npc managing change in education report - full version new ready

8/8/2019 NPC Managing Change in Education Report - Full Version NEW READY

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Forward

This paper was commissioned by the Chief Secretary, Northern Province, one of the key

partners of the GTZ supported Performance Improvement Project (PIP). It was written as

a response to his request for a strategy paper on cohesion and change management with

specific reference to effective disbursement of donor funds for education projects in the

Northern Province. Putting together such a document serves to carry out PIPs mandate

to strengthen the capacity of the Chief Secretarys Office in coordination, planning and

management, so that intermediary departments - in this case the Provincial Ministry of

Education, Northern Province - deliver improved services to the community.

Similar strategy papers and strategy workshops have been commissioned from GTZ PIP

by the Chief Secretaries in the past for tsunami recovery, institutional and

organisational analyses, as commissioned by the former Chief Secretary, North East

Provincial Council; for staff appraisal as commissioned by the Chief Secretary, Eastern

Province and for improving budget formulation as commissioned by the Chief

Secretaries, Northern and Eastern Provinces.

It is not the intention of the GTZ supported Performance Improvement Project to

hereafter get involved in education reform for the Northern Province, but to continue to

support the Chief Secretarys Office in on-going issues of coordination, planning and

management.


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"In some cases the education sector has contributed to the problem of skills shortage (an

important aspect of capacity deficit) by producing graduates with non-marketable skills,

or too few graduates with the right skills."

Making Government Work for the Poor Building State Capability,

Strategy Paper, London, DFID Information Department, 2001


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Contents

List of abbreviations 1

1. Introduction 2

2. Coherence 6

3. Managing change in education 10

4. Exams 19

5. Curriculum standards 21

6. Textbooks 25

7. Capacity building 26

8. Quality assurance 30

9. Summary of recommendations 32

10. Next steps 36


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List of abbreviations

AusAID Australian Agency for International Development

CfBT Centre for British TeachersDfEE Department for Education and Employment (British Government)

DfID Department for International Development (British Government)

FCE First Certificate English

GTZ German Technical Cooperation

HRD Human Resource Development

ISA In-Service Advisor

ISMEQuE Improving School Management to Enhance Quality Education

INSET In-Service Teacher Education

JICA Japanese International Cooperation Agency

KET Key English Test

MDTD Management Development Training Department, Trincomalee

NIE National Institute of Education

PET Preliminary English Test

PIP Performance Improvement Project

PISET Provincial In-service Secondary Education and Training project

PRESET Pre-Service Teacher Education

RESC Regional English Support Centres

TELT Training for English Language Teaching Communities Project

UCLES University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate

UNICEF United Nations International Emergency Fund

USAID United States Agency for International Development

ZDE Zonal Director of Education


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1. Introduction

1.1 Background

The primary and secondary school system is failing the majority of secondary school

leavers in most of Sri Lankas schools outside the main urban centres failing to providethem with the necessary skills to become productive and effective members of a changing

society. Year after year the vast majority of students fail their exams while a tiny minority

of best students learn how to be successful in school, not how to be successful in life. The

best are measured in terms of school behaviour, passing exams, being good at schooling.

They dont learn life skills, job skills, communication skills, critical thinking. Many do not

graduate as initiative-taking, responsible individuals who can be relied on to solve

problems or complete tasks independently with some sense of quality. Less than 2% get

into university. For many others, going to school is just counting the days till

unemployment.

Sri Lanka is a country without curriculum standards expressed in can do statements. It

does not measure success at school by competency in useful skills. Attendance is the main

criteria for achievement. Attendance at the right school is the main criteria for

excellence. Quality is assured by teachers covering a certain number of pages in a

textbook and students memorising the limited information on those pages. As a result real

life skills are on the decline. Literacy and numeracy rates are falling. Sri Lanka is one of

the few countries in the world which is unable to sustain its almost 100% literacy rate of

former decades. Traditional skills and values are being lost but new skills in the new

technologies are not taking their place.

