Stick With Winning Strategies: UK Education Expert Barber

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Stick with winning strategies: Barber

WANNAPA KHAOPA

THE NATION

A lot of progress can be achieved over a short period, top UK education expert says

"Education systems at all performance levels can improve substantially in as short as six years," a world-renowned consultant told Thai educators, teachers and the media last week.

Sir Michael Barber, Chief Education Adviser at Pearson Plc, who was chief adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, gave an address last week to relevant education people and had an interview with the Thai media at Educa 2011 and the 4th Annual Congress for Teacher Professional Development. They were held at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre.

Barber served the UK government as head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit from 2001-2005. In the four years prior to that, he was Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education on School Standards.

His speech was entitled "How School Systems Can Keep Getting Better."

In Asia, Barber has worked to improve education systems in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Mumbai, in India, and Pakistan.

Barber said some countries had proved they could improve their education within six years. Based on the Programme for International Student Assessment's average of maths, science and reading scores, Chile's score went up from 412 in 2000 to 440 in 2006, Latvia rose from 460 to 485, while Saxony went from 497 to 525 and Hong Kong rose from 533 to 542 in the same period.

Chile initially performed poorly, while Latvia was initially only fair; Saxony was good and Hong Kong's performance great. Overall, the results showed education systems could improve substantially at all levels.

Barber said people in the UK saw a lot of progress between 1997 and 2003 or 2004, whereas in the US people would see significant progress in three to five years. Current reforms in the US started in 2009. In Britain big reform began in 1988. The Tony Blair administration had an intense phase of success between 1997 and 2001. And the Cameron government, elected in 2010, began a new phase of reform last year, he said.

"Even the poorest country in the world can make progress."

To achieve success, Barber said Thailand and countries pushing education reform should include six key features of high performing school systems.

He urged administrators to set challenging standards and to measure them; to apprentice and develop teachers effectively; to make entry into teaching highly selective; to attract, select and develop excellent school leaders; to tackle failure decisively; and implement data-informed policies at every level.

Barber agreed with Thailand's education reform policy that focuses on improving teacher quality, saying it should be part of the six features.

"Set clear standards, recruit good teachers, make sure the teachers develop in the right time in their career and make sure there are good leaders at schools."

He said system transformation required sustained political and strategic leadership.

"In many places system reform has been successful while a [political] party and power has changed, but the strategy stayed the same because the strategy was based on evidence. You will get success. So it's a challenge for countries to stick with the strategy.

"It's easier to keep the same leader. If you can't keep the same leader, it's really helpful to find enough people to support the strategy.

"There's a lot of evidence about what works. We now around the world know a lot more about what works. It doesn't matter which political perspective you have. You should be drawing on that evidence-base."

He said that in Britain, the government changed but the basics of education reform was the same. The Democrat and Republican governors of different states of America were doing the same stuff because the evidence-base was increasingly clear about what worked.

Big variation in education was a problem that Thailand, Britain and the US faced, he said. "There's a lot of variation. Some children are doing very well. Some children are doing quite poorly. Britain has got too many children doing poorly below the high minimum standard. In the US, again, there's a lot of variation."

The current UK government was revising the national curriculum with a view to benchmark new standards. The system got better. There were more teachers who were really good now in Britain, while in the US, they had been working very hard to improve the quality of teachers. They were doing very good work to improve the quality data in the system. They had good strategy dealing with their lowest performing schools.

However, Barber urged Thailand to learn from Asian systems, like Singapore and Korea, which were in the same region and had done very well since Britain and the US had very different cultures.

Talking about irresponsible kids and impatient behaviour that might cause educational problems, he said: "It's completely wrong to blame the children. Our job is to make sure they get good education. I don't blame the children at all. I blame the way we've organised at schools. The right thing to say is what we have to change to make sure we're successful."

In regard to the plan to give tablet PCs to students, Barber said Grade 1 pupils were not too young to be given the devices, but they should give them with right teaching and content.

-- The Nation 2011-10-17

[jonclark]

Good points but unfortunately whilst western countries / developed countries see education as a means of empowering individuals and society to succeed and be independent, to critically evaluate ideas and think for themselves, the exact opposite has been true in many developing countries whose production industry relies on manual labour. A proper educational system would raise the employment expectations of the next generation.

I feel the worst thing that could happen to Thailand from the economic and political viewpoint would be to have school leavers thinking about their future in terms of a careers, not work or a series of random unrelated short term jobs. Once this happens Thailand's current economic model becomes redundant. From a social perspective though it would be fantastic as a career implies development, planning and progress.

Thailand's education system; a source of endless frustration and lost dreams.

[DoctorG]

Barber spoke of "tackling failure decisively" but Thai schools do not recognise, or allow, failure. I have experience in Thai and Chinese schools and universities where failing a student is just not an option.

Edited October 18, 2011 by DoctorG

[teejaykrabi]

I believe he was talking about teachers and not students.A lot of teachers do fail in Thailand.I agree that students are not allowed to fail but again that is a failing of the teachers in many cases.