Government School System Research Articles

Revolutionising the Indian Government School System with the Help of AI and other New Age Technological Developments

Education is essential for individuals to participate in a democratic society, enjoy their rights and fulfil their responsibilities. -John Dewey For a man to be able to negotiate a community life in fulfilling ways and develop a sense of autonomy is the elementary purpose of education. Hence a strong public education system is a requisite for the needs of all, even for the poor and marginalised sections of the society. The norm followed in India is to run behind private education institutes and run away from government schools because of the inadequate infrastructure and demotivated staff. Hence to break these shackles of stereotype mindset, implementing AI at government schools to maximise the quality of education and reach every part of the number one populous country stands important. Not just reaching a large number but also to alter the age-old pattern of learning, with the aid of new technologies and AI the learning process could be given a new direction where the needs of each learner will be met based upon their grasping and understanding of the subject. AI will also play a crucial role in beating the shortage of staff. Private organisations have adopted VR and AR to create immersive and engaging learning experiences, while other new-age technologies such as cloud computing, learning analytics, and blockchain are also used to achieve monopoly in the private education industry. The Indian government should invest in developing and implementing AI-powered learning platforms and other new-age technologies in government schools to serve every Indian who can not afford private institutions. The government should also provide training to teachers on how to use these technologies effectively with certification. By doing so, the Indian government can help to ensure that all students have access to a high-quality modern education. For a country as massive as India in terms of population and democracy both, implementing it is not an easy task, but if changes are made in the legislation to revolutionise the Government school system in India , days are not far where AI will take the whole education system on to an affirmative path. This whole research paper is an analysed perspective of the same topic.

Charter school reform in Abu Dhabi: policy borrowing, translation and frenemies

ABSTRACT This research investigates the implementation of charter schools in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the effects of this policy change on education workers. Operation by for-profit education management organisations shifts the government policy on UAE national students, changing the education governance of the government system to be more like that of local international schools. This research aimed to understand the reform based on the experiences of charter school administrators, schoolteachers, charter operator managers, and other stakeholders. The main findings relate to policy translation, policy mobilities, and the complexity of the relationship between for-profit school operators and the government regulator. The importance of this research is understanding how a government school system can be subsumed by an entirely private, for-profit education system.

Oral Health Status among Children between the Ages of 12 and 15 Attending Government and Private School Systems in Bareilly City

Background: Statistics on the oral health status of children from various socioeconomic backgrounds are available through assessments of children’s oral health status in public and private schools. The current study’s objective is to evaluate and compare the levels of oral hygiene, gingival health, and caries experience among students attending government and private schools in Bareilly City. Subjects and Methods: The study participants were selected using a stratified random sample technique combined with cluster sampling. The oral hygiene state, gingival status, and caries experience of 12 and 15-year-old students from three public and private schools were evaluated and compared. Three qualified and calibrated investigators used a mouth mirror and explorer while doing the test outside in the daytime. Results: The research observes 604 kids in all, 331 from the government and 273 from private homes. Kids attend government schools had a mean oral hygiene index that was simplified (OHIS) that was greater (2.9 [1.1]) than kids attending private schools (0.6 [0.4]). Children attending government schools had higher mean gingival scores and mean decaying, missing, and filled tooth than those attending private schools. Students at government schools were far more likely to have poor oral hygiene, mild to severe gingivitis, and caries encounter. Conclusion: Compared to children attending government schools, students who attend private schools had a considerably lower rate of oral illnesses. Therefore, in any statewide school oral health programs that are proposed, children from government schools should be given preference over those from private schools

TEACHING AS CIVILISING MISSION: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTION OF SCHOOLING IN RURAL BASTAR

Since the creation of the administrative and epistemic category of savage in the late 19th century, the dichotomy of savage- civilised had been an intrinsic part of school education in Adivasi areas. Though, in contemporary academic discourse, the colonial construction of tribe is now considered as myth however, in actual teaching practices education as civilising mission is still constituting educational reality of Adivasi students. Drawing data from ethnographic fieldwork, conducted in rural Bastar, this paper attempt to explore the ongoing conflation between school education and civilising mission from the teacher’s perspective. The paper argues that relegation of teacher professional development in government school system under neoliberal regime draw limitation to visualise their role in broader framework of liberal education. As a result, with all good intension and commitment, they locate the Adivasi community and students in a dominant framework of savage and uncivilised and define school education as civilising mission.

