blindly (rote) to ability to think, design,
collaborate, create and do. The teaching-learning process should cater to the multiple
intelligences, while ensuring inclusion of children with special needs and from
disadvantaged backgrounds. Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation is a great concept
it needs to be implemented well, by providing teachers orientation, the right tools,
resources, and giving it time. The environment should be conducive for teachers to
deliver from focused and relevant professional development programmes, reduction in
administrative workload, teacher-student ratios that are conducive for personalised
attention, to enabling autonomy and better trust from school and community. Student
portfolios (eventually electronic) should be maintained to capture student work, and key
milestones academic, co-curricular and extra-curricular.

This will help track progress as well as plan support and interventions without losing
continuity, even if teachers change. Some schools could be identified as centres of
excellence to help benchmark best practices, coordinate professional development
programmes, develop evidence-based curriculum tools and resources, and also serve
as hubs that brings together practitioners from a variety of setting for research and
innovation.

(h) Reformulation of the right to education.

As parents, we all try to spend whatever is needed on our own young children to ensure
their growth into healthy and productive adults and to give them as good a start in life as
possible. Yet as societies, especially low- and middle-income societies, we don't invest
enough in young children, and we certainly don't invest enough for our poorest children
whose parents don't have the necessary resources. We have erected a financial barrier
to ensuring poor children's participation in early-childhood programs.

The consequences of this man-made barrier are probably better known than are ways
to break the barrier. The barrier leads to older children who don't learn as well in school
as they otherwise would; to adults who lead less productive lives in our economies and
are less engaged as citizens; and to societies that, even with overall economic growth,
are still unable to give a fair chance to all.

This financial barrier needs to be broken. It can be brokenwe created it, after all, and
we have examples that show it. And we urgently need to break it to give all the world's
children the opportunities they deserve. We don't need more early-childhood policy
documents without teeth. More than half of African countries now have such policies;
the problem is that almost none is properly funded.

We don't need more debates about the respective roles of the public and private
sectors. The reality is that early-childhood programs around the world are mainly, but by
no means only, delivered by the private sector. We don't need more economics, either.
Finance is often conflated with economics, but it should not be. The economic case for
investing in young children is well establishedwhat else promotes both growth and
equity? What else can ensure that all children can have a fair start in life? Yet
economists continue to spend unnecessary time establishing yet again the return on
such investments.
The real barrier is not the lack of policy or the role of the private sector or the lack of
economic analysis. The real barrier is finance, where to get the capital to make such
investments and to fund the unfunded policies. We urgently need to put our energy into
finance, not into policy documents, ideological public-private debates, and economic
analyses.

We can break this financial barrier. We just have to systematically adopt three crucial
steps.
First, we have to increase public spending on young children. Sounds simple, but it isn't,
because public funding of programs for young children is usually fragmented. Typically,
we don't just have one government department in charge of these programs; rather,
they involve multiple ministries, including health and education and social welfare, in
each of which young children's importance is relatively minor and so gets inadequate
attention.

But there are ways around this. Many countries in Latin America, notably but not only
Chile, have raised public spending on very young children. Some countries impose a
special tax that is earmarked for young children, like the sin tax in the Philippines. Some
governments, as in Utah in the United States, reimburse private investors who finance
early-childhood programs once those programs produce results. Second, we have to
recognize that most programs for very young children are delivered by the private
sector. So we need to encourage the participation of poor children in these private
programs. We can give publicly funded vouchers to these children and their families to
do this, through conditional cash transfers, as in Mexico. We can set up tax and other
incentives so that private providers themselves subsidize poorer children from the fees
paid by the parents of more affluent onesjust as private universities in the United
States subsidize needy college students. We can encourage microfinance programs to
help poor parents pay for their children to take part, as in Brazil. Third, we have to get
early-childhood financing away from the early-childhood experts. These experts are
great, often with backgrounds in psychology and extraordinary levels of personal
commitment to very young children. But they don't know about finance. And they don't
know about what has been achieved in other development areas, like
telecommunications, water resources, and health, all of which have much to teach
early-childhood programs about effective finance and effectively targeting it on the poor.

