This paper examines the political implications of China's Gaokao reform on the education system and its profound impact on Chinese students. It starts by exploring the historical background of China's educational reform, focusing on the development and changes of the Gaokao system through a comprehensive review of literature, analysis of policies…

With the rise of accountability measures in education, many policymakers have also argued the need to record, assess, and certify students' holistic development. However, using China as a case, we caution how a policy-driven reform on the assessment of holistic development might fall into the pitfall of performativity. Borrowing from Ball's (Ball,…

Technology is key to making education systems more resilient to disruptions. In the South African higher education sector, technology will continue to play a much larger role than the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology, however, cannot replace the value gained through social contact and concerns about relational disengagement in…

Educational activities cannot avoid the issue of value. The research on "new basic education" also discusses contemporary Chinese social development and educational values reform. This article proposes to rebuild classroom teaching values. This value's core concept is: the current value of classroom teaching in China's primary education…

Holistic development of school-going students has gained momentum. Developing countries need to equip students with skills to thrive in the contemporary world, yet research on this topic in Pakistan is limited. This study, therefore, examines students' non-cognitive skills (i.e., social capabilities and life skills) using a sequential…

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great disruption in schooling around the world. This has triggered me to reflect on educational change in Singapore and some related issues the pandemic has raised. Using "Timely Change, Timeless Constants" as an organizing framework, this paper examines the educational changes that are happening in…

In the context of China's education reform, the education group emerges as a new form of school organization designed to equalize access to high-quality educational resources. While this increasingly popular mode of school running has achieved notable results in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, among other cities, there are concerns about the…

This book explores the reforms sweeping China's educational sector. Traditionally dominated by rote learning, China's educational system has increasingly been criticized by the rising middle class for failing to foster creativity, for arbitrary placement of students, and for fostering regional inequities. Reforms to make Chinese education…

Singapore is recognized for its success in supporting students' academic development. This success is mainly attributed to the close tripartite relationship between the Ministry of Education (MOE), the sole National Institute of Education (NIE), and Singapore schools, which enables systemic changes to spread throughout the school system. Less…

After witnessing the unruly and disruptive behaviour amongst college students on trivial topics, a study was conducted to find the reason behind it. The study consisted of students discussing topics like politics, situational problems etc. and it was observed that students lacked the concept of perception. Studying this even further, it was found…

In anticipation of the United Nations Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, this report explores the work of building and (re)building education systems to support holistic student development. It focuses specifically on the journeys of seven education systems--situated in high-, middle-, and low-middle-income countries with democratic…

Education in Bhutan aims to provide holistic education focused on developing Head, Hand and Heart aspects of human development. Currently, the school programs are mainly focused on head development with a heavy emphasis on cognitive skills and testing. To help students maximise their individual potential, schools in one area (n=18) implemented an…

Teachers' implementation of and attitudes to school reforms and overriding pedagogical ideals have long been a topic of debate and research. In this article, we centre on teachers' descriptions of how progressive teaching was conducted as well as on the teachers' reasons for implementing such teaching in the 1940s. This study is based on written…

The article presents an empirical research of the problem of educational edification in the axiological plane, analyzes scientific literature, history, and strategies of edificatory changes in response to contemporary challenges in primary education, substantiates the features of cultural and historical and pedagogical processes related to the…

This paper draws from an international case study of secondary English teachers in New South Wales, Australia and England, in which thirty-three in-depth interviews were conducted. The research investigated the impact of educational reform on teachers' professionalism, their pedagogies and their beliefs about the subject of English. It reports on…