How Useful Are the Experiences of the High-Performing Education Systems?

• In Event: Educational Policy Innovations: Leveling Up and Sustaining Educational Achievement

Abstract

Purpose
The presentation will expound the usefulness of High Performing Educational Systems (HPES) experiences in the light of two contrasting views, the first which advocates the importance of learning from HPES versus the contesting voices that caution the negative implications that may arise. This presentation will present the three perspectives that advocates, argues for, and persuades policymakers to adopt a prudent disposition when utilizing the experiences of HPES in their local communities.

Perspectives
The presentation outlines three perspectives in the literature that propels one to utilise the experiences of HPES. First, there is a strong concern about the correlation between educational outcomes and a nation’s economic development. Second, there is a call for admitting the limitations of international benchmarking exercises; and third, more objectively admitting that the HPES are more fairly viewed as successfully improving systems rather than high performers per se.

Methods and Data
The presentation is based on a literature search of sociological data and its correlation to economic and development indicators from the GINI index to Human Development Index and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Multiple recent reports have been scoured through and common themes have been explored. Subsequently, data from various reports were triangulated and crossed-referenced to economic and development indicators in order to substantiate the claims by various reports concerning learning from HPES in the recent years.

Results

Social, economic and cultural inequalities have always been a problem of public concern. Sociological literature argue that inequalities perpetuate, and economic growth brings about wider differences between the rich and the poor, instead of bridging their gaps. With the growth of the middle class, economic capitals are transformed into cultural capitals that would further perpetuate and even enhance their advantages over the lower socioeconomic and cultural groups. The Gini indexes of many countries with high economic growths are discouraging, indicating the powerlessness of the free market economy to close the income gaps between the rich and poor.

However, the studies on the HPES phenomenon seem to provide a new beacon of hope. If a country invests in education, levelling up the bottom line and achieving quality education for all that would lead to high average performance and raise the quality of education that will bring about, and even enhance, equity in the system. The equity–quality conundrum can be resolved from the perspective that quality, in fact, leads to equity. The previous equity versus quality debate is now replaced by the argument that equity brings about quality and that quality is the key to unlock the barriers for achieving equity.

Significance
The presentation reveals how useful the experiences of the High Performing Education Systems (HPES) are through studying the historical patterns of past phenomena supported by strong evidence and data. Lessons to be learnt from HPES is that as a system invests in education, levelling up the bottomline and providing a quality education for all is the ultimate answer to achieving equity in a system as a whole.

Author

• Wing On Lee, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education