Analysis of USAID/Georgia Supported Basic Education Program First Cycle Implementation

The article highlights Akaki Tsereteli State University's involvement and participation in wide school reforms to establish student-centered education in Georgia. School educational reform cannot proceed and succeed without the direct involvement of the universities which carry out teacher preparation programs. Unequivocally, there should be close cooperation and collaboration between these two institutions to reach the desirable and targeted outcomes. The purpose of the article was to present the results of the survey, which was intended to assess the effectiveness of training conducted by the university trainers during the first phase of the new school reform in Georgia which focused on achieving student-centered learning. The selected trainers from the eight partnering universities were supposed to cover 2075 schools throughout Georgia (373 schools in Imereti Region) to train leader teachers and help the institution to develop new instructional methods, more specifically, to develop a school curriculum based on constructivist educational principles and apply it into practice. The survey findings assisted Pedagogical faculty in identifying existing curriculum gaps and discrepancies and taking measures to bridge them by modifying and supplementing them with the necessary content.

From Teacher Improvement to Teacher Turnover: Unintended Consequences of School Reform in Quincy, Massachusetts, 1872–1893

The “Quincy Method” is widely considered a successful nineteenth-century school reform. Pioneered by Francis Parker in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1875, it fostered broad pedagogic change in an ordinary school system, transforming Quincy into a renowned hub of child-centered instruction. This article revisits the reform and explores its interaction with the Massachusetts teacher labor market. In a market characterized by low wages and an oversupply of teachers but few experienced, well-trained ones, teachers used Quincy's reform to obtain higher-paying, higher-status positions while municipalities used it to recruit competent applicants. Both practices jeopardized Quincy's cohesive system. Though the ensuing turnover may have brought progressive pedagogies to the mainstream, departing teachers frequently assumed positions outside public schools or in systems ill-structured to maintain their expertise. Accordingly, the article probes a celebrated reform's unintended consequences and contributes to scholarship on nineteenth-century progressive school reforms and women teachers.

The Role of Teacher Educators in Curriculum Reforms in Lesotho Schools

To a certain extent, many curriculum reforms that have been introduced in Lesotho schools have been unsuccessful. Teachers’ preparedness to implement these reforms has been the major factor for the failures. Involving teacher education providers in the preparation of teacher preparedness could improve the success rate of these school reforms. Therefore, understanding how education educators prepare teachers for curriculum reforms could assist to understand why school teachers often appear to be ill-prepared for curriculum reforms. Accordingly, this paper investigated the views of six teacher educators about their role in the preparation of teachers for curriculum reforms in Lesotho schools. A questionnaire was used to collect data that were analysed thematically. The results obtained indicate that: teacher educators are involved in a limited way in Lesotho curriculum reforms; and they have limited knowledge about the current reforms. As a result, their training practices do not target to prepare teachers for the reforms introduced in schools. This explains why many studies have found teachers to be ill-prepared for any curriculum reforms in Lesotho. These findings raise awareness on the issue that teacher educators should be involved in the reforms in Lesotho. Therefore, the main recommendation of this study is to engage teacher education providers so as to make the reforms successful.

Evidence-Informed Educational Practice in Catalan Education: From Public Agenda to Teachers’ Practice

Catalonia has a long tradition of school innovation movements. These have increased in recent years as public administration and private entities have initiated substantial school reforms oriented toward the use of evidence in teaching practice. As the Catalan education system is highly autonomous, not all schools have embraced the evidence-informed practice (EIP) movement, and this has created differences between schools that choose to implement a change or innovation based on scientifically demonstrated evidence and those that do not. In the present paper, we will attempt to understand the current state of the inclusion of evidence-informed practice in Catalonia and to assess teachers’ perceptions of its adoption as part of their daily practice. In order to address these issues, we start by exploring the legal and structural framework grounding the implementation of evidence-informed practice in the Catalan system, and through interviews conducted in a sample of primary school leaders and teachers, we approach the organisational and individual level to explore the opportunities to implement an authentic evidence-informed practice approach in the Catalan education system.

The Dark Side of Detracking: Mixed-Ability Classrooms Hurt Low-Achievers’ Math Motivation

We tested how detracking school reforms, which abolish ability grouping and introduce mixed-ability classrooms, affect students’ math motivation. To do so, we made use of data from two unique natural experiments (N Study 1 = 78,376, N Study 2 = 2,257) and compared student cohorts before and after detracking. In both studies, we found low achievers’ math motivation to be substantially lower after the reform, whereas this was not the case for high achievers. Our study reminds researchers and policymakers that detracking school reforms can have unintended side effects on student motivation. Only when such negative side effects are reduced or eliminated, detracking school reforms can unfold their full potential in establishing educational equality.

THE BACK BURNER: EDUCATIONAL EQUITY, RESILIENCE, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AS A PREDICTOR ON PROMOTING STUDENTS MENTAL HEALTH

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of the current research was to determine the effect of equitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being on promoting student's mental health. The researchers eagerly explored everyday situations happening in male elementary schools of district Lahore, focusing on pandemic situations with zeal and zest. Methodology: The researchers structured causal-comparative research focusing positivist paradigm on a sample of randomly selected 980 respondents enrolled in male elementary schools of district Lahore of Punjab-Pakistan. The authors collected the data after administering Scott (2006) Educational Equity and school reforms Scale, Prince-Embury (2013) Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents, Ryff’s (1989) Psychological Well-beings Scale, and Lukat et al. (2016) Positive Mental Health Scale. After ensuring ethical considerations, the researchers run regression technique, one way; ANOVA and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (r) on the participants data. Main findings: The findings revealed that educational equity effect 81%, resilience 87.10%, and psychological well-being affect 66.60% in promoting students mental health. Educational equity, resilience, and psychological well-being have the same effect on 6th, 7th, and 8th grades students in promoting their mental health. Further a significant strong association between educational equity and mental health (r = .900**, n = 985, p < .05), resilience and mental health (r = .946**, n = 984, p < .05) and psychological well-beings and students mental health (r = .815**, n = 985, p < .05). Applications of this study: The results of the research will be applicable for headteachers, teachers, and parents to get aware of the worth of equitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being that play an enormous role in promoting students mental health. The debatable constructs of the current research will provide capable stakeholders to know the entire magnitude of mental health that drastically instigate and enhance student's vigour, attentiveness, dependability, intellectual ability, and optimism. Novelty/originality of this study: It is evident from the literature that less work is conducted inequitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being that play a massive role in promoting students mental health. In the case of Pakistan, the situation is very alarming and the meager because none of the researchers took initiative to framed research on these burning constructs. However, this research will opened new dimensions for the future researchers that will raise their intentions to explore the effect of primary, secondary, higher secondary, and tertiary level students equitable education, resilience, and psychological well-being on their mental health.