Report of the Higher Education Study Commission [to the Governor and the General Assembly of Virginia]

This 1965 Report of the Higher Education Commission, appointed by Governor Albertis S. Harrison, Jr., was created to review higher education in Virginia to be used as a basis for long-range planning by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Commission was led by Senator Lloyd C. Bird and supported by the staff of the State Council for Higher Education. Divided into eleven sections, this 200-page report details information including geographical location of students, library services, and different instructional services.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/vcu_books/1005/thumbnail.jp

Sexuality education : what is it?

This policy brief developed by the European Expert Group on Sexuality Education provides an overview of key issues in sexuality education. It focuses primarily on sexuality education in Europe and Central Asia but is also relevant to countries outside of these regions

Creative and Performativity Policies in Primary Schools

Primary schools face a new situation, one in which policies promoting creativity no longer have to be fought for but are being promoted at government and national educational level alongside policies that focus on the assessment of school performance in inspections and national tests and encourage target setting. We sought to ascertain how these policy discourses, the contents of which have been perceived as conflicting (Jeffrey and Woods 1998), were affecting primary school management, teachers and learners. In this climate of accountability schools appeared to embrace performance and act innovatively and creatively. Our professional primary school teachers were team players who contributed to the presentation of the school as a unified, creative, inclusive and effective managerial organisation. The merging of the two policies was not pervasive across schools or within schools but there were some examples involving cross-curricular projects. More prominent was a ‘bolt on’ activity of creative teaching and learning such as special creative curriculum weeks or days. Schools found it necessary to ensure success in national tests by institutionalising lengthy SATS preparation for, in some cases, the whole of the Spring term. However, performativity as a progression from one achievement to the next was valued. Teachers, learners and parents considered it beneficial to have information about levels because, in a spirit of openness, all knew what to expect. Professional Identities The stress levels found in the 1990s, (Menter, Muschamp et al. 1997; Osborn, McNess et al. 2000; Troman and Woods 2001) appear to have dissipated along with any resistance from teachers who appeared to be more focused on coping strategies such as team building and appropriating testing and target setting for their own professional benefit. The performativity imperatives were internalised and sometimes generated guilt if they were unrealised but teachers sought to ameliorate these tensions or to resolve them. Where resolution was not possible they accepted the tension and lived with it, (Jones, Pickard et al. 2008) facing daily dilemmas, tensions and constraints but acting creatively with colleagues to manipulate the situation. Conclusion The creativity and performativity policies were integrated at an organisational level through the construction of a school culture of performance and institutional positioning in an open market but less integrated at the level of pedagogy. Where the merging of the two pedagogies did take place – as in 'smart teaching' - teaching creatively was the preferred form over teaching for creativity. The progression narrative was a major feature around which curriculum and pedagogies were organised but where external performativity dominated such as national testing creative teaching was marginalised to ‘bolt on’ fun time slots

Early years workforce strategy

This report sets out a vision agreed by all governments in Australia to build and support the early childhood education and care profession both in the short term and into the future. The Australian Government has worked with states and territories to develop the national Early Years Workforce Strategy. Focusing on the skills and attributes of high quality early childhood educators, the Strategy complements, and builds upon, existing Commonwealth, state and territory government measures aimed at improving the supply and quality of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce. The Strategy builds on Investing in the Early Years—A National Early Childhood Development Strategy, which was endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in July 2009. The vision of the ECD Strategy captured the aspirations of governments that by 2020 all children will have the best start in life to create a better future for themselves and for the nation. This Early Years Workforce Strategy reflects a commitment by governments to address the immediate priorities for the ECEC workforce, and at the same time work towards a long-term broader strategy for the workforce with  a focus on supporting more integrated ways of working across the ECD sector. The ECEC workforce comprises educators working in education and care services including long day care services, family day care services and outside school hours care as well as in preschools and kindergartens

The actors that shape the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of Maltese youth

Not much is known about the environmental knowledge, attitudes and actions of young people in the Maltese islands. The main actors that are responsible for the acquisition and development of environmental perspectives in young people in Malta are also not well known. There is as yet, little understanding of the extent to which these actors are fostering a sense of environmental responsibility and a greater commitment towards sustainable development. A mixed method research methodology was employed to address this knowledge gap that included an extended questionnaire distributed to students in the post secondary age range and a number of focus groups to provide a more in-depth study of some of the issues arising from the questionnaire analyses. The focus groups allowed young people to frame their responses in their own words. This paper focuses on the results of the quantitative study. The data from the quantitative analyses indicates that students are more knowledgeable about the Global Environment than about the Local Environment, and that students receive most information from School, Television and the Internet. The sources of environmental information which were perceived by young people as being the most reliable included School, Books and the Internet. The overall attitude of students towards the environment appears to be strongly positive, however students seem to perform little positive actions towards the environment. Year group, Age and Gender were found to have a statistically significant effect on knowledge; Father’s work was found to have a statistically significant effect on attitude and Age was found to have a significant effect on behavior.peer-reviewe