No one of these steps is the magic right step. All three are needed in different
combinations in different economies and societies. But all three need to be triedeven
if some mistakes are made in the process. The problem with early-childhood financing,
unlike a lot of other areas in development, is not that financing attempts have failedit
is that we have failed to make attempts.
PART B

Issues and challenges in addressing Education Reform in South East Asia

Education is likely to play an increasingly important role in Southeast Asia over

the next decades. The reason is that past development strategies have primarily relied
on exports of labour-intensive and low-skilled products, but there now seems to be a
need to upgrade production and exports. Even in more high-skilled industries, such as
electronics, the part of the production process located in Southeast Asia is often simple
assembling. One illustrative example is found in the hard disk drive industry (HDD). All
major foreign firms in the industry had assembly plants in Southeast Asia and the region
accounted for as much as 64 percent of final global assembly and 44 percent of total
global employment (Amsden et al. 2001:3). Still, the region only received 13 percent of
the industry.s wages because high skilled activities are maintained in Europe, Japan
and the US, and low-skilled activities are located in Southeast Asia.
 Whereas the past development strategy of labour intensive exports has been
successful, there are reason to believe that it may fail to provide future growth. One
reason is that the past success has led a number of countries to follow the example set
by Southeast Asia. Most importantly, the reliance on low-skilled production has become
more problematic for Southeast Asia over the last decade when both China and India
have liberalized their economies. China has even become the largest exporter of
manufactures in the developing world, which intensifies the competition for ASEAN
exporters. It should be emphasized that the effect from the Chinese and Indian
liberalizations is not symmetric across the ASEAN countries and that it also offers
positive export possibilities to these growing markets. For this opportunity to be realized,
it seems important that the ASEAN countries manage to upgrade their production and
thereby avoid competing in goods where the emerging giants can be expected to be
especially competitive.

The state of a country.s education can be evaluated from inputs into education,
such as public expenditures on education and the number of teachers, and from outputs
of educational efforts, such as enrolment- and literacy rates. Starting with input
measures, Table 3 shows figures on public expenditures on education in Southeast
Asia, and in some Northeast Asian countries for the sake of comparison. The countries
differ substantially in their level of economic development; the wealthiest country in
Southeast Asia, Singapore, has a GDP per capita that is 20 times higher than the
poorest country, Myanmar. There is a positive relation between the level of economic
development and the amount of public expenditures on education; Myanmar spends
only slightly more than one percent of GNP on education whereas Singapore, Malaysia,
Thailand and the Philippines spend between 3-5 percent, which compares well with the
Northeast Asian countries. Especially Malaysia and Thailand have a high level of
spending in comparison with their level of income. The former country has been
spending substantial amounts of GNP on education since, at least, the 1980s, whereas
Thailand has increased expenditures primarily in the 1990s.
 Furthermore, Indonesia spends only slightly more than Myanmar on education,
which is substantially less than many poorer countries in the region. The figures on the
share of total public expenditures allocated to education are incomplete but suggest that
countries that spend a high proportion of GNP on education also spend a high
proportion of public expenditures on education. Almost one forth of public expenditures
in Singapore goes to education but only about eight percent in Indonesia.

Differences in the demographic situations in the countries might affect how much
resources that is actually allocated per student. Again, the figures suggest that Malaysia
and Thailand have high expenditures on education in relation to their income levels.
Malaysia has especially high expenditures on tertiary schooling, which is also the case
in Vietnam. Among the poorer countries, Myanmar has low expenditures per pupil but
Laos and Vietnam quite large.