Oral Health Status among Children between the Ages of 12 and 15 Attending Government and Private School Systems in Bareilly City

Background: Statistics on the oral health status of children from various socioeconomic backgrounds are available through assessments of children’s oral health status in public and private schools. The current study’s objective is to evaluate and compare the levels of oral hygiene, gingival health and caries experience among students attending government and private schools in Bareilly City. Subjects and Methods: The study participants were selected using a stratified random sample technique combined with cluster sampling. The oral hygiene state, gingival status and caries experience of 12 and 15-year-old students from three public and private schools were evaluated and compared. Three qualified and calibrated investigators used a mouth mirror and explorer while doing the test outside in the daytime. Results: The research observes 604 kids in all, 331 from the government and 273 from private homes. Kids attend government schools had a mean Oral Hygiene Index that was Simplified (OHIS) that was greater (2.9 [1.1]) than kids attending private schools (0.6 [0.4]). Children attending government schools had higher mean gingival scores and mean decaying, missing and filled tooth than those attending private schools. Students at government schools were far more likely to have poor oral hygiene, mild to severe gingivitis and caries encounter. Conclusion: Compared to children attending government schools, students who attend private schools had a considerably lower rate of oral illnesses. Therefore, in any statewide school oral health programs that are proposed, children from government schools should be given preference over those from private schools.

Evaluation of Phonics Content in PTB Primary Grade Text Books and Assessment Schemes: Scope for Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) and Assessment Tools

This research aims to evaluate the phonics content in primary level textbooks by Punjab textbook board and the assessment schemes from the perspectives of their strengths and weak aspects for teaching and assessing phonics as an oral skill. The scope for the technology-enhanced learning and assessing tools is also highlighted as a supporting tool for phonics teaching in government school system for the leaners and teachers simultaneously. Following a qualitative approach, the methodology of document analysis was adopted to carry out the evaluation through researcher made checklists. The English textbooks taught from KG-Grade V were surveyed thoroughly to investigate the phonics related activities given in each unit of book; the formative and summative assessment schemes were also probed into to explore the synchronization between teaching and assessment material. The findings realized a serious discrepancy that phonics content in the textbooks despite being relevant and appropriate could be potentially exploited to be taught through alphabetic method in case of not supported with some audio-visual material. Assessment schemes related to phonics skill of primary grade learners also assessed it mostly through written exercises that can have serious impact on the teaching practices and methodology of teachers as they may tend to make the learners cram the phonics concepts instead of uttering the sounds and develop the sound-letter association. On the basis of these findings, recommendations are made to use technology-enhanced tools for phonics teaching at primary level as supporting materials and assessing it as an oral skill.

Voluntary Contributions to Society: The Impact of School Systems

The question of how much religious schools contribute to the preparation of their students for citizenship has long been debated and empirical evidence has been mixed. A national Australian survey, Contributing to Australian Society, conducted in 2016 by the Christian Research Association, provided the opportunity for a quantitative study comparing the graduates of government, Catholic, independent high-fee, and low fee Christian school systems in their patterns of informal and formal adult volunteering as expressions of active citizenship. The survey found that the graduates of non-government secondary schools displayed higher rates of both formal and informal volunteering. However, stronger factors in graduate volunteering were parental volunteering and volunteering at school or in religious organizations.

Perception of school community on introducing activity-based oral english for students in government school system

Perception of school community on introducing activity-based oral english for students in government school system

Economy and Doing Gender: a Comparative Study of Government and Non-government School Systems

Gender is an ongoing phenomenon and no finality about gender perception and representation can be had. Different variables play a significant role in shaping gender perceptions. Similarly, the present research critically analyzes the written essays from the students of government and non-government school systems in Punjab Pakistan about doing gender. The data was collected on 10 October 2020 from the students of Bacon House school at Multan and Government Elementary School at Vehari. It was collected under four major headings including religion, economy, social roles and physical attributes about being male and female. The present research has employed Mills (1995) model of Feminist Stylistic Analysis because half of the participants include female and half are of male gender. Moreover, the researchers have also implied Fairclough’s 2012 model of Critical Social Analysis which argues that in order to analyze a text one should know normative and Marxist critique of language. The rationale behind using these research models is to know the effect of economy on the perception and representation of gender from the participants of different school systems. The analytical categories of the amended research model include; normative critique, representation, marxist critique and critical social analysis. The findings of the research reveal that economy is a significant feature in making and rapturing an individual’s perception about being male and female because the students belonging to non-government school systems have expressed their views about being a male and female more in terms of economy as compared to their counterparts. Additionally, the research confirms that doing gender never stops.

