Using a two generational model of investment in education, this thesis shows that school quality enhancement is very highly valued by the average rural Pakistani family, and by those below the official poverty line. Corollaries are that quality enhancement will be an effective policy for boosting school attendance and that subsistence poverty is not a major reason for keeping children out of school. The empirical strategy is to demonstrate (chapter 4) that school quality variables influence perceived child cognitive achievement. Parental perceptions are critical rather than objective performance (if they diverge) because it is parents that decide whether their children should attend school. These results provide support for the finding in the following chapter (5) that some school quality variables also significantly influence school attendance. Note that the empirical focus of this study is on the more important attendance rather than the commonly discussed school enrolment. The data source, the 2004-5 Pakistan Rural Household Survey, PRHS-II, is the only one currently available for Pakistan that makes available a multitude of school quality measures. Identification in the empirical models of school attendance and cognitive achievement is achieved first by establishing and utilising a distinctive feature of the Pakistani environment; the arbitrary and random allocation of resources to state schools economy and society. The quality variable library is confirmed exogenous with the only instrument in the data set suitable on grounds of relevance (correlation with library), community population. If school resources were adjusted to school need, school attendance would not influence the staff-student ratio. But instrumenting this ratio changes its sign in the predicted fashion. For cognitive achievement, cmp (conditional (recursive) mixed process estimator) (Roodman 2009) is implemented to endogenise staff-student ratio in ordered probit models. Since we have either controlled for endogeneity or established the exogeneity of the quality measures in the attendance and cognitive achievement equations, we can be confident that the parameter estimates correctly capture the impact of school quality variables. The possibility that other variables, not instrumented in the school attendance or cognitive achievement equations, are endogenous does not bias these estimates. Nor does including a range of extra community characteristics in the school attendance and cognitive achievement equations affect the school quality parameter values estimated. School quality measures must be measured at the community/village level to capture the options for school non-attenders. This reduces the precision with which the standard errors can be estimated. Normally it is appropriate to cluster standard errors at the village level, and these results are presented. Judging by parental assessment of child performance, in rural Pakistan private schools achieve better outcomes than state schools. Despite comparatively low private school fees, the average rural household with three children is unable to afford to send their children to private schools. Simply expanding private schooling provision then is not a solution to the currently poor education available to these households. In any event such expansion is not without its problems because there are typically arbitrary political or regulatory barriers to establishing private schools. Therefore this thesis suggest that improving (perceived) state school quality may be the most effective strategy for improving human capital in rural Pakistan.

No description available.

This thesis reports on qualitative case study research into the experience of six novice English teachers in Hong Kong (HK). It describes their perceived experience, particularly the problems and challenges they encountered, as well as the induction and mentoring support they received during the first year of teaching. While the benefits of different forms of induction support (mentoring in particular) have been established, few studies have focused on specific factors that affect the perceived effectiveness of mentoring, from the point of view of both the mentors and the mentees. The current study therefore breaks new ground in investigating the perspectives of different stakeholders in the mentoring process. What is more, the majority of research reports the nature of the first year of teaching in one snapshot, often not paying attention to the professional development and changes throughout the year. The study follows a group of novice language teachers for the whole of their first year in teaching. The purpose of the case study is to give voice to the perspectives of individual novice teachers within the complex wider sociocultural context that these teachers have to negotiate. Consequently, the thesis begins by establishing key aspects of the HK context that impact on the experience of HK teachers and especially that of novice teachers in their first year. It then provides a literature review that details important contributions to an international understanding of induction and mentoring, as well as relating these to the specific HK situation. After presenting the research methodology and the issues involved, the thesis provides a discussion that both details the needs and challenges of the six participating novices and investigates the provision and perception of school-based induction and mentoring, as well as the roles these mechanisms play in their professional development, support and socialisation. As a subsidiary research question, the project also investigates whether and how the Induction Tool Kit (ACTEQ, 2009), the first official document supporting HK schools in providing support for beginning teachers, is used in schools the participants teach in. It also examines how challenges of first-year teachers, support for them, and professional development are understood by ACTEQ, the commission that advises the HK government on teacher education and development policies, manifested in the design and language of the tool kit. These are compared to the actual experience of the participating novices in the case study. The thesis concludes by suggesting the implications of the findings, as well as providing recommendations on how ACTEQ, teacher-training universities and schools can better support novice English language teachers and their mentors. The limitations of the project and ways of disseminating the findings will also be discussed after outlining these contributions.