Another input measure of obvious importance for the quality of education, is the
availability of teachers. Table 4 shows the number of teachers and the pupil-teacher
ratio in primary and secondary school. The number of teachers per 1000 nonagriculture
labor force is highest in some of the poorer countries such as Laos, Indonesia and
Vietnam. However, the figures are likely to be biased as a general measure on the stock
of teachers since these countries do also have a relative large share of the population
employed in agriculture. Moreover, there might be differences between countries.
shares of the population in the school ages. An alternative measure is the pupil-teacher
ratio which is shown for primary and secondary education. The ratio is very high in
primary school in the poorer countries, especially in Myanmar and Cambodia were there
are close to 50 school children per teacher. Indonesia, Vietnam, and Laos have lower
ratios, most likely because of their relative high shares of teachers in the labor force.
Three of the countries that spend most on education, Singapore, Malaysia, and
Thailand, have the fewest students per teacher in primary school. The figures for
secondary school are quite different with very low ratios in, for instance, Indonesia,
Myanmar, and Laos, and with the highest ratio in the Philippines.

Most Southeast Asian countries have literacy rates above the 73 percent average in
developing countries. The exceptions are Laos and Cambodia. The situation in Laos is
particularly bad with a literacy rate of only 47 percent, which is very low also in an
international comparison. The literacy rate is above 90 percent in Singapore, Thailand,
Philippines, and Vietnam. This is a rather strong achievement in the latter two relatively
poor countries. On the other hand, the literacy rate in Singapore is less than in other
countries on a similar income level. For instance, OECD has a 100 percent literacy rate
despite an average income that is lower than the one in Singapore.

The main difference is between a country such as Singapore who has a large proportion
of the students in the sciences and engineering faculties and Thailand where most
tertiary student can be found within law and social sciences. The large share of
Singaporean students in engineering is a deliberate policy that goes back to the early
years of independence. The government was then worried about widespread
unemployment of white-collar workers if higher education was generally expanded
rather than closely directed to the skills demanded by the foreign multinational
companies. The focus became, and has remained, to supply skilled technicians and
engineers whereas higher education in arts and social sciences has been deliberately
restricted.

It has been widely argued that all the high performing Asian economies shared a strong
emphasize on education and skill upgrading (World Bank (1993), Campos and Root
(1996)). As seen from the discussion above this is in fact not typically the case for
Southeast Asia. On the contrary, Ann Booth has convincingly showed that Southeast
Asia has traditionally been neglecting education rather than promoting it (Booth (1999a,
1999b). Taking all of the different measures on education into account, it seems clear
that there is one group of countries, which performs reasonably well in promoting
education. This group includes Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and
perhaps also Vietnam. There is also a group of Southeast Asian countries where
educational standards seems weak. This group includes Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar
and perhaps Indonesia. Moreover, even among the countries that do relatively well
according to the discussed figures, a more detailed look reveals various problems and
shortcomings.

For instance, Singapore might be the best educational achiever in Southeast Asia, but is
still lagging behind Northeast Asia and the OECD despite having a similar or even
higher income level. The reason is that the official emphasize of human resource
development has only in recent years been matched by actual improvements in
education. As late as in 1997, almost 25 percent of the labour force had, at most, only a
primary education (Booth, p. 296). The lack of appropriate skills in the local labour force,
has forced Singapore to rely on a large number of foreigners to achieve the necessary
upgrading of production.

Thailand and Malaysia are two other countries that seem to perform reasonably well in
supporting education, but also these countries suffer from various problems. The
standard of education in Thailand was for a long time the worst in the region. Access to
higher education was limited and even provision of basic education was arbitrary in the
rural areas. The neglect of education created bottlenecks that in the late 1980s seemed
to threaten the continued economic development. As a result, the government
introduced a compulsory nine year school and increased expenditures on education.
The expansion of secondary education, in particular, was rapid with the enrolment rate
in lower secondary education increasing from about 32 percent in 1987 to 66 percent in
1996 and in upper secondary education from about 24 percent to about 40 percent
(Booth, 1999a). Still, there are large remaining problems, such as the low number and
poor quality of science and technology students (Brimble, 2001).

