Arild Tjeldvoll’s research while affiliated with University of Oslo and other places

Norwegian education declined after World War II. The US-inspired education reform policy aimed at making social integration and knowledge acquisition simultaneously. That did not happen. Simultaneously with these observations I became aware of East Asia’s Confucianist inspired education thinking. Historically, there is a line of strong motivation for learning. However, this tradition had a double-edged effect. Education first was key to a very effective state administration. Then conservatism towards science and technology contributed to almost destroying Chinese independence. However, in the twentieth century, Confucianism revitalized motivation for learning and developed educational patriotism. Norway could learn from the Chinese example of education as soft power. It could learn how to regain the former position where schools are more for knowledge acquisition than social integration.

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama itin aktuali šių laikų švietimo problema - pasaulyje stiprėjanti internacionalizacija ir tradicinių nacionalinių vertybių išsaugojimas. Autoriai aptaria per pastarąjį dešimtmetį Norvegijoje įvykusius ideologinius prieštaravimus. Kartu įžvelgia didėjantį prieštaravimą tarp tarptautinių globalizacijos tendencijų ir norvegų tautos puoselėjamų vertybių bei tradicijų išlaikymo. Šalia analizuoja ir savo šalyje vykusios švietimo reformos pranašumus ir trūkumus. Remiantis išsamia reformos analize, daroma išvada, kad ekonomiškai stipri šalis gali laikinai atremti globalizacijos iššūkius. Tačiau ilgainiui šie prieštaravimai gali stiprėti ir tada šalis gali būti verčiama paklusti pasaulinėms švietimo raidos tendencijoms. Taigi straipsnyje keliamos problemos yra aktualios daugelio šalių švietimo reformų strategams.

This study investigates and identifies some of the primary determinants of Vietnam's growth during the Doi Moi era and provides an assessment of their relevance and application to contemporary challenges. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has an impressive record of economic growth and poverty reduction over the past two decades. Capitalizing on the advantages of its cultural and economic features, the strategy of incremental Doi Moi reforms has demonstrated the strength and commitment of Vietnam's political leadership. The country has achieved middle-income economy status in 2009 and is aiming to become an industrialized nation by 2020. However, on the background of mounting domestic challenges and less favorable international economic conditions, the achievement of this ambitious goal seems uncertain. Growing economic affluence may have hampered some of the positive features, which had previously been instrumental in catalyzing growth and development, and the current reform processes appear to be stalling.

The intensified competition of the global, market-based knowledge economy requires change leadership in universities and colleges throughout the world. National policy makers increasingly see knowledge as a core resource of modern economies and a prerequisite for global competitiveness. By implication, the quality of university leadership becomes crucial, both in the West as well as in Asia which has demonstrated the most rapid growth globally over the past decade. This paper explores the nature of leadership of university leadership in ‘Confucian cultural lands’. Due to certain characteristics of Confucianism, university leaders in these countries may possess certain advantages in terms of changing their organisations to become more effective in terms of meeting the goals of national policies. This link between leadership and the cultural context is discussed in terms of both potential benefits and costs with respect to leading East Asian universities in this global era.

The traditional western research university’s academic freedom is increasingly challenged by external economical interests. This has consequences for what has been regarded as a key quality dimension of a university. The balance between institutional autonomy, academic freedom and accountability to external stakeholders is claimed to be changing in disfavour of the academic freedom kept up by the professoriate. From its stakeholders the institution is expected to serve politicians, state bureaucracy and market in a qualitatively different way from before, primarily from economic motives. Is academic freedom at all possible in an institution predominantly financed by producing services to meet economic criteria? A likely answer would be no, and another tentative, answer could be that yes, it is possible, due to the strong academic legacy imbedded in western academics’ identity - and to the global communicative room of free actions made possible by the new information technology.

The article examines different understandings of school leadership in Norway by reporting the findings of a HEAD Project (2004-8). The article discusses how school leadership training in Norway has responded to the government's educational policy aims and strategies in the context of globalization. Using the concept of "education value chain," the study reveals that while the government favors professional leadership policy formulated within the New Public Management framework, the policy is not implemented in practice. Instead, the training perpetuates a tradition of focusing on teachers more than on school leaders. The reasons for this Norwegian particularity are found in the country's culture, curriculum tradition, and its present affluent national economy.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relevance of school management training programmes to current Norwegian education policies and strategies. A specific question was asked: How relevant is the teaching professors’ understanding of school management competence? The findings indicate a split understanding of policy relevant understanding of school management. A majority of respondents had an understanding of school management coherent with the national policies and strategies. A minority did not. They saw the headmaster primarily as a communicative facilitator for teachers’ work, and an ‘administrative caretaker’. In an international perspective the findings represent a Norwegian particularity. There is a collision between Norwegian anti-management legacies of running schools and the Government’s need for effective and accountable management. This may imply a slower speed of implementing educational reforms in Norway.

In common the three countries see a need for increased quality of schooling as necessary because of globalisation. Leadership is crucial to achieve quality. However, there are distinct critiques in all countries fearing ineffective bureaucratization. There is resistance among education researchers towards the market orientation and the application of the language of business. Universities have played a conservative role. In terms of differences, the UK is uniformby its centrally organised National College, while the US with over 500 programmes and no national coordination shows complexity, if not chaos. Norway, with its National Network gives much freedom to individual institutions, although the diversity leads to tensions when the municipalities now can choose the training providers. All three nations are attempting to ‘reframe and reform’. Some educators think the defining factors will be quality of performance and quality of collaboration, while others believe that there must be a shift from focus on performance to focus on learning.

The Ethiopian predicament in establishing a service university is a function of sev- eral mismatches between university, society and state: (a) between society's mainly low-tech agricultural production and the university's production of academics; (b) between the state's need for investment finances in new economic activities and the lack thereof; (c) between the state and the university in terms of proper governance and how organisational changes in higher education should be made; and (d) differ- ent opinions between state and university about the proper balance between indi- vidual academic freedom, institutional autonomy and accountability to society and state. Turning mismatches into constructive national development suggests that the government should attract foreign capital for new production activities, under the specific condition that the foreigners should simultaneously invest a certain per- centage in the country's higher education development. An important structural change would be to establish a dynamic and competent decision-making body at government level for science, technology and competence production. Donor coun- tries and agencies ought to be encouraged to support Ethiopian development projects where research, tertiary-level training and business projects can work in an inte- grated fashion and where the Ethiopian 'surplus' academic workforce power could be applied abroad.