What Can Schools Learn from Resistance to Change?
Even the most effective educational reform effort usually encounters some resistance. Resistance to change refers to any behavior furthering the maintenance of the status quo in the face of pressures to alter it. Much of the literature on change identifies resistance as a crucial element of reactions to change. Change may threaten and disturb us, but it […]
Ready to Work: Education as a Preparation for Working Life
We can no longer assume that being ‘in work’ is the same thing as being employed – ‘having a job’. As the world becomes more connected, so companies get bigger, but so too do opportunities emerge for all kinds of small-scale, niche and self-employed enterprises. Many people who do not have ‘jobs’ in the old-fashioned […]
Fostering Creativity in the Learning Process
Introducing creativity at school is as simple as redesigning the classroom layout or introducing real-world learning, writes Steven Anderson. Several months ago I was having a conversation with a colleague about creativity in learning. We debated back and forth about what creativity looked like and could you really teach creativity. All this stemmed from a comment I […]
Civil Society and the Skills Gap in Latin America
This article is part of a series on innovative solutions to tackle the main challenges of Latin American education (part 2 of 6). The global economy is increasingly defined by jobs that require less than a college degree – but more skills than what can be acquired through a typical high school education alone. At the same time, many […]
What Do Accelerators Accelerate?
In the last years, there has been an explosion in the number of new education and technology projects launched. This impressive boom of edtech initiatives is reaching all sectors and audiences: for-profit businesses are designed to address the new demands of the education market; non-profit organizations adopt technology to new and existing education projects; learners are eager […]
To Join or Not to Join: Decisions Ministries Have to Make About Assessment Studies
As we work in an international organization, we often get a question such as: “What is the right assessment for our country, an international assessment, a regional assessment, or our own national assessment?” This is probably due to the tremendous growth in the number of assessments. Since the International Association for Evaluation of the Educational […]
The China Education Debate: Equity versus Excellence
Education-WISE, Beijing has always been an embarrassment of riches. Beijing is China’s political, intellectual, cultural, and education center, and as such its schools command national attention as well as resources. Beijing also has the luxury of drawing talent from all over China, as well as building bridges to the best schools all around the world. […]
The School to Work Transition in Latin America
This article is part of a series on innovative solutions to tackle the main challenges of Latin American education (part 1 of 6). Latin America’s education systems are facing major challenges. Higher education remains off-limits to all but a small minority, and better early childhood education is desperately needed, given how our most fundamental cognitive skills develop […]
The Power of Reading Aloud
In today’s technology-driven era, reading a book is often considered boring and a chore. Reading for pleasure is an alien concept for many children around the world. A traditional book is lost amid a plethora of digital readers, iPads, and education applications. The fact that adults have very little or no time to read aloud […]
Nurture Creative Thinkers in China
The year 2015 marks China’s new era of mass “entrepreneurship and innovation.” World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) CEO Stavros N. Yiannouka observed in a recent interview that both developed and developing countries of the world are experiencing a bottleneck in economic growth. A transformed economic model is their only way out of it, as […]