Malaysia has traditionally been spending more on education than other countries in the
region, at least in relation to its level of development. One reason is the effort to
stimulate the ethnic Malays to attend higher education, and thereby to diminish the large
income differences between different ethnic groups. One can not escape the impression
that Malaysia has not received sufficient economic returns on the large investment in
education. One reason is that some of Thailand.s problems seem to be present also in
Malaysia. Most importantly, there is a lack of people with sufficient tertiary and technical
schooling. Employers are frequently complaining about the difficulties in finding skilled
workers (Rajah, 2001). The reason seems to be that although education has been
expanded, an insufficient share has been allocated to science and engineering.
Malaysia has only about 2 percent of secondary students in technical education
compared to, for instance, 19 percent in Korea and 12 percent in Indonesia. This lack of
skilled employees has been one major problem for upgrading production and to the
difficulties encountering .high-tech. projects such as the Multimedia Super Corridor
outside of Kuala Lumpur.

Reforms, progress and obstacles

Inequalities in the region exist not only between rural - urban areas and public
private education institutions or among provinces within the countries. There are also
genders and socio-economic conditions that result to disparities in the delivery of quality
learning opportunities especially if we talk about access to ICT.
In Indonesia, for example, educational disparities can be seen across geographical
areas, urban and rural, between western and eastern part of Indonesia and among
groups of people with varying income and gender. (Muhaimin, 2001)
The rate of female enrolments into upper secondary education schools in
Vietnam, for example, is much lower than that of male enrolments. Ethnic minority
school girls are the most most disadvantaged in upper secondary education. Only 4 %
(37,689) out of the total number of disabled children are in both special and integrated
education. (Information Management Centre, MOET)

In Malaysia, gaps in achievement are a main focus of programmes undertaken

by the MOE. The programmes such as for English, Science, Mathematics and ICT all
emphasize the need to bridge gaps between urban and rural children.

The following factors contribute to inequality of education and learning opportunity:

a) Lack of available school building and classroom with all required facilities.
This might not apply to countries like Brunei and Singapore but most of the countries in
this region are still facing this problem.
b) Shortage of teachers, especially in remote areas; That is one of the reason in
countries like Thailand and Indonesia there are multi grade teachers where one teacher
teaches more than one grades of primary school.
c) Uneven spread of population, which also creates serious disparities in educational
opportunity; especially in a big country like Indonesia.
With 18 provinces, 141 districts and around 12,000 villages and population around 5.5
million people Lao PDR has serious disparities in educational opportunity due to uneven
spread of population and the inaccessible nature of much of the country. About 4,000
villages lack of primary schools.
d) Lack of good textbooks and other learning materials. Due to financial and
geographical reason this problem can easily be found in remote schools.
e) Geographical location.
There are still many students living in remote areas where it is difficult to reach them or
ask them to go to the school due to lack of adequate transportation system or schools.
In some places, number of students is so small so that it will be very expensive to build
a school building to serve their needs. On the other hand teacher: students ratio usually
bigger in urban areas in compare to the remote ones. It is not unusual to see 60 or even
more students in a class with one teacher in some of the countries.
f) Students and parents low appreciation toward education.
They dont see the benefit of going to or sending their children to school. This is
magnified by the fact that many school or even university graduates cannot get any job
and remain unemployed. In some countries community belief, tradition and value limit
girls opportunity to go to school or continue their study to a higher level.

g) Level of socio-economic condition of the family

 About one third of the population in Southeast Asia, at the average, lives below
the poverty line. Except Brunei and Singapore, where there is no data available, all
countries still have problem with poverty. High percentage of people living below the
poverty line can be found in Lao PDR (40%), Philippines (40%), Vietnam (37%),
Cambodia (36%), Indonesia (27%), and Myanmar (25%). The rest of the countries have
smaller percentage: Thailand (10.4%) and Malaysia (8%) (The World Fact book, 2004).
For poor families education is not an urgent need. Due to economic reason students
have to work for helping their parents or for their family and do not have time to attend
the conventional education and training system.
In the Philippines there is an increasing demand for children to assist their parents in
providing for the familys day-to-day needs. Access and equity for the poor become the
major issue in financing education in this country. The pressures of family survival
combined with the parents own attitude toward education ultimately determine whether
or not a child will be able to stay in school despite the limited financial resources of
family.( Ballestamon, 2000).

h) Lack of budget for building more schools, classrooms, learning facilities.

