Enquiry

Abstract

There are many pathways to educational reform and over the past decade countries in Asia and the Pacific have experimented with these. One pathway to reform is through amended or new legislation reform that can provide a broad framework for change, signal the values of the education system and suggest possible new priorities. Such reform can highlight a government’s intention to place education at the centre of a modernization strategy that can impact far beyond schools.

In this presentation examples of recent education legislation reform linked to broader social policy objectives will be reviewed.  The focus of the presentation will be Myanmar and Laos, neighbours in South East Asia but with vastly different social and political histories. Yet each country has found that the twenty first century demands much more of their education systems than has been the case in the past and the press of globalization and regionalism make it essential for them to consider change on a large scale. The key issue for discussion is whether reform and politics can be harmonised to remould the respective education systems in the ways demanded by the modernization agenda.

Speaker

Professor Kerry Kennedy is Research Chair Professor of Curriculum Studies and Director of the Centre for Governance and Citizenship at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. He is Co-Editor of the Springer Series on Governance and Citizenship in Asia,   Series Editor of the  Routledge Series on Schools and Schooling in Asia, Series Editor of Routledge’s Asia-Europe Education Dialogue Series,  and  Series Editor of the Hong Kong Teacher Education Series for Hong Kong University Press. He is Editor of Curriculum Perspectives. His forthcoming publication is a co-edited book with  Professor Andreas Brunold, Regional Contexts and Citizenship Education in Asia and Europe (Routledge, August 2015). He was the Co-Winner of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Richard M. Wolf Memorial Award for 2012. He was a consultant to UNESCO advising on the development of new education legislation for Myanmar. He has recently  undertaken work in Laos, supported by Australian Aid, advising the Ministry of Education and Sports on new education legislation.

All welcome

For registration, please email Will: at douglas@ied.edu.hk