A report titled The Learning Curve, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, states that there are no magic bullets for solving the educational issues / problems we all face. The report uses quantitative and qualitative analysis and draws from a large body of internationally comparable education data. Some important points from the report:
- There are no magic bullets - 'Strong relationships are few between education inputs and outputs', 'Education requires long-term, coherent and focussed system-wide attention to achieve improvement'.
- Income matters, but culture matters more - i.e. community and society support for the kind of attitudes, thinking, and behaviours essential to our young people's successful learning and achievement.
- There is no substitute for good teachers - we need to value our teachers as professionals (attracting the best people into teaching, getting teacher training right, implementing clear goals and effective oversight, and letting teachers get on with it)
- Education is local - while a set of principles or key factors can be analysed or applied to any schooling system, it is far more difficult to determine how you might then go about improving it.
Worth a look.....