Funding is always an issue in promoting education opportunity as we are dealing with

so big number of children and people in a wide geographic area. Many governments
have focused their efforts on the easy to reach for social, economic or geographic
reasons.

To sum up the previous discussion, the standard of education in Southeast Asia differs
between countries, but there seems to be a widespread need for reforms and
improvements. Most countries in the region have recognized this need and various
initiatives have been launched to improve upon the situation. We will look closer at
some of these attempts, and also some of the obstacles, in three countries, Singapore,
Malaysia and Indonesia.

i) Singapore

Singapore, as the most developed country in the region, has re-defined its mission
and vision of education. Its mission is to mould the future of the nation by molding the
people who will determine the future of the nation. Its vision is Thinking Schools,
Learning Nation (TSLN) as an overall descriptor of an education system geared to meet
the needs of the 21st century. (Ministry of Education, 2001).
Singapore has had an exceptionally high economic growth over the last 30 years. Large
investments, rapid growth of the labor force and large inflows of foreign Multinational
Companies (MNCs) contributed to the high growth. However, politicians and policy
makers seems to agree that Singapore needs to upgrade its production, increase
technological innovation, and enhance creativity and entrepreneurship to secure future
growth. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, growth through factor accumulation will be
difficult to maintain with an investment rate that is already about 50 percent of GDP and
with an aging population. Instead, future growth has to rely more on technological
progress. Secondly, the large reliance on foreign firms might also be difficult to maintain
since the competition for inward FDI has increased substantially during the last decade.
One indication is that inflow of FDI to Singapore decreased from 15.2 percent of GDP in
1980 to 8.2 percent in 1999 and the decrease seems to continue (UNDP, 2001). Hence,
a larger reliance on domestically owned firms are necessary. The Singaporean
government addresses both concerns and both have bearings on the educational
system. More specifically, the government attempts to encourage creativity, risk-taking
and entrepreneurship through educational reforms.

Creativity is to be encouraged through a new curriculum that encourages critical

thinking and discussions rather than memorization. All levels of education are said to
face this change of focus, but the exact nature of the changes is still not clearly defined.
Suggestions include a broader set of criteria for university entrance than only grades
from the A-level exam. However, there are also clear signals that much of the present
characteristics of Singapore.s education will remain unchanged. The most important
part is the early streaming process of school children into different educational
programs. This takes place continuously and starts already after primary three when a
small number of the highest achieving students are invited to a special program. The
streaming continues after primary four when the remaining students are divided into
three different groups according to their academic capability. The outcome of the
streaming is important for the children since it is difficult to get back to the .fast track. Or
the .main stream. once you have been found suitable for the slow track.. The next
streaming occurs with the public exam after primary six. The result of the public exam
determines which secondary school the children can attend, which is often said to be of
importance for the future career. The importance of streaming has encouraged students
to study very hard. For instance, children at the age of 10-12 years spend about 3 hours
a day studying after school, and 70 percent of them receive extra tuitions.4 Moreover,
parents are frequently taking several weeks or even months of their jobs in order to
prepare their children for the more important exams. The positive aspects of the system
are clear from international comparisons of school children.s knowledge of mathematics
and science where Singaporean children always are among the best performers.
However, it has frequently been argued that the system might not encourage creativity
since students are too focused on preparing for exams rather than to develop own
interests, reflect upon the knowledge, or take part in activities outside of school. To
develop a system that encourage creativity but without sacrificing the average high
standard is not easy, but it might be desirable to at least postpone the streaming until a
later age, which would put some pressure of the youngest children.

