‘Reformism’ and the liberal culture: global trends in education reform, 1970–2019

Call to action for equitable access to human milk for vulnerable infants

Witnessed since the 1990s are numerous educational reforms in nearly all countries in the Asia-Pacific region, in response to the challenges and impacts of globalisation, information technology, international competitiveness, the knowledge-based economy and fast societal developments in the new millennium (Cheng and Townsend, 2000). A huge amount of resources and effort have been put into various types of educational changes and initiatives implemented in such different areas of the region as Australia, PR China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Based on findings and observations from numerous country reports and policy documents of these areas released in the past five years, an article in Section 1 of this Handbook (see Trends in Educational Reform in the Asia-Pacific Region) has identified some major trends in educational reform in the region. It provides an overall picture of the region for understanding the direction, nature and progress of the various national initiatives and efforts for the development of education in facing the challenges in the new millennium.

Among the numerous education reforms initiated in the Asia-Pacific Region (the “Region”) at the turn of the 21st century, there were teacher education reforms that aimed to equip teachers with new competence to help discharge their professional duties and expand their roles and responsibilities, and to implement new education initiatives as change agents. In such context, teacher education involves not only teachers’ pre-service training, but also all kinds of in-service or lifelong professional development and learning. Since the early 2000s, the nine trends of education reform at the macro, meso, site and operational levels have raised various challenges for policy-makers, researchers, and educators who had to re-think the theories, practices, and policies of teacher education reform in their countries and within the Region. Many education systems in the Region have also experienced three waves of education reform that followed different paradigms and had strong implications for teacher education reform. But even though a lot of resources have been invested in these reforms, people in many countries are still disappointed with the quality and performance of their teaching profession and teacher education systems in view of the increasing challenges from globalization, economic transformation, and international competition. Given the complexities of education reform and the serious concerns about teaching quality, an overview of the key reform issues is needed to draw insights for future development of research, policy analysis, and practice in teacher education reform in the Region and beyond. In particular, the issues related to and implications from the nine trends of education reforms, the paradigm shifts across the three waves, the changes in policy concerns, and the decline in education demands in the Region are analyzed.

Background: The global shortage of safe drinking water combined with urgent challenges regarding the safeguarding and sustainable management of this vital natural resource underscores the need to secure the human right to clean water access. This article explores legal water protection and examines the regulatory framework ensuring the right to safe drinking water as a critical condition for health and survival, both in Ukraine and globally. It defines the challenges of judicial protection of this right at national and global levels. Drawing on the European Union’s experience, the article suggests incorporating provisions highlighting the essential role of water resources and their direct impact on human health and well-being. Accordingly, the authors recommend improving the Constitution of Ukraine by making some amendments and revisions to environmental and healthcare legislation. Methods: This study employs a multidisciplinary methodology that combines general philosophical, scientific, specialised, and legal approaches to thoroughly examine the legal frameworks governing the human right to safe drinking water. These frameworks are crucial for protecting human health and life in Ukraine and beyond. The authors employed descriptive and analytical methods of inquiry, along with techniques for interpreting legal norms. The challenges of legal regulation were examined through the study of both international and national legal frameworks. Consequently, different methods were used for the research, such as dialectical, formal-logical, analytic and synthetic, system-structural, formal-legal, comparative legal, legal norm interpretation, prognostic, legal modelling, and logical-legal methods. Results and Conclusions: This study explores the legal regulation of the human right to safe drinking water as an essential part of health and life in Ukraine and in every country around the world. It also analyses the judicial protection of this right at both global and national levels. A key finding is that ensuring legal support for the right to safe drinking water is a fundamental environmental human right by making it recognised in the Constitution of Ukraine, the Fundamentals of Health Legislation, the Law of Ukraine “On Environmental Protection,” and the Water Code of Ukraine. This would significantly enhance access to clean water and sanitation, aligning with Ukraine’s Water Strategy, targeted for completion by 2050. Without equitable access to safe water, fulfilling essential rights such as health, well-being, an adequate standard of living, and even civil and political rights is unattainable. The application of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) case law on environmental violations is crucial for improving judicial practice in Ukraine. It strengthens citizens' rights through the European Convention on Human Rights and helps address legal gaps, particularly in safeguarding access to water. National courts must integrate ECHR jurisprudence when addressing issues related to water rights. Codifying the human right to safe drinking water in Ukrainian law will empower national courts to enforce this norm, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive protection system.

In the implementation of curriculum reform reaching across the Mexican educational system, the term innovation has been the key factor associated with the design and implementation of new curriculum models and the implementation of alternative teaching methods. The claimed innovation is intended to meet the demands facing Mexican education to a complex and increasingly globalized society. However, the incorporation of certain innovative models (curricular flexibility, competency-based education, learner-centered curriculum, incorporating ICT in education, among others) comes not only from the apparent need for change and quality improvement educational, but is based on a series of international trends in education reform. The most recent reforms have been driven by policies emanating from national and international organizations not only in the education sector, but the economic and business environment, with a clear dependence on the proposals to evaluation linked to education funding. Recent studies found that innovation is not encouraged and that systemic changes involved in education, teachers and students, have experienced significant tensions in the process of appropriation of curricular innovations.