The study explores the process and outcome of a mentoring programme for newly appointed school leaders in a Scottish Case Study Local Authority (CSLA). This research contributes to professional knowledge and practice in school leadership as it takes an employer perspective and offers a conceptualisation of post-appointment mentoring in Scotland. This study is contextualised by two conflicting accepted realities which are reflected at a local, national and international level. Firstly, that it is widely accepted that school leadership makes a difference and secondly, due to the reported challenges of the job, the recruitment and retention of school leaders has attained crisis status in some areas. Accepting that it is important to prepare people for school leadership roles, the focus of this thesis turns to supporting teachers in the transition to headship. Mentoring is a frequently used approach in the development of school leaders but there is lack of agreement on the concept of mentoring and empirical evidence demonstrating the benefit of mentoring is inconsistent. A conceptual framework of socialisation and development is used to explore mentoring in this study. Forty-two interviews were undertaken with newly appointed headteachers and depute headteachers and their mentors with the aim to establish whether there was a consistent interpretation or implementation of the mentoring policy and whether the claims about anticipated outcomes were substantiated. Assumptions about the mentoring policy in the CSLA were tested in order to build understanding and make meaning about how mentoring worked in practice. This research suggests that experiences of formal employer-led mentoring, as operating in the CSLA, were mainly positive and valued by both mentors and mentees. Findings indicated that mentoring supported self-confidence, wellbeing, independence and effectiveness in the novice school leader, particularly in relation to leading and managing people. The policy assumptions that experienced headteachers would agree to mentor others because there were professional gains for them, and that mentoring offered something extra to other forms of leadership and management support, were supported by the findings of this study. However this research also found that there was a lack of shared understanding over the purpose of mentoring with differing views on the importance of psychosocial or career related functions. Data indicated there were differences in how primary and secondary school dyads enacted the mentoring relationship. This thesis explores the motivations for mentoring, the characteristics that make a good mentor and the place of mentoring compared to other forms of leadership preparation and support. The findings of this study indicate that mentoring in the CSLA is understood both as a form of psychosocial support and as context specific training which prepares the mentee for the role of headteacher as it exists now and socialises them into that view. A conceptualisation of mentoring as a form of initiation which supports the prevailing orthodoxy is challenged in this thesis. It is proposed that this work progresses knowledge about mentoring as it offers two models: a chronological model to explain how mentoring relationships can evolve and a model to explore the learning that takes place. Each model provides a schematic which can be challenged and adapted to help share understandings of mentoring, an umbrella term which has morphed over the centuries from Greek myth to urban mythology in the corporate human resource world. The thesis highlights tensions and ambiguities for the local education authority as it attempts to meet its legal duty for educational provision while interpreting national policy, employing teachers and meeting Government‘s expectations for schools. This study identifies the complexity over the role of the employer in managing a formal strategy which is predicated on a personal relationship; recommendations are offered which may be of significance to those with an interest in school leadership development and organisational mentoring. This research set out to advance practice in managing a real-world leadership problem. This thesis proposes that leadership development does matter in Scotland today; the scale of the task to make our public services fit–for-purpose and fit-for-purse is considerable. Tomorrow‘s leaders should be prepared for this new landscape with vision and pragmatism.