ii) Malaysia

Malaysia belief that education plays a vital role in achieving the countrys vision of
attaining the status of a fully developed nation in terms of economic development, social
justice and spiritual, moral and ethical strength, towards creating a society that is united,
democratic, liberal and dynamic. It is the mission of education to develop a world class
quality education system which will realize the full potential of the individual and fulfill
the aspiration of the Malaysian nation. (Education Act 1996, Ministry of Education
Malaysia, 2001).
Malaysia witnessed racial riots in 1969 when an election weakened the ethnic Malays
hold of power. As a result of the riots, the government launched an economic program
to favor ethnic Malays the bumiputera policies. These policies aimed at decreased
economic inequality between different ethnic groups by favoring the bumiputeras
access to jobs in the civil administration, by forcing firms to form joint-ventures with
bumiputeras, and by setting up special government agencies and financial institutions
that served bumiputera interst. One consequence was that the traditional capitalists, the
ethnic Chinese, became reluctant to make long term investments. Instead, Malaysia
had to rely on increased amounts of FDI (Drable, 2000). The FDI contributed
significantly to production and exports of manufactures but, as previously said, they
tended to be in labour intensive and low-skilled industries and there has been little
upgrading over time. As a result, Malaysia relies today on large inflows of foreign
workers to maintain the labour intensive production. Moreover, competition from low
cost producers such as China is increasing rapidly and there are frequent reports on
how foreign electronic firms are closing down their plants in Penang and instead expand
their activities in China. To upgrade production requires, among other things, improved
education of the workforce, which is directly affected by the bumiputera policies. Intakes
to universities are based on ethnic belongings were the bumiputeras are typically
granted about 55 percent of the total intake. The policy seems successful in improving
access to education for the traditional low-income groups. However, it also discriminate
towards the ethnic Chinese and students from this group are typically the best
performers with the highest grades. Some estimates claim that as little as about 10
percent of the intakes would go to bumiputeras if there were no quotas.6 As a result of
the quotas, a large number of ethnic Chinese are not allowed into Malaysian tertiary
education despite higher grades than their bumiputera classmates. Many of them
decide to go abroad to study and work, which has contributed to a brain-drain from
Malaysia. The problem of loosing talented students is a major concern for the
government and there are from time to time government attempts to lure the overseas
Malaysians back home, but these attempts have not been very successful. In addition,
easy access to university for bumiputeras has presumably made them put in too little
effort which results in a relatively weak standard of university graduates. Prime Minister
Mahathir has lately been making frequent threats to abolish the quota system. He
argues that the bumiputeras are misusing their favored situation and do not deserve to
be sheltered. It seems that the Prime Minister is concerned about the situation, but it is
perhaps less likely that he will actually withdraw the quota system. The reason is the
political threat from the ethnic Malay based Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS). PAS has in
recent years conquered a large part of the bumiputera electorate that used to support
Prime Minister Mahathir.s United Malays. National Organisation (UMNO). PAS has
come to power in two states, Terengganu and Kelantan, by advocating a more Islamic
governance of Malaysia, and PAS also strongly supports a continuation of the
bumiputera polices. Hence, to abandon the bumiputera policies means that UMNO
would further weaken its own political power base. The increased Islamic
consciousness among the bumiputeras has had an additional effect on Malaysia.s
educational system. An increasing number of children are joining Islamic schools rather
than secularized ones. These schools give much emphasize to religious studies
including memorization of parts from the Koran. It is also said that this focus have partly
been at the expense of other subjects. As a consequence, only about 25 percent of the
students from Malaysia.s religious schools qualify for university.7 This has led to a
situation where many universities are not able to fill their bumiputera quota but they are
still not allowed to increase the quota to other groups. Hence, the universities are
operating below their capacities, which explain part of the low tertiary enrolment rate
showed in Table 6.8 The present popularity with religious schooling is therefore likely to
have a negative effect on the populations. skill in areas such as science, languages,
and mathematics. Needles to say, it is this type of skills rather than religious training that
is typically required in industrial upgrading. An additional but related problem is that
unemployment seems to be rising among bumipuetera university graduates. For
instance, the National Economic Action Council recently reported that 44,000 Malaysian
fresh university graduates were unemployed.9 Ninety-four percent of them were
bumiputeras and most had studied arts and Islamic studies. Accordingly, a large group
of ethnic Malays attends Middle-Eastern universities for religious studies, and they are
also facing great difficulties in getting work once they return to Malaysia. For instance,
1,200 Malay graduates from the Middle East have been unable to find job after returning
to the state of Kelantan in 2002.