‘Driven in a Cart Pulled by Elephant and Horse Together’- the Perception of Government School Teachers about their Capacity Building through Public-Private Partnership

The purpose of this study is to identify the relevance and adequacy of capacity building initiatives from government school teachers’ point of view. The enrolment of students in government schools in India is dwindling due to poor teaching-learning practices and so to enhance the quality of education and supplement government’s efforts in capacity building of teachers a unique public -private partnership (PPP) based teacher mentor program has been initiated at Pune city in India. The data collected from both the survey and in-depth interview of fifty government school teachers were analyzed through framework approach to identify teachers’ perceptions on A) what according to them is effective capacity building, B) the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the ongoing PPP based training and C) their suggestions on the way forward. The findings reveal the deeper reasons for sub-optimal results despite the best intentions from both government and private partners. Metaphorically inferred, the PPP based capacity building is like an elephant and a horse pulling a cart together. Where ‘Elephant’ denotes the large, powerful yet bureaucratically slow placed government school system and ‘Horse’ represents the goals driven and fast-paced external (PNGE) specialist/ catalyst. The researchers hope that the insights from teachers’ ‘voices’ will help optimize the outcome envisaged by the PPP, and the findings will foster the advocacy for deep-rooted policy changes. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.19.1.2

Language Mastery of Refugee Children in Malaysia Despite Adverse Circumstances

Refugee education is a challenge to the Malaysian government, with the ever rising influx of refugees into the country. Malaysia has policies in place whereby refugee children are not entitled or allowed an education in the government school system. They are encouraged to secure private education. The researcher was appointed as the external examiner for Year Six, the final year of Primary Education, whereby it was noted that a number of students had mastery of languages despite their adverse circumstances as refugee children. Eleven students from the refugee camp were randomly selected on the basis of anonymity. They were interviewed within a secure environment and this data was analysed along with the test answer scripts. The study seeks to explore plausible reasons for their language mastery despite adverse circumstances and offers insights for the findings to be applied within a local context where English is taught as a second language. Key words: refugee, education, mastery, languages

Parental Employment Effects of Switching from Half‐Day to Full‐Day Kindergarten: Evidence from Ontario's French Schools

Full-day kindergarten programs are expanding across North America, driven by a policy focus on early childhood development. These programs also affect parents' budget sets and may lead to changes in labour market outcomes. We exploit the unusual nature of Ontario's government school system to examine parents' labour supply response to a move from half-day to full-day kindergarten in Ontario's French – but not English – schools. We find no robust evidence of labour supply effects for fathers in two parent families, and only some limited and modest effects on mothers in two parent families. For single mothers, the point estimates suggest large and statistically significant effects on employment and hours of work, and in particular for working longer hours.

APPLICATION OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY INTO THE CLASSROOM TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS BY THE IN-SERVICE GRADUATE TEACHERS IN SRI LANKA

Sri Lankan school system heavily depends on the government school system with the free education from primary school to university level (only for undergraduate level). By the end of the year 2016, the total number of government teachers in Sri Lanka was 232,555 and they were divided into several categories as graduate teachers (99,724), trained teachers (127,857), untrained teachers (2,426), trainee teachers (1887) and other teachers (661). The Ministry of Education is trying to promote modern technology in Sri Lankan education system in many ways. The objectives of the study were to check the gender wise in-service graduate teachers’ qualifications with regard to modern technology, find out gender wise graduate teachers’ resources related to modern technology, investigate the practical use of modern technology for classroom teaching- learning process and look into the possible challenges which may rise when in-service graduate teachers implement modern technology into classroom teaching. Data was collected by a questionnaire (whole sample 558 graduate teachers) and a semi structure interview schedule (10% of the total sample 56). Data was analyzed by using both methods qualitative (descriptive) and quantitative (percentages). Majority of the graduate teachers had followed at least one computer training programme. Majority of the teachers expressed their willingness to follow a computer course. Majority of the teachers possessed a mobile phone which could access the Internet. In addition to this many of them had own laptop or desktop. Majority of the graduate teachers used the Internet from home. Many teachers had used radio/ cassette recorders as modern technical devices. Many teachers said that they have electricity (87%) and computers (52%) in their schools. Even though, majority of the teachers said that, they were not given the phone (61%) or the Internet facilities (67%) from school. Following recommendations were made for the study; in-service graduate teachers should be given more opportunities and facilities for computer training, graduate teachers should be encouraged to use available modern technical devices for the classroom and they should be given necessary training to use them appropriately, teachers should be given more opportunities to use the Internet in schools. Article visualizations:

