The Education Reform Act of 1988 introduced both a National Curriculum and a regime of inspection designed to ensure that schools were adequately meeting the demands of this curriculum. At the same time schools were being given greater autonomy through the increased powers of the governing body and open enrolment. Rather than add to the freedoms…

The research reported in this case study explores the understanding of stoichiometry and related concepts of Thai science students in grades 10 and 11 after major national curriculum reforms. Students' conceptions and alternative conceptions were investigated using a questionnaire--the "Stoichiometry Concept Questionnaire" (SCQ) (N =…

There is growing concern that almost 20 years after the 1988 Education Act, top-down, large-scale reform has stalled. The policy mix of choice, competition, markets, regulation, accountability and leadership seems not to have closed the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged areas and individuals, while most variations in school performance can…

This is a descriptive self-study of my experience participating in IRA's Diagnostic Teaching Project in Tanzania. The paper describes the teacher educators with whom I worked, their responses to IRA's curriculum, and what I learned about Tanzanian people, culture and education. Data are derived from a Likert survey, an open-item questionnaire, and…

During the Latin American oppression of the 1970s, as the rapidly increasing number of grassroots "popular" social movements sought to profit from and expand the ideas of the radical Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire, there developed, in its own right, a "popular education" movement which engaged in radical education for…

Geography teaching has been under constant change over the last decades. Innovations from research in geography and higher education have diffused in school practices in various ways. International trends have been applied to national contexts in co-operation among academics, administrators and school teachers depending on policies and educational…

This article reflects on the historic tensions of education under capitalism, arguing that they have been exacerbated in our era of neo-liberal globalisation. Government drives for greater "accountability" and "effectiveness" are a blinkered response to the threefold global crisis we face: poverty and debt; a collapse of the…

Background: In 2008 primary education in England reached, historically, another important phase in its development. Government reviewed the primary curriculum and some aspects of the national system of assessment. These government reviews coincided with an independent "Primary Review" based at the University of Cambridge to which the…

This article examines the notion of spiritual development as it was conceptualised for state schools in Britain through the Conservative Government's education reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, reforms which also introduced the National Curriculum. The article puts forward the argument that spiritual development was conceptualised in such a way as…

How do we understand the rise of religious nationalisms in the context of an increasingly globalized and interconnected world? Recent events in the education sector in India provide a particularly compelling example of this contradictory phenomenon. While on the one hand, the Indian State is liberalizing its economic and social sectors to compete…

Although it seems obsolete to analyse and criticise a curriculum from the point-of-view of "subject-centredness", this is the situation we face during the Chinese basic education curriculum reform. This article gives a brief introduction to the ideas behind the development and practice of the Chinese curriculum reform and the progress of…

Background: National curriculum assessment (NCA) in England has been in place for nearly 20 years. It has its origins in a political desire to regulate education, holding schools accountable. However, its form and nature also reflect educational and curriculum concerns and technical assessment issues. Purpose: The aim of the article is to provide…

In South Africa we had an education system that was content-based, inflexible, oppressive, and segregated in terms of disability and race. It was determined by time, calendar and by failing and passing at the end of the year. Learners had to "fit into" a particular kind of system or were integrated into an existing system. A shift is now…

In this paper we examine challenges of Japanese teachers' professional development which points to the essential change in in-service teacher training programs. Emphasis is placed here on an integrated model for professional development that should be deliberately designed to assist teacher training to construct an understanding of the spirit of…

The awarding bodies and their regulator carry out research to maintain the equivalence of examination standards. However, some criticisms remain, suggesting that examination boards may be lowering standards in specifications (syllabuses) in order to attract more centres (schools or colleges). This article reports our investigations on whether…