Some widely spread beliefs and concepts about education reforms are but mere myths because they are taken for granted without being backed or supported by sound research or solid evidence. Some of such myths emerge in the context of developing countries that embark on introducing reforms into their education systems; they quickly stick to the floating generalizations when they run non-evidenced comparisons with higher achieving countries in education; such myths include, but not limited to:
- Reducing class sizes results in better education outcomes.
- Improving the physical infrastructure of schools improves student outcomes.
- Overhauling initial teacher training will radically increase student achievement.
- More school autonomy leads to higher performance than centrally dictated educational systems.
- Subjecting students more to standardized tests increases their educational attainment.
- More spending on education increases the quality of education and of outputs/graduates from the system.
These are but some commonly held beliefs that are always subject to heated debates among educators and policy-makers in most world countries despite the fact that there are evidence-based counter arguments. Big class sizes have not been an obstacle for higher performance and achievements by students in, for example, South Korea and Singapore. Good teacher college training cannot be a guarantee for better teacher performances without continuous professional development on the job. Similarly, the infrastructure and school physical environment improve the image of the school environment but not necessarily students’ achievements. Not to mention that the most of the highest spending countries on education rank at the bottom of global education quality classification lists; some GCC[1] countries are good examples to cite.
I have examined and read about, and been involved in, many educational reforms that took place in many countries; reforms are driven by various, sometimes contradictory, underlying pedagogies or policies. These policies are serving political and/or social ideologies and agendas. Therefore, most often such reforms stumble and lose their momentum even before they reach their aspired results. And even most ambitious reforms that are celebrated as great successes have not been sustainable in most countries of the world, such as Chile, Tunisia, UK and Czech Republic in the period 1990s-2000s; these are but some examples, and the same applies to a huge number of education reforms attempted across the world over the last few decades. However, this should not dim the picture of some bright spots of success stories that took place in Finland, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, etc. Therefore, what common characteristics underlie these successful systems? I will try to answer this question in the following chapters.
[1] GCC: Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).