Collaborative Oer Adoption by a Professional Learning Community, a Model of Teacher Professional Development

The authors, as members of IT for Change, an NGO working in the area of digital technologies and social change, participated in the ‘Subject Teacher Forum program (STF), an in-service Teacher Professional Development (TPD) program for government high school teachers across Karnataka, between 2011 and 2016. The primary purpose of the Subject Teacher Forum was to demonstrate a technology mediated model of continuing teacher professional development, introducing teachers to different digital tools for creating resources and and for connecting with one another through a state-wide mailing list based Professional Learning Community (PLC). As a part of the Subject Teacher Forum program, the DSERT began a related initiative called the ‘Karnataka Open Educational Resources’ (KOER) to publish the resources shared in the state-wide mailing lists. A core group of mathematics, science and social science teachers, members of the state-wide PLC, were selected to lead this development of Open Educational Resources (OER). This core group learnt to access, create, revise, remix and publish OER on the KOER repository. The aim of the paper is to understand how an OER creation process embedded within a PLC can support the adoption of OER in a government school system as well as provide a method of TPD.

Professional Learning Communities, an ICT Integrated Model of In-Service Teacher Education

n-service teacher-education (INSET) in the Government school system is characterized by centralized program design, didactic teacher professional development (TPD) processes and limited interaction amongst participants during and after training. The National Curricular Framework for Teacher Education, 2010 has envisioned an INSET that is self-directed, peer-based, continuous learning; recognizing and building on teacher experiences. The ‘Subject Teacher Forum’ (STF), an INSET program of RMSA and DSERT Karnataka has attempted such an INSET, through the creation of a ICT enabled Professional Learning Communities (PLC). The STF focused on strengthening digital competencies among teachers, in using free educational software applications (like Geogebra, Phet, Freemind), authoring tools (to create text, image, audio and video resources), web tools (like maps, search) and web resources (like encyclopedias, dictionaries) for their TPD and teaching-learning. IT for Change, the resource institution partnering DSERT, trained Master Resource Persons, who trained colleagues across Karnataka, using a ‘blended cascade’ approach. The participating mathematics, science and social science government high school teachers have shared ideas, experiences and open educational resources (OER) on the virtual forums of their PLC. “An analysis of the interactions on the forums is indicative of growing awareness, proactive participation and the development of a community. The training interventions have introduced teachers to a variety of software tools and web resources, encouraging them to engage with these resources, create their own and share them with their peers. The STF is implemented by the government system, using existing infrastructure and budgets. Being systemic, it has the potential to scale and sustain. Based on the 3rd RMSA JRM recommendations; Telangana and Assam have initiated INSET, contextualizing the Karnataka STF experiences to meet their priorities. Through an analysis of these programmes, the paper explores a PLC-OER based INSET model that could reform TPD, and facilitate OER development in Indic languages.

The ‘Teachers Diploma Program’ in Zambian Government Schools: A Baseline Qualitative Assessment of Teachers’ and Students’ Strengths and Challenges in the Context of a School-Based Psychosocial Support Program

In Zambia, as elsewhere throughout sub-Saharan Africa, orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) face multiple physical, emotional, social and psychological challenges which often negatively affect opportunities for educational attainment. REPSSI (Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative), in collaboration with, the University of Cape Town and other African academic institutions, developed the Teachers’ Diploma Program as part of the Mainstreaming Psychosocial Care and Support into Education Systems to provide teachers and school administrators with the knowledge and skills to provide needed support to students and enhance their learning environments. During initial implementation of the Teachers’ Diploma Program in Zambia (2013-2016), qualitative data was collected as a part of larger outcomes and process evaluation. In the current paper, these qualitative data are presented to describe baseline challenges and strengths within the Zambian government school system and early indicators of change during the first ten months of program implementation. These in-depth data provide both teachers’ and students’ experiences and perspectives and are being utilized to further strengthen the Teachers’ Diploma Program as the Zambian Ministry of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Childhood moves forward with plans to implement the training at a national level in colleges of teacher education.

