Three Choices: Quality Assurance, Answerability, and Collective Responsibility in Singapore, Finland, and Norway

• In Event: Education Reform and the Reproduction of Inequalities

Abstract

This study examines the mechanisms and societal factors that support and inhibit the development of collective responsibility by looking at the ways Singapore, Finland, and Norway approach accountability and quality assurance as drivers of school improvement. A review of reform efforts in each system reveals the ways that Singapore invests in both individual accountability and collective responsibility, while Finland and Norway have focused primarily on developing the capacity for collective responsibility. Through an analysis of these different approaches, this study seeks to illuminate the ways in which the strengths and weaknesses of education systems and the efforts to improve them reflect their geographic, economic, political, and socio-cultural conditions.

Author

• Thomas C. Hatch, Teachers College, Columbia University