Book contents
- Politics and Knowledge Shaping Educational Reform
- Politics and Knowledge Shaping Educational Reform
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Radical Curriculum Change and the Politics of ‘Implementation’
- 3 Towards a Play-Based Pedagogy in Ghanaian Kindergarten Education
- 4 Implementing Fee-Free Education in Rwanda
- 5 Policy Implementation in a Sisyphean State
- 6 Reforming the School System
- 7 Educational Reform in Scotland
- 8 The Role of Textbooks in Improving Education in Portugal
- 9 Turning Social Capital into a Working Wage
- 10 High-Performance and Equity
- 11 Missing Opportunity?
- 12 Conclusion
- Index
- References
10 - High-Performance and Equity
Closing the Gap Contributes to Success
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2025
Book contents
- Politics and Knowledge Shaping Educational Reform
- Politics and Knowledge Shaping Educational Reform
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Radical Curriculum Change and the Politics of ‘Implementation’
- 3 Towards a Play-Based Pedagogy in Ghanaian Kindergarten Education
- 4 Implementing Fee-Free Education in Rwanda
- 5 Policy Implementation in a Sisyphean State
- 6 Reforming the School System
- 7 Educational Reform in Scotland
- 8 The Role of Textbooks in Improving Education in Portugal
- 9 Turning Social Capital into a Working Wage
- 10 High-Performance and Equity
- 11 Missing Opportunity?
- 12 Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter explores how Estonia became Europe’s top performer on PISA, without that being the goal. It unpacks social and education policies and practices and interventions that have helped build a high-equity high-performing education system. These include policies and initiatives fostering equity, inclusion, learner autonomy, teacher and school principal professionalism, autonomy and responsibility. Stakeholder engagement has led to longstanding cross-party agreements on the purpose of education. Thanks to investments into evidence- and results-based planning those agreements have been generative-productive. Eighteen months of paid job-protected parental leave encourages early responsive parenting. High levels of investment into preschool education help give children a good start in life. There are national curricula, but schools reinterpret those, creating their own curricula. Stakeholders and government took bold decisions such as the digitalisation of education at a point when the idea seemed utopian. They invested in free school meals, support for students in difficulty and voluntary formative assessment systems. No less important was a shift to favouring school self-evaluation over external inspections. In addition, the system generates substantial easily accessible and user-friendly data, including perceptions of well-being, autonomy and connectedness, not just examination results. This builds internal and external accountability and contributes to stakeholder collective efficacy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Politics and Knowledge Shaping Educational ReformCase Studies from Around the Globe, pp. 153 - 171Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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