The Scottish Government has highlighted the important role of personal and social development in primary education to promote the social inclusion of children who have poor life experiences (Scottish Office, 1999a). HMIE reports however suggest that there are few opportunities in primary schools in Scotland for pupils with social difficulties to develop personal and social skills (HMIE, 1999, 2001a, 2001b). This study explored the historical development of provision for personal and social development in primary education in Scotland, and carried out a survey of current perceptions and provision for pupils with personal and social needs in primary schools in Scotland. Following this, an investigation of the organisation and impact of three personal and social development initiatives for pupils with personal and social difficulties was carried out. Results of the historical review revealed that in the 1960s teaching methods became increasingly child-centred but it was not until later, in the 1980s, that personal and social development became part of the school curriculum. Results of the survey of primary schools showed that schools introduced a range of personal and social development initiatives but that few of these were intended to specifically meet the needs of individuals with personal and social difficulties. The investigation of three initiatives for pupils with personal and social difficulties revealed that initiatives were generally valued by staff, pupils and parents in those schools and that initiatives had a positive impact on a number of personal and social development factors, such as self-esteem.

The research was prompted by the anomaly which appeared to exist between the view of drama as it is presented in the literature, and its representation in special schools curricula. In the literature drama is presented as a desirable curricular element which can be a valuable means of benefiting pupils over a variety of learning areas. In practice, many special schools make no provision for drama, and in only a small proportion of schools is it taught on any regular or systematic basis. The project established that the extent of the neglect of drama in special education was considerable, and that the reasons for the neglect lay more in staff's ignorance of its educational potential than in their perception of its value or lack of value. Analysis suggested that it would be necessary for staff to experience, at first hand in their own classrooms, the teaching of drama and the outcomes of that teaching in order that they might arrive at a personal assessment of its value to them in their work. In order to achieve this, a curriculum research and development project was carried out. This involved: a) the analysis of the educational justification for drama in special educational curricula, its possible aims, the methods appropriate to teaching it, the activities it may comprise, and the role of the teacher in the drama lesson; b) an examination of the extent to which theory was bourne out in practice under a variety of classroom conditions within schools for severely and profoundly mentally handicapped pupils, and in collaboration with staff within the schools; c) the development of lesson plans and teaching materials which would embody the principles outlined and which could be disseminated for use and critical testing to a wider cross-section of schools. The following are the main conclusions: 1. Although it may be crucial to the development of profoundly mentally handicapped pupils to ensure that they have adequate stimulation through the provision of activities in movement and music, the provision of regular drama lessons by general staff may be less essential since a) many of the pupils may not be sufficiently developed to comprehend the symbolic aspects of drama as an imaginative, enactive means of representing and interpreting experience; b) the pupils who can respond to the process of drama wAy be those autistic or behaviourally disturbed children who may need specialist help if drama is to be made accessible to them on a regular and systematic basis. 2. Severely mentally handi"capped pupils can benefit from drama in a variety of important ways, depending on the nature of the drama provision offered. Staff within the present project were more willing to learn and use the simpler drama techniques. While the more complex techniques can be used as a means of stimulating problem-solving abilities and imaginative development, the simpler techniques are useful in stimulating language development, in improving social skills, in reducing passivity in the more lethargic pupils, and in encouraging the emergence and development of corporate imagir.ative play. 3. The pupils who appeared to benefit most from the provision of drama in the present project were those lively Down's Syndrome children who appear to have a natural aptitude for dra~A, and some of the more passive or withdrawn children. Host noticeable benefits were in the development of communication abilities, in the extension of dramatic play, and in the reduction of passivity. 4. In this project, behaviourally disturbed and hyperactive, severely mentally handicapped pupils appeared to benefit least from normal classroom drama provision. There may be a need to make specialist provision for such pupils. There is a need for further research to clarify their reactions and the reactions of profoundly handicapped pupils with similar problems. 5. As a result of their involvement in the project, staff from over forty schools were enabled to try out drama on a systematic and regular basis, and to arrive at a personal assessment of its value to them in their teaching. Over two thirds have gone on to include drama in their curricular schemes. 6. staff involved in the collaborative research have acquired a degree of expertise in the curriculum research and development process, and in the teaching of drama. The author recommends that this expertise be utilised and exploited by encouraging such staff to regard their schools as resource centres and to be willing to help staff from other schools in the development and planning of lessons. Skill-sharing of this kind might go same way towards compensating for the lack of specialist drama teachers in this field of education. The anomaly between the neglect of drama and its value as represented in the literature is largely explained by a lack of appropriate teaching materials, staff's lack of knowledge of drama and its practices, and staff's unwillingness to attempt the more complex drama techniques. Skill-sharing might also help reduce some of these barriers to the adoption of drama in schools. The author also re-examines, in the concluding sections of the thesis, the rationale underpinning the method of curriculum research and development adopted in the project. She attempts to illuminate some of the strengths and weaknesses of this methodology by reference to the practical difficulties experienced in the course of the project •. She argues that these reflect a more general disquiet in the research literature about the methods applicable to curricul~~ research, development and evaluation. She suggests that there maybe a .need for a reappraisal of curriculum theory to encompass the kind of practical difficulties which appear to be concomitants to collaborative research in education. And she argues that this reappraisal may be particularly important where, as was the case in this project, the research design incorporates the development of teaching materials and the dissemination of these for field testing within a sample of schools which have not been involved in the initial research and development.