Introduction. Political human rights are an integral part of a democratic system and provide the opportunity for each person to participate in the formation of state power, control over its activities and protect their own interests. Their study is especially relevant in the context of the spread of authoritarian tendencies in some countries, restrictions on freedom of speech, participation in the management of state affairs; armed conflicts and crises that threaten the basic political rights of citizens, such as the right to vote, the right to freedom of assembly, etc.; the digitalization of politics, which creates new challenges (censorship on the Internet, cyberattacks to influence elections); the need for effective implementation of international standards, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 and the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. Summary of the main research findings. Political human rights are a set of rights that provide an individual with the opportunity to participate in the political life of society and the state. They directly affect the ability of an individual to exercise their other rights and freedoms, therefore their protection is of fundamental importance for the stability and development of the legal systems of modern states. Fundamental political rights include: the right to participate in the management of state affairs (personally or through representatives), which is enshrined in Article 25 of the ICCPR; the right to vote and to be elected; the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion - Article 18 of the ICCPR; the right to freedom of expression - Article 19 of the ICCPR, Article 10 of the ECHR; the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association - Articles 21, 22 of the ICCPR, Article 11 of the ECHR; the right to access information; the right to appeal to state authorities. These rights are fundamental and in many cases have a status close to the norms of jus cogens (peremptory norms of international law). That is why they have extensive protection systems at both the national and international levels. The national level can be briefly represented by constitutional guarantees (for example, the Constitution of Ukraine, Chapter II “Rights, Freedoms and Duties of Man and Citizen”), the system of judicial protection (courts of general jurisdiction and specialized courts), the institution of Ombudsmen (human rights commissioners), the work of election commissions and administrative control bodies, etc. This publication pays special attention to the evolution of the system of international protection of political human rights. In particular, at the global level within the UN system, this is the Human Rights Committee, whose competence includes the consideration of individual complaints under the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. At the regional level, for example, in the Council of Europe system, this is the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which considers complaints about violations of political rights under the European Convention. The OSCE system includes the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), whose competence includes election observation and democracy support, etc. Conclusion. The conclusions emphasize the presence of significant challenges facing the system of protection of political rights, and their study is especially relevant in the context of transformational processes in the world - from the change of political regimes to the challenges of the digital age. Ensuring effective mechanisms for their protection at the national and international levels remains a key condition for the establishment of democratic values, the rule of law and sustainable development of society.

In this article, we discuss principals’ perspectives on the priority given to the place in the curriculum of and the supporting practices related to health and sustainability education in schools in Denmark (for pupils aged 6–16). The study is situated within the discourses about critical health and sustainability education and treats the two issues as societal challenges that are important to address in schools as educational examples. We draw on the literature on school leadership challenges linked to global neoliberal trends in educational reform. The context of the study is the ongoing school reform in Denmark. The data were generated through an online survey of principals in Denmark (n = 118). The findings show that although the principals view school as an important arena for health and sustainability education, their actual support for such education lags behind. Health education is prioritized somewhat more than sustainability education; however, both are characterized by insufficient attention to teachers’ professional development and the low prioritization of collaboration within the school and between the school and community actors. Acknowledging the contradicting demands that principals face in the context of the reform, we argue for reconnecting the concept of leadership with the wider purposes of schooling and for providing space for an emergent, whole-school curriculum that addresses health and sustainability.

One of the current international trends in educational reform is the devolution of decision-making powers from central government to school level. This trend is related to a move towards institutional autonomy, the so-called site-based (i.e. school-based) management of institutions, which refers to the issue of self-management of the institution. School-based management is no longer an option but, rather, a reality in South African education. Legislation and policy documents all point South Africa firmly towards a school-based system of education management. The new policy framework for decentralised decision-making is also embedded in the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996. This enables each school in South Africa to renew its management in a responsible and effective way. In spite of its widespread implementation, school-based management has locally received only moderate attention in terms of stakeholder participation and the impact of stakeholder values on the school-based management process. In response to this, this article is an attempt to incorporate a strategy to conceptualise stakeholder participation in school-based management and assess the impact of stakeholder values on the school-based management process. This philosophical review of the literature on school-based management also aims at raising and answering some of the questions about stakeholder participation and stakeholder values in school-based management in South Africa, where educational reform is the norm rather than the exception.

Educational reform in the Asia-Pacific region, which is one of the fastest developing areas in the world, is receiving strong and intensive local and global attention. Since the 1990s, huge national resources have been invested in education and related initiatives in nearly every country in the region for bringing about substantial improvement and development in many different aspects of society (Cheng & Townsend, 2000). Unfortunately, many countries are still very disappointed with their education systems in view of the challenges of the new century. In order to redress the problems in their education systems, more and more reforms are now proposed to improve the practice and effectiveness of education at different levels. The major question to be asked is: what lessons can be learnt and shared from these ongoing educational reforms in the region such that we can avoid repeating failure, thus, preparing for policy formulation and implementation of educational changes in each of our own countries?

СУЧАСНІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ РЕФОРМУВАННЯ СИСТЕМИ ОСВІТИ НОРВЕГІЇ

Why are some advocacy group populations biased towards business interest representatives? In this paper, we assess an underexplored source of variation in advocacy populations, namely the governance level at which advocacy populations are located. More precisely, we analyse whether national advocacy group populations are more likely to contain relatively large proportions of business interest associations compared to transnational advocacy group populations. We examine three competing hypotheses: (1) biases are stronger at the national level than the global level, (2) biases are more pronounced at the global level than the national level and (3) no differences emerge in business mobilization across the national and transnational levels. We test our hypotheses based on a novel dataset of national, European Union (EU) and global advocacy group populations. Our results indicate that the global level is different from the EU and national levels, in that it contains relatively low proportions of business interest representatives.

Development of human rights and citizenship rights is based on publication of its concepts among the people in global society. This publication of concepts and introduction of the people from different nations to human rights are done through education. Media with their role in transfer of information and knowledge have educational function. Media with their educational function ensured education right as one of the human rights while informing the public thoughts with their own rights and increasing their demands through human rights and citizenship rights education. Human rights and citizenship rights education activate the people of society in normalization of the related rules and this media education which is directly and indirectly related to obligation of states to right of education binds the states to respond to increased demands of human rights and citizenship rights and take action regarding development of the human and citizenship rights in national and international level. Human rights and citizenship rights have exclusive capability which leads to increased awareness of states with human and citizenship rights and increased demands of states and international society considering high number of media addresses and diversity of their content in presentation of materials about human and citizenship rights in education for all society levels and increased demand leads states and international society to develop norms of the human and citizenship rights through legislation, codification and enactment of the conventions on human rights and this process leads to development of human and citizenship rights at local and global levels.

This study investigates the engagement of primary school students in mobile English learning under China’s Double Reduction Policy, which aims to reduce excessive homework and extracurricular tutoring while promoting balanced academic development. The study examines how personal, interpersonal, and educational policy factors influence students’ behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement in mobile learning. A questionnaire was administered to 260 students, and the findings indicate a moderate overall level of engagement, with emotional engagement being the highest and cognitive engagement the lowest. While students exhibit enthusiasm for mobile learning, they face challenges in effectively applying cognitive strategies. The analysis also reveals that personal and educational policy factors significantly influence engagement, with interpersonal interactions playing a particularly strong role in emotional and cognitive engagement. While the policy is unique to China, its emphasis on reducing academic pressure and enhancing student well-being reflects broader global trends in educational reform.

The chapter analyses current emerging research trends in education reforms around the world. The chapter critiques and evaluates a neo-liberal and neoconservative education policy reforms globally. It discusses meta-ideological hegemony and paradigm shifts in education. It analyses globalisation processes impacting on education and policy reforms, both locally and globally, designed to promote economic competitiveness, national identity and social equity through education reforms. The chapter critiques standards-driven and outcomes-defined policy. The analysis of education policy reforms, and the resultant social stratifications in the global culture, demonstrates a complex nexus between globalisation, ideology and education reforms – where, on the one hand, democratisation and progressive pedagogy is equated with equality, inclusion, equity, tolerance and human rights, while on the other hand, globalisation is perceived, by some critics at least, to be a totalising force that is widening the inequality, and the socio-economic status (SES) gap and cultural and economic capital between the rich and the poor, and bringing power, domination and control by corporate bodies and powerful organisations.

BackgroundAlthough studies have looked at type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in adults, global studies on youth with T2DM are relatively scarce. Understanding the global, regional, and national trends and burden of T2DM in this special population is critical to developing effective preventive control measures and strategies. Therefore, this study aims to shed light on the specific challenges facing different populations and regions to ultimately guide global action.MethodsBased on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2021, the incidence, prevalence, and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) of youth with T2DM aged 15–24 years from 1990 to 2021 were extracted and analyzed at global, regional, and national levels. Point estimates with 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) were used to calculate the average annual percentage changes (AAPCs) of incidence, prevalence, and DALYs. Subsequently, trends were thoroughly analyzed at the global, regional, and national levels, and the global trends were analyzed in detail by factors like age, sex, and social development index.ResultsThe global incidence, prevalence, and DALYs of T2DM in youth increased to varying degrees from 1990 to 2021. With an AAPC of 2.62 (95% CI: 2.42 - 2.81), the global incidence of T2DM increased from 56.0 per 100–000 population in 1990 to 123.9 per 100–000 population in 2021. The incidence of increase in males (AAPC 2.68, 95% CI: 2.47 - 2.89) was higher than in females (AAPC 2.51, 95% CI: 2.35 - 2.66). The incidence increased with increasing age, but the largest increase was found in youth aged 15–19 years (AAPC 2.72, 95% CI: 2.47 - 2.96). High SDI areas saw the greatest increase in incident rates (AAPC 3.48, 95% UI: 3.43 - 3.52) compared with other areas.ConclusionThe increasing global incidence, prevalence, and DALYs of T2DM in youth presented a large burden to public health over the past thirty years, while the trends and burden vary by region, nation, gender, age, and level of development. Our study highlights the significance of developing targeted public health policies and strategies to respond to the heterogeneity among youth with T2DM.