14 research outputs found

    England's Neglect of Higher Education: The Comparative Perspective of Matthew Arnold

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    In this study, I examine why Matthew Arnold considered his country's higher educational institutions to be inadequate, what prescriptions he advocated for improving them, and why he was convinced this amelioration was so necessary for leading England to true modernity. I argue throughout that Arnold's beliefs were profoundly influenced by what he had witnessed during his many official and unofficial trips to the Continent. A genuine understanding of Arnold's views on England's post-secondary institutions necessitates a concomitant comprehension of Arnold the comparative educator

    Payment by Results

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    Today the public is demanding that it exercise more control over how tax dollars are spent in the educational sphere, with multitudes also canvassing that education become closely aligned to the marketplace's economic forces. In this paper I examine an historical precedent for such demands, i.e. the comprehensive 19th century system of accountability, "Payment by Results," which endured in English and Welsh elementary schools from 1862 until 1897. Particular emphasis is focused on the economic market-driven aspect of the system whereby every pupil was examined annually by an Inspector, the amount of the governmental grant being largely dependent on the answering. I argue that this was a narrow, restrictive system of educational accountability though one totally in keeping with the age's pervasive utilitarian belief in laissez-faire. I conclude by observing that this Victorian system might be suggestive to us today when calls for analogous schemes of educational accountability are shrill

    Payment by Resul ts ( 1862- 1897): Ensuring a Good Return on Governmental Expenditure

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    "Payment by results" ( 1862- 1897) was a system whereby the annual governmental grant for English and Welsh elementary schools depended for the most part on how well pupils answered in the examination conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectors. In this article I review its origin, its principles, its practice, and its effects. My main conclusion is that it was a narrow, restrictive, Philistine system of educational accountability. It impeded for the second half of the 19th century any hope that England's elementary education might swiftly advance from its generally appalling condition during the first half of the century when the theories and practices scorned in the likes of Dickens's Hard Times were more the norm than the exception

    Anarchy, Commercialism, and "Publish or Perish"

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    The business of academic journals has become deeply flawed. Many new and unneeded journals have been founded by fake publishers seeking to make quick money. Some of the established publishers have raised prices to an unsustainable level. Technology creates both problems and possibilities
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