Should Shadow Education Stay as a Shadow or Exist as Co-curricula Alongside Mainstream Education?

Intense competition and educational privatization have fostered demands for student personalization, leading to shadow education becoming entrenched in the Asian education sector. Its social influence is expanding and far-reaching, which has attracted many scholars to study this issue. Scholars have been arguing about the adverse effects of shadow education on widening the inequality of social problems, increasing students’ psychological pressures, and also the moral conflicts that teachers face. This position paper explores and discusses the rationality of shadow education from three dimensions: social, psychological, and economic. It argues that shadow education should exist as a co-curricular or supplement to formal mainstream education because it serves as a mirror that can reflect the missing parts of formal education, as shadow education can assist lower academic performing students and cater to need-oriented functions under-utilized within mainstream education. This article concludes with some recommendations for education policymakers in the Thailand Ministry of Education (MOE) in Thailand regarding the rising of the shadow education phenomenon. With stronger oversight of shadow education operators, improved communication between mainstream schools and parents, and increased financial support to the public education sector, a dynamic synergy between mainstream schools, shadow education operators, parents and students can be achieved.

Mobility of Scholars, Expansion of Linguistic / Cognitive Space, and Translation. Asian Education in Modern Time. Presentation

Taking modern time into historical considerations, the era from the mid-19thcentury to the end of the 20th century was full of heterogeneous facts and events, including the two World Wars. Of such diverse national histories, movement of people crossing borders was common to a greater extent for Asians. In this special edition, v. 7, n. 2 (2020), the editors choose first the mobility of students as a common trend in history. The second commonality is the problems of language teaching. Japan introduced modern knowledge and skills from Europe and America. It was urgent to acquire languages of European people so that they might understand European thought and institutions as correctly as possible. Another question addressed in this Special Issue is what kind of translation there could be between nations. This kind of question reminds us of a common task for the Asians to establish their national languages. Mutual dialogue between different nations should require either common language or translation. The translation must cover not only vocabulary but concept and way of thinking. Special attention is paid too to the question of the types of tertiary education institutions which were modified into plural forms, and their curriculum and teaching styles were also re-directed towards capabilities adaptable to market needs.

Botswana’s Education System: A Relative Analysis with South Korean Education System

Any education system has its advantages and disadvantages and the Botswana education system was developed to produce critical thinkers, problem solvers and innovative students. The system was framed to provide opportunities for all learners in order to develop their capabilities. However, the system is currently faced with a myriad of challenges as there are unprecedented proportions of graduates' unemployment, poor performance from national examinations, and dropping out of school. To bring this discussion into perspective, this paper adopts a narrative approach using literature and document analysis to examine Botswana's education system in comparison with the Asian education system. The paper seeks to learn lessons from the Asian education system; in particular, South Korea as its education systems is known to be robust and efficient in producing learners who continuously make positive changes in transforming their nation. In this regard, recommendations on what could be done to rectify the situation in Botswana in light of the South Korean education system have been made.

Is There an “East Asian Education Model”? A Study on Varieties of Education Regimes

There have been limited empirical studies on the varieties of education models. This paper applies clustering analysis to classify 59 education systems in the world into clusters based on their institutional arrangements (or regimes). Using a data set obtained from the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) survey in 2015, we discover three main findings on the varieties of education models. (1) There are approximately five to eight clusters of education regimes. Among these, there are three top-performing clusters in the PISA test—namely, those focusing on test-based accountability (exemplified by Singapore), those focusing on teacher empowerment and educational equity (exemplified by Finland), and those focusing on school choices and competition (exemplified by the Netherlands). Rather than being grouped in a single top-scoring club, high-scoring education systems belong to different regimes. Thus, there are many pathways to education excellence. (2) Not all systems in the top-performing clusters have high test scores. In fact, many are doing not so well and have many challenges. Thus, policymakers should be aware that no formula of institutional arrangement can guarantee success. To adopt good practices from other countries, policymakers must analyze the strengths and weakness of their own systems and understand the conditions for successful adoption. (3) There is no clear-cut “East Asian model,” consisting mainly of East Asian countries. This implies that East Asian education regimes are not truly distinct from others. Thus, the rise of East Asia to the top of the PISA league table illustrates diversity rather than a single-best model. Our study on the varieties of education models provides policymakers with two main options for education reform. An important question is whether to improve their education systems under existing regimes or to transform them into new regimes. The leaders in the same clusters can provide lessons for improving the current systems by adjusting a few practices. Meanwhile, leaders in other clusters can provide examples for transforming into new regimes.