The present provision of continuing education for professionals in the form of periodicals, journals, seminars, conferences, talks and in-service programmes, do not always address specific needs and problems of individual professionals. On the basis that there are basically two types of needs involved in this case, for instance, national or managerial needs and the other being specific individual needs, the thesis has attempted to establish, a priori, the increasing need for professionals to keep up-to-date with developments and generally to ensure satisfactory standards of performance in practice, and that whilst the in-service and refresher courses provided by the government or central agency in Malaysia provides for the national individual needs, which may not be included.In response to this gap in the provision for the continuing education of professionals in Malaysia, this thesis provides the specifications for the provision of continuing education programmes for professionals in Malaysia. Two pilot project materials, one for Malaysian general practitioners in private service, and the other for Malaysian primary school teachers of English, were implemented to test the criteria for the provision of continuing education for professionals in Malaysia. The criteria for continuing education programmes for professionals in Malaysia include:Opening up new opportunities for learning for professionals.Providing accessible provision which is convenient to use.In response to specific needs of the professionals the materials should be:-(i) relevant;(ii) beneficial in terms of return for time invested;(iii) individualised in terms of needs and feedback;(iv) self-assessed; and,(v) reasonably priced.Administrative and learner support should be available at the providing institutional level and also at the regional level and learner support should be made available in a variety of modes.Professionals involved in continuing education programmes on non-credit basis, but the materials should allow for certification. There could be provision for assessment on credit basis, but this would be optional.Publicity and information regarding the provision should reach the target population.The provision should be collaborative between the providing agencies and institutions or other.Although the pilot projects to test the criteria were implemented for doctors in the community and primary school teachers of English, there seem no reasons to suggest that the criteria for open learning systems for continuous education provision presented in this thesis could not be applied in other professions as well in Malaysia.

This project looks at the ability of young adolescents at lower secondary level to recognise experiments as ways of asking questions in scientific investigations. Many science curricula emphasise the need for pupils to develop skills necessary for experimenting, like planning and designing experiments for investigations, deciding on which variables to manipulate during the experiment, recognising a critical piece of information which could be used to plan and design a critical experiment. A number of questions based on the available literature and theoretical evidence were raised. These questions formed the basis for the study: (1) Do pupils at lower secondary level appreciate the inclusion of experiments in science learning? (2) Can these pupils identify a critical piece of information necessary for providing a credible solution to a problem? (3) Do lower secondary level pupils have the ability to conceptualise or see experiments as ways of asking critical questions in scientific investigations? ( 4) Can the development of the experimenting skill in those pupils at lower secondary level who have not yet developed it be accelerated through appropriate teaching? (5) Can lower secondary pupils from completely different teaching and cultural backgrounds demonstrate similar performances in terms of seeing the experiment as a way of asking critical questions in scientific investigations? To answer these questions a three stage investigation was used. Each stage was called an experiment. For the entire investigation, a total of 1964 pupils were used from Botswana [junior (lower) secondary schools] and Scotland [lower secondary schools]. A card game called Eloosis, questionnaires/tests, teaching units and interviews were employed at different stages of the investigations. The teaching units and Eloosis were used to help pupils accelerate the development of the ability to recognise critical pieces of information for critical experiments in scientific investigations where possible. The questionnaires/tests were designed to examine evidence of the development of this ability skills. Interviews were meant to solicit more information from pupils regarding the ability of the pupils to conceptualise the place and nature of experimentation in scientific enquiry. However, Scotland pupils and one sample of the Botswana pupils did not participate in the use of teaching units. The data collect from the Scotland pupils was primarily used to establish the wider acceptance of the results obtained from the Botswana group. From the results obtained from this study, it was clear that pupils from different educational and cultural settings equally appreciated the inclusion of experimental work in their science activities. However, their perceptions of its place and purpose differed from those of the curriculum planners. The evidence from the data analysis suggested that the ability to see experiments as ways of asking questions in scientific investigations is significantly developmental and cannot be homogeneously accelerated. The result appears to be true for all pupils at this age range regardless of their educational and cultural background. There was also a general lack of the ability to identify a critical piece of information which, in the opinion of this project is related to the ability to recognise critical experiments for working out solutions to scientific problems. However, it was not possible to gain much insight into the extent to which the teaching units and Eloosis, when used over a longer period of time, could impact on the development of the experimental skills. The reason for this lies within the restrictions on time and the Willingness of the schools to allow such a prolonged access to their pupils. It also emerged from the interview results that most pupils, in their responses, confused experimenting with practical work. This finding explains why a significantly higher number of the pupils indicated that what they liked most about their science lessons were experiments.

