Die Rekrutierung in den Lehrberuf: eine international-vergleichende Perspektive

Der Beitrag stellt die Indikatoren vor, welche die Rekrutierung in den Lehrberuf messen. Die Rekrutierung in den Lehrberuf wird für zwei Lehrerbildungssysteme – Singapur und Kirgisien – näher ausgeführt. Das singapurische System ist bekannt für die grosse Selektivität zum Zeitpunkt der Aufnahme in die Lehrerausbildung und für die hohe Übergangsrate in den Lehrberuf. Als Kontrast wird in diesem Beitrag das kirgisische System vorgestellt, das bereits zweimal den untersten Rang in einer PISA-Studie einnehmen musste. Der Lehrermangel in Kirgisien ist so eklatant, dass die Schulen allerlei Notmassnahmen ergreifen, um den Unterricht aufrechterhalten zu können. Diese Überlebensstrategien verdecken das wahre Ausmass des Lehrermangels und zeigen die beschränkte Gültigkeit von Lehrermangelstatistiken. Der Beitrag verweist auf «globale» bildungspolitische Massnahmen zur Aufhebung des Lehrermangels, die von internationalen Organisationen wie der OECD oder der Weltbank weltweit in Umlauf gesetzt werden. Insbesondere die Weltbank hat sich damit profiliert, dass sie einen starken Zusammenhang postuliert zwischen attraktiver Lehrerbesoldung sowie -laufbahnmodellen und einer wirksamen Rekrutierung in den Lehrberuf. Die Autorin postuliert, dass eine international-vergleichende Perspektive nützlich sein könnte für die gegenwärtige bildungspolitische Diskussion zum Thema Lehrermangel in der Schweiz.The study draws on indicators for recruitment into teaching and presents two teacher education systems: Singapore and Kyrgyzstan. The system in Singapore is known for being selective at the moment of admission into teacher education as well as for its high transition rate into the teaching profession at the end of teacher education. The education system of Kyrgyzstan scored in the last two PISA studies at the very bottom of the league table and therefore is in stark contrast to the system of Singapore. Teacher shortage in Kyrgyzstan is rampant and schools have to resort to various emergency measures to ensure that schools remain open. These kind of survival strategies, however, tend to conceal the real extent of teacher shortage and, thus, call into question the validity of official statistics on teacher shortage. This article also addresses the existence of «global» policies for combatting teacher shortage that international organizations such as OECD or the World Bank are disseminating around the globe. The World Bank, in particular, has postulated a close association between attractive teacher salary as well as attractive teacher career ladder and effective recruitment into teaching. The author suggests to adopt an international comparative perspective in the current policy discussion on teacher shortage in Switzerland

The Politics of League Tables

The article focuses on the political usages of OECD- and IEA-type studies on student achievement, and suggests that we examine in more detail how policy makers use results from international comparisons to advance fundamental school reform at national level. The author categorizes three types of policy reactions to league tables: (1) scandalization, (2) glorification, and (3) indifference. Drawing from media reports and policy debates that emerged right after the release of the results from TIMSS, PISA, and the Civic Education Study, the author points at the different policy reactions that these OECD and IEA studies have had in various national contexts. In Japan, for example, the release of TIMSS led to a self-affirmation or glorification of Japanese methods in science and mathematics, whereas the release of PISA in Germany triggered self-criticism or scandalization, and strengthened existing demands for a fundamental reform of the German educational system. Most striking is the political indifference that the release of the IEA Civic Education encountered in Germany. German students held the last rank in the international league table on attitudes towards immigrants (Civic Education Study), whereas they scored below OECD-average in reading literacy (PISA). The author provides a few tentative explanations for the following question: why was there such a political spectacle about the reading literacy scores of German students given that German students did far worse with regard to xenophobia

Las políticas de la comparación internacional. Un esbozo histórico de los cambios a lo largo del tiempo

El auge de los bancos de datos internacionales en la economía digital exige una investigación sobre cómo contextos enormemente diferentes se hacen comparables. El método de formular las mismas preguntas o, según la terminología del siglo XXI, de utilizar el mismo conjunto de indicadores combinados con la información sobre variables del sistema, es clave para entender el despliegue de la comparación. El artículo examina la investigación sobre indicadores durante tres periodos de tiempo centrándose en sus actores influyentes: el Esquisse d’un ouvrage sur l’Éducation Comparée de Jullien de Paris (1817); las “encuestas” de Paul Monroe en Filipinas (1912-1914) y el trabajo de Isaac Kandel en torno a la comparabilidad y la Teoría de la Civilización; la colaboración del Instituto de Estadística de la UNESCO con otras partes interesadas en el desarrollo de indicadores educativos para los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible 2030 (2015-2016). Estos tres periodos reflejan los cambios en el uso de los indicadores educativos: modernización / construcción nacional, colonización / desarrollo y estandarización / globalización. Jullien de Paris propuso preguntas estandarizadas para comparar características claves de los sistemas educativos, dio forma al método comparativo de investigación transnacional y contribuyó a justificar la necesidad de la comparación para extraer lecciones, tomar prestadas políticas o aprender de las “buenas prácticas” y las normas internacionales. Este enfoque mantiene su pertinencia en el contexto actual, marcado por el auge de los regímenes de cuantificación que promueven el uso de evidencia derivada de la investigación para la política y la planificación

Moving landscapes of Nordic basic education : Approaching shifting international influences through the narratives of educational experts

Throughout history educational leaders have looked to other countries and have attempted to learn by borrowing useful examples to implement in their own educational systems. As recent comparative policy research shows, processes of policy lending and borrowing have their own socio-historically defined dynamics. In this paper, the authors approach the use of reference countries through narratives of educational experts in Finland, Norway and Sweden. By comparing how international influences are used in stories about basic education, this research constructs a core narrative of a moving Nordic landscape. This landscape indicates both recognised and acknowledged policy borrowing relations in the past, as well as a changing orientation to preferred and avoided reference countries in the present. While new country-specific performance indicators such as PISA have widened the landscape of reference countries at an official level, culturally mediated images seem to redefine how reference countries are observed in everyday semantics.Peer reviewe

The intellect, mobility and epistemic positioning in doing comparisons and comparative education

This article offers a reflexive analysis and discussion on the relationship between academic mobility and comparative knowledge creation. It argues that what constitutes ‘comparative knowledge’ is not solely Wissenschaften but more often entwined with Weltanschauungen, derived from lived experiences – as exemplified in the biographic narratives of some of the major intellects. It reviews the notions of the ‘gaze’ and the concepts of the Other and Homeworld/Alienworld as epistemic positioning in doing comparative education. In the framework of phenomenological thinking, the paper discusses the intimate relationship between comparative knowledge and positional knowledge

South-South cooperation in education and development: The ¡Yo, Sí Puedo! literacy method

This article addresses two tendencies within the international education and South–South cooperation literatures: the omission of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) from discussions of South–South cooperation generally, and of the ALBATCP promoted ¡Yo, Sí Puedo! literacy method in particular. Central features of ¡Yo, Sí Puedo! are discussed, while the case of ¡Yo, Sí Puedo! in Nicaragua illustrates the main argument developed: ¡Yo, Sí Puedo! should not be regarded as ‘best practice transfer’ but as integral to South–South cooperation as Third World emancipation and transformation towards a socially just and democratic world order