Mainstreaming an Effective Intervention: Evidence from Randomized Evaluations of 'Teaching at the Right Level' in India

Previous randomized studies have shown that addressing children’s current learning gaps, rather than following an over-ambitious uniform curriculum, can lead to significant learning gains. In this study, we evaluate a series of efforts to scale up the NGO Pratham’s approach to teaching children according to their actual learning level, in four Indian States. While this approach was previously shown to be extremely effective when implemented with community volunteers outside of school, the objective of these new scale-up evaluations was to develop a model that could be implemented within the government school system. In the first two instances (Bihar and Uttarakhand), the methodology was not adopted by government schoolteachers, despite well-received training sessions and Pratham support. Motivated by the quantitative and qualitative analysis of these early attempts, we adapted the approach and designed large-scale experiments in the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to test two new scale-up models. In Haryana, teachers received support from government resource persons trained by Pratham, and implemented the approach during a dedicated hour. In Uttar Pradesh, Pratham volunteers implemented high-intensity, short-burst “learning camps” for 40 days, in school and during school hours, with additional 10-day summer camps. Both models proved effective, with gains in language of 0.15 standard deviation in Haryana, and 0.70 standard deviations in Uttar Pradesh, on all students enrolled in these schools at baseline. These two models provide blueprints that can be replicated inside other government systems.

Reconceptualising inclusion as participation: Neoliberal buck-passing or strategic by-passing?

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates increases in the identification of special educational needs in the New South Wales (NSW) government school system over the last two decades, which are then discussed with senior public servants working within the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC). Participant narratives indicate deep structural barriers to inclusion that are perpetuated by the discourses and practices of regular and special education. Despite policies that speak of ‘working together’ for ‘every student’ and ‘every school’, students who experience difficulty in schools and with learning often remain peripheral to the main game, even though their number is said to be increasing. There is, however, some positive progress being made. Findings suggest that key policy figures within the NSW DEC are keenly aware of the barriers and have adopted alternative strategies to drive inclusion via a new discourse of ‘participation’ which is underpinned by the linking of student assessment and the resourcing of schools.

EL APRENDIZAJE DE LA LENGUA COMO UN FIN EN SÍ MISMO O COMO UN MEDIO PARA EL DESARROLLO DE UN SABER SOCIAL Y CULTURAL

The following article is a revision, adjustment and update of the Basic Standards of Language Competence (EBC as in Spanish “Estandares Basicos de Competencia) that are being carried out in the country, but their main goal is to overcome the barriers of the last discussions that took place and to be able to propose, in a positive way, some considerations about setting up standards of an area of knowledge such as language and the implications that this endeavor supposes for the teaching-learning process in the classroom. In the same way, the most important contribution will be to provide tools to go beyond the dichotomy between language teaching as a means itself, towards the challenge of understanding it as a means for the development of creativity and a social commitment with mankind. This permeates oral, reading and writing processes to rethink them from language pedagogy and didactic perspectives, critical-thinking development, the social impact learning these processes should generate, and how they can or “should” be assessed by an internal or external Government school system. The conclusion leaves us with some thoughts about the need to recover the teaching role as that of an intellectual committed with a language social and cultural teaching approach to make expected learning possible.

Exchange teachers as "another link in binding the [British] Empire" in the interwar years

This article focuses on “exchange teachers” from Great Britain plus Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, these countries constituting the white settler dominions of the British Empire. Participants in the League of Empire’s exchange scheme were mostly white middle class women elementary teachers. Reports of their work in newspapers and magazines show that they used whiteness as a strategy to differentiate the lands and peoples they encountered during their year-long overseas appointment, as well as their experiences of education in government school systems that were underpinned by race thinking. At the same time, they affirmed the British Empire and white settler national identities. Ultimately, exchange teachers were implicated in a transnational politics of whiteness binding the white settler dominions to each other and to the imperial centre in the interwar years.