Quality Schooling: A Pragmatic Approach to Some Current Problems, Topics and Issues (School Development Series)

Quality is one of the key terms in the current educational debate. In schools, education systems and institutions no one is against quality. Everyone wants to be assured that her or she will obtain it; but what is it and how do schools know when they have found it or failed to find it? What measures need to be introduced to promote it and in ways that do not threaten or compromise other good things in our education and social systems? This book looks at these questions and examines international reform initiatives with particular emphasis on the experiences of OECD countries. It aims to provide access to a range of problems, issues and trends which will enhance the understanding of policy-makers, administrators, teachers and parents as they address the theme of 'quality schooling' in their schools and school systems around the world. The authors take a problem-based approach founded on a substantial piece of empirical/analytic work which examines conceptions of education quality, the role of the school in recent proposals for enhancing quality, and the broad development of centralized education policy designed to bring about quality in schools and school systems.