Concluding Remarks

Education is a key element in economic development and growth. At an initial

development level the requirement is to provide basic education and achieve
widespread literacy. As development progress, the requirements will shift towards
improved quality of basic education and expansion of higher education. It seems that
the need for educational improvements in Southeast Asia has accelerated because of
the increased competition in low skilled production and export, which has traditionally
been the region.s engine of growth. The educational standard differs substantially
between countries in the region but it seems fair to say that education has not been as
much emphasized as in the Northeast Asian countries Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
There is a clear positive relation between the income level and the quality of education;
countries in Southeast Asia with a high income level tend to spend more on education,
have higher enrolment rates and lower student-teacher ratios, than countries on a lower
income level. However, there are exceptions, the most notable are perhaps the
Philippines and Vietnam that seem to have an educational standard that is better than
what is indicated by the countries. low income levels. It is also worth noting that
Singapore is the wealthiest country in the region and with perhaps the most developed
educational system, but that education in Singapore still lags behind developed
countries in other parts of the world. More generally, there is one group of countries in
Southeast Asia that are doing reasonably well in the area of education. This group
includes Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. On the other
hand, there is one group of countries that have a rather poor standard of education,
including Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia.
We continued with a more detailed look at educational reforms and obstacles in
Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. There is a widespread concern in all three
countries that educational reforms are needed to achieve or sustain economic
development. Singapore tries to spur creativity and entrepreneurship and are
addressing these issues by changes in the area of education. So far, there has been
more talk about needed changes than actual implementations of educational reforms.

Moreover, it seems that there are areas outside of education that are more
directly related to entrepreneurship and creative thinking, but these areas might for
political reason be more difficult to address. Malaysia has been emphasizing education
throughout the last decades but it seems that the country has not achieved sufficient
economic returns on the large educational investments. One reason is the serious
constraint from the bumiputera policies that effectively close the door to higher
education for many Malaysians. There are frequent threats to abolish the bumiputera
quotas, but it seems likely that this will be politically difficult for a government that
depends on the support from the ethnic Malays. The main constraint on educational
reforms in Indonesia seems to be financial.
 The widespread expansion of basic education in Indonesia in the 1970s has not
been followed by similar expansion of higher education or by improved quality of the
education. Such reforms will be difficult to pursue within the near future since the
government is lacking the resources for costly reforms. Moreover, the political
decentralization of Indonesia will probably have positive effects on education in some
areas of the archipelago, but it also means that most districts will have substantiallyless
resources to spend on education.

REFERENCES

Booth, Anne (1999a), .Education and Economic Development in Southeast Asia: Myths
and Realities., ASEAN Economic Bulletin, Vol. 16(3)

Cherian, G. (2000), Singapore the Air-Conditioned Nation, Singapore; Landmark Books

Drabble, John H. (2000), An Economic History of Malaysia, c. 1800-1990: The

Transition to Modern Economic Growth, London, Macmillan

Hill, H. (1997), "Regional Development in Southeast Asia: The Challenge of Subnational

Diversity", Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Vol. 2
Mukopadhaya, P. (2001), .Distribution of Income and Expansion of Education in some
East Asian Countries. Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, Vol. 10

Duflo, E. (2000), .Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in

Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment., NBER Working Paper No.
7860.