The ideas of children's rights, children's right to education and compulsory education are widely accepted nowadays, if only in general terms. This thesis is concerned to explore and offer possible reasons for the acceptance of these ideas, and, particularly, to clarify the relation between the ideas of `lq children's right to education and `lq compulsory education. First, however, it is necessary to consider the general features of rights-talk, on the grounds that the denotations and connotations of rights-talk have some significant bearings on the central issues of the thesis. Thereafter, the emphasis is shifted to the question of children's rights. Certain writers' theories - namely, Hobbes', Mill's and Hart's - were once assumed to be contradictory to the idea of children's rights, but it is argued that these writers' theories have been misunderstood. Apart from clarifying these writers' theories in relation to children's rights, the thrust of this thesis is to offer a convincing justification for the idea of children's rights in general, and children's rights is rationally acceptable and practically necessary in maintaining satisfactory relationships between children and other parties for people who are rational, self-interested, just and benevolent. It is also argued that children's right to education is justifiable on the grounds that it is an essential good for both children and society as a whole. The issue of children's right to education is tackled within the framework of liberal democracy; hence the form of education proposed is also geared to the cultivation of persons who can play a part in a liberal democracy. The issue of compulsory education is discussed. It is argued that compulsory education can be justified and that its justification is mainly based on paternalism and children's obligation to undertake education. In the concluding chapter, it is argued that children's right to education can indeed be used to justify compulsory education, but this line of reasoning should be based on paternalism, which in turn should be rights-based. The thesis finally reaches the conclusion that the option-rights tradition and the claim that rights-talk is not self-referring should be rejected.

This dissertation is an autoethnographic study recounting my experience of working in an urban primary school between 2008 and 2010. Over a two year period, during which time I was acting headteacher and then principal teacher, I recorded my experiences in a daily journal. My focus was on children, especially children living in areas of challenging socio-economic conditions. Starting with a concern that their school experiences and interactions with adults are undemocratic and unsatisfactory, my focus in this study was to question how democratic schools are for children. From the numerous themes available, I chose to focus on the experience of children through the interactions and relationships in school structures. I consider pressures on staff and the effects of policy on the profession and the impact of these on developing democracy for children. Over eight chapters, a number of themes permeate the dissertation, including relationships and an assessment of how children are viewed in school and in society generally. Children’s treatment in the school environment has barely changed over many decades. This is in direct contrast with freedoms they enjoy outside of school from, for example, their use of information communication technology. The dissertation looks to highlight the challenges that face the teaching profession and the ways in which the pressures associated with education currently conspire against developing democracy for children. I conclude by anticipating possible changes to the status quo that could, if implemented, increase democratic opportunities in schools. Prospects for change include a reassessment of leadership roles, further engagement with Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and the adoption of a more radical educational approach.