Tertium Comparationis, Vol. 5 (1999), No. 1

Contents

• Editorial
• Dietmar K. Pfeiffer: Bildungstransfer zwischen Intervention und Seinlassen
• Rainer H. Lehmann: Literacy Education in Industrialized and Developing Countries: Changes of Perspective and Assessment Approaches
• Bert P.M. Creemers: Educational Effectiveness and Improvement in Developing Societies: Some Experiences from the Primary Education Quality Improvement Project in Indonesia
• Gary W. Knamiller: Teacher Resource Centres in Developing Countries: An Effective Strategy for Improving the Quality of Education in Schools?
• Ulrike Wiegelmann et Jens Naumann: Analyser pour améliorer: Nouvelles recherches sur les défis de l'éducation de base au Sénégal
• Verzeichnis der Beitragenden
• Rezensionen

Dietmar K. Pfeiffer

Bildungstransfer zwischen Intervention und Seinlassen

Half a century of cooperation between industrialised and developing countries in the field of education achieved ambiguous results. Rapid growth of enrolment on all educational levels have helped to come closer to the principal target: "education for all". On the other hand, the data indicate that the impact of educational investment on economic growth and social development has not been as great as expected and the gap between North and South, rich and poor countries did in fact increase. This article analyses, in a compact form, the main reasons for this situation and suggests strategies how to improve the internal and external efficiency of educational projects. Despite the fact that education by itself cannot initiate development processes, intensive cooperation and much effort by industrialised and developing countries is required in order to contribute to a more humane world in the future.

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Rainer H. Lehmann

Literacy Education in Industrialized and Developing Countries

Changes of Perspective and Assessment Approaches

Literacy rates in developing countries have increased significantly during the last decades. This calls for a more complex, multi-faceted and multi-level view of the competencies related to literacy. The article reviews the most recent and visible changes of theoretical perspectives and highlights some of the methodological consequences referring to an adequate measurement of literacy abilities. It is argued that improving the quality of literacy research and the effectiveness of literacy education is of utmost importance for industrialized as well as developing countries. Democracy, cultural participation, employment opportunities, and increase of income are inconceivable without a universal distribution of high standards of literacy among the population.

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Bert P.M. Creemers

Educational Effectiveness and Improvement in Developing Societies

Some Experiences from the Primary Education Quality Improvement Project in Indonesia

The improvement of education in developing societies might benefit from theory and research on educational effectiveness. They provide a useful instrument to various interventions and improvement projects but also a knowledge base that can be used for the design of projects. The research evidence points at the importance of factors at the classroom level and the relatively small possibilities that the school and the above school level have to influence those factors at the classroom level. This is illustrated by the evaluation of the primary education quality improvement project in Indonesia, a project that aimed at the improvement of education through teacher professional development, pro-vision of textbooks, community participation and management of schools. The results tend to support the general feeling about educational effectiveness. Conclusions stress the importance of the development of knowledge by (inter)national consultants, the content of the intervention - educational effectiveness and improvement and the adaptation of the knowledge to national and local circumstances - and procedural and technical knowledge how to design, implement and evaluate educational interventions.

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Gary W. Knamiller

Teacher Resource Centres in Developing Countries: An Effective Strategy for Improving the Quality of Education in Schools?

The major aim of this study is to attempt to assess the effectiveness of teacher resource centres (TRCs) as a strategy in helping to improve the quality of education in schools in developing countries; the purpose being to assist policy makers in deciding whether or not to invest in teacher resource centres as part of new education development projects. The research methods employed in the study were a literature review and case studies. Case studies were done in four countries: Kenya and Zambia in Africa and India and Nepal in Asia. These countries were chosen because they have ongoing, British assisted educational development programmes which include teacher resource centres. A summary of findings across the 4 case studies: The expectations placed on TRCs to help teachers develop their capacities to be reflective and flexible, to identify and solve their own pro-blems, to create their own resources and to effectively apply new ideas to teaching and learning have not been realized. Implications and options: The major problem of TRC strategy is that it is not designed to work inside schools. Few programmes start with where teachers are and build incremen-tally from there. Four options are presented: Option 1: Of the TRC programmes with a higher level of involvement in schools. Option 2: TRCs as Model Schools, whereby the scaling up 'model' practice to other schools in the cluster will be the major problem. Option 3: TRCs as Resource Centres for Books and School Supplies: In a Schools Resource Centre staff could be trained to accumulate, prepare and package resources for schools. Option 4: The suggestion is to develop textbooks and learning resources first and then train teachers specifically in their use. In such an approach the goal of in-ser-vice teacher training is for the teacher to become a competent technician capable of following prescribed procedures in support of children's use of learning materials. Children can engage with a degree of independence and can get on with learning when their teacher is absent. The study raises the more general question about the relevance to developing countries of education concepts and models transferred from the West.

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Ulrike Wiegelmann et Jens Naumann

Analyser pour améliorer

Nouvelles recherches sur les défis de l'éducation de base au Sénégal

Against the background of the characterization of the reality of multilingualism and language policy in francophone West-Africa in general, in Senegal in particular, the paper summarizes important results of four new empirical studies on learning/achievement levels of children and adults in formal and informal basic-education-settings in Senegal. The first two studies are representative analyses of formal (public and private) primary education, focussing on French language proficiency and basic math in grade 4 and 6, the third analyzes the learning results in "national language proficiency" and basic math of a representative sample of mainly (female) adult participants of alphabetization courses and youngsters attending experimental national-language-schools. The fourth study (by the authors) is the only one using the same analytical instruments (or, at least, anchor items) to explicity compare achievement levels and background variables of learners in formal and non-formal (traditional and modern) basic education settings. By looking at the data of "functionally equivalent" individual items the authors claim to be able to compare the overall "structural" results of the different achievement studies which - by and large-cross-validate - each other. They argue that the performance level of (modern) non-formal educational settings (islamic schools, alphabetization courses) fares surprisingly well in comparison to formal (French-language) education. French as the only language of instruction (the way it is currently used in public schools) seems to be mainly responsible for the low achievement levels of the great majority of pupils in formal primary education.

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