Why have the Asian Dragons (Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong) outperformed Latin America over the past 40 years regarding education outcomes?
Studies indicate that 40 years ago, Latin America and Asian dragons were relatively on the same level regarding educational systems, policies, administration, and outcomes. Additionally, economic development and political status were running in a similar manner considering that educational outcomes are a function of the prevailing economic and political conditions. According to the research done by the inter-American development bank in 1998, the Asian dragon governments have been keen and vigilant in ensuring that the promises made to the public about the universal education are implemented.
Additionally, the administration has always assured that the quality of education offered to the poor remains uncompromised concerning quality and service delivery. The concept has not been the case regarding Latin America; the administration has been reluctant (Ferranti and David 81). The education available to the poor in Latin America has been destitute and of low quality. The overall benefit and value to the poor have not been beneficial and real (William 8). Additionally, limited and unequal distribution and accumulation of human capital have been an imminent and face threat to the overall educational outcome in Latin America as compared to Asian Dragon systems. Such entail the focus of the service delivery monopolies and unions to other priorities such as politics. They have always had little attention and interest with the education and plight of students and what they gain from school (Ferranti and David 81). A report by Carnegie in 2001 pointed that on average, an American adult citizen experienced less than four years in school while that same person in Asia receives more than four years pragmatic and skill oriented training (William 11). Among other factors, Latin America fails to observe the following tenets that have led to the success of Asian dragon’s success. The first is that Latin America fails to set educational standards and outcomes desired. Secondly, authority is compromised in schools followed by unaccountability by the school management and boards. Thirdly, poor teaching and learning methods scavenge the education system. Finally, aspects of poor investments and finance availed to schools (Ferranti and David 81).
Define the various quality stages of the school system (McKinsey) and explain what this stage framework implies for what policymakers must do to improve their education systems.
The education system is an entity that must be well framed and oriented to achieve the desired end goal of academic success for the students. According to a study done by McKinesy, any school system has the potential to grow and develop from a given starting point. The report further exemplifies that the school leaderships and management can achieve that by architecting an improvement and development blueprint that acts as the roadmap to an effective, ever performing and improving the school system. The methods developed by McKinesy point out to several strategies that are paramount to the success and growth of the education system (Mona, Chijoke and Barber 6).
The first stage is called the performance stage. The stage involves the critical and rational evaluation of the status of the academic performance and outcomes (Mona, Chijoke and Barber 18). The stage is crucial to policy makers as it allows them to assess the performance of the educational system and tentatively tell the imminent threat, stagnation or success being achieved. The policy makers can strive to employ a two-stage evaluation paradigm of this performance aspect. The first involves a critical and metaphorical review of the systems past performance and progress in comparison to other school systems. Secondly, a dynamic view of the multistage improvement journey (Mona, Chijoke and Barber 18).
The second is an intervention that involves identification of strategies that will help in solving the problems identified at performance stage. Policy makers can use this phase to draw up possible strategies and approaches to problems and issues (Mona, Chijoke and Barber 20). The third is contextualization that implies the use of the challenges in their context and situation for the advantage of the school system (Mona, Chijoke and Barber 19). The fourth is sustaining that entail continuing and practicing of the set method of pedagogies of teaching and embedding the same in a collaborative manner among the teachers. The last phase is ignition that encompasses the process of putting into practice the strategies and approaches that are aimed at salvaging and improving the education system (Mona, Chijoke and Barber 22).
Education and the economy: What is the difference between educational quality and educational quantity? How does educational quality impact economic growth? Does increased schooling influence wage growth?
Educational quality and educational quantity prove to a be rather ambivalent and highly debated topics of study. Educational quality is a qualitative view of education representing the correct standards and levels of performance both in pragmatic and empirical lines of thought. Educational quality will call for one to receive a high standard and level that will enable them to be intensively productive as individuals and extensively productive as groups (Carillon and Climent 21). Educational quantity is a tenet of the quantitative approach that focuses on magnitude or class reached whether primary, secondary, college or university level. The view does not put into consideration the usefulness of the education attained but rather focuses on how far is the school level reached or accomplished by an individual (Carillon and Climent 14).
Educational quality is a significant and integral part of economic growth. A person with a high-quality education pertaining skills, knowledge, and pragmatisms of the course content is predicted to a be a source of human capital regarding specific skill requirements on a particular job. The topic can be handled depending on whether the quality is in the context of a developing country or developed country (Hanushek and Woessmann 20). According to (Hanushek and Woessmann), a good school or buying of any or all textbook and the material does not amount to a direct source of trained human capital (20).
Do you agree with Tooley and Dixon’s contention that private education is good for the poor? Why or why not?
Private schools refer to those schools that are not owned by the state, the owners being individual or group proprietors. There are levels to the existent private schools. The poor can only afford to join the low-class private schools that are individually or charity based owned private schools. Low-class private schools host the highest number of poor students when tallied against all the private schools that are existent (Tooley and Pauline 13).
The private schools for the poor are designed to offer basic requirements concerning education. The teachers are mostly not qualified but possess a reasonable academic papers and experience to warrant usefulness to the students who attend the institutions to at least get a taste of what it is like to be in a school. Formally, the poor would not take their children or rather advocate to have their children due to insufficient and dilapidated facilities and resources in the state-funded public schools. After the enactment of the free primary education, children enrolled highly to the public schools and over flocked the carrying and available capacity of the schools, and once again the value of the education in the public school went down (Tooley and Pauline 19).
Consequently, the children would prefer attending private poor private schools some of which were much friendlier and efficient than public schools. In fact, some poor private schools offer food to the children who are far from what the public schools offer. When compared, the public schools do not have much to offer, and poor private schools seem to outdo the public schools by being there for the children. Some poor private school despite being poorly managed and funded, go to an extra mile of providing the children with moral and emotional support which is lacking or deficient in public schools (Tooley and Pauline 23).
Therefore, Tooley's assertion that private system of schools for the poor is to be preferred holds a firm a relevant ground. That is because most public schools are overcrowded, poorly staffed, emotionally and morally detached from the students. Additionally, the students do not pose as people to the public schools but as government entities to be served (Tooley and Pauline 37).
Works cited
De Ferranti, David M., ed. Closing the gap in education and technology. World Bank Publications, 2003.
Hanushek, E. A., and L. Woessmann. "The Role of Education Quality in Economic Growth, « World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, 4122, Washington, DC: Banque Mondiale." (2007).
Hidalgo-Carillon, Ana, and Amparo Castello-Climent. Quality and Quantity of Education in the Process of Development. No. 238. Society for Economic Dynamics, 2010.
Mourshed, Mona, Chinezi Chijioke, and Michael Barber. How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better. McKinsey, 2010.
Ratliff, William E. Doing it wrong and doing it right: Education in Latin America and Asia. Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, 2003.
Tooley, James, and Pauline Dixon. Private education is good for the poor: A study of private schools serving the poor in low-income countries. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2005.