There is a general malaise in the education system in Sri Lanka, a malaise which has notoccurred overnight but which has been systematically eroding best practice for more than

forty years eroding educational standards, expectations, resources and values. It is the

result of mismanagement by

a nation that is not yet prepared to put its money where its mouth is to finance

large scale educational reform because it lies at the heart of any economic, social or

political improvement for Sri Lanka;

a handful of so-called curriculum experts who have failed to be influenced by

current education research or innovation in the world around them, and have failed

to consult the captains of industry, the changing technological world, or those who

understand the real requirements of producing an educated work force;

higher education specialists who set standards, train teachers, advise on exams andcurricula who are out of touch with the realities and real needs of primary and

secondary school students and teachers;

officials who think they know all about education simply because they have had a

privileged one themselves, in an English medium school in Colombo or Kandy or

Jaffna;

politicians who do not get involved with something they will never get the credit for

because they realise educational reform takes 10 to 12 years to show a difference - a

time scale beyond their term of office;

parents who do not have the education themselves to challenge the inadequacies of

the system;

overworked, underpaid and often under qualified school administrators and teachers.


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Ethnic identity and conflict have had two lasting effects on the Sri Lankan education

system. On the one hand, education has become more nationalistic, less inclusive,

stressing the language and values of the ethnic majority. This results in tighter controls on

national textbooks and the dissemination of resources. On the other hand education has

failed to evolve. There is almost no change when we compare textbooks and curriculafrom the 1980s with the current ones. In some cases the 1980s books are better than the

ones today. There has been virtually no change in the way teachers are trained, exams are

compiled, lessons are planned, achievements are recorded. At the same time standards

have slipped. The cascade has thinned out, teacher trainers and curriculum writers have

fewer skills today than they did in the past because they in turn are the products of a

quietly deteriorating system.

Meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on. If we observe educational reform in other

developing and newly industrialised countries (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Qatar), even

industrial countries whose needs have changed (Britain, France), we see countries who

have gone for far-reaching, and on the whole, de-politicised, educational reform in orderto meet the growing or evolving demands of industry, the economy and multi culturalism.

These reforms include:

privatising textbook production - purchasing textbooks from professional writers

and private publishing houses instead of relying on the idiosyncrasies,

inefficiencies and control of government publishing houses

incorporating language corpus data in first and second language teaching to focus

on high frequency structures and vocabulary

incorporating critical thinking skills through maths, science and mother tongue

literacy teaching from early primary onwards

expressing learning and teaching in terms of competencies and can do statements

establishing curriculum and textbook standards which are transparent and

accountable to parents and students as well as school inspectors and examiners

scientifically testing the validity and reliability of test items on national exams

using criterion referenced assessment instead of norm referencing to measure

achievement

including a much higher percentage of informal (school based/project based), on-

going assessment to compliment assessment by traditional exams

incorporating participatory, learner centred, task based approaches to teaching and

learning.

If these innovations have not happened in Sri Lanka as a whole, they have happened even

less in the Northern Province, where open conflict, natural disaster, acute lack of access,resources and teachers, and a resulting brain drain, erode the system still further.

[It is important to note that incorporating information technology and computer assisted

learning does not appear on the above list, nor indeed in the rest of the report. In this

report, IT in schools in the Northern Province is seen as a divisive; a way of spending

donor money while avoiding the bigger issues listed above. Until schools have electricity

and dust-free air conditioned computer rooms, until school directors are prepared to find

and employ qualified IT personnel who can maintain equipment and systems, until the

North has internet connectivity, until relevant school software has been developed as

learning packages, until school budgets include broadband payments and virus protection

software, and until teachers receive training across the curriculum in how toincorporate IT into teaching their subjects, there is little point pursuing the IT agenda.]


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1. 2 Purpose of this strategy paper

What must the Provincial Ministry of Education do to convince a wider range of school

stake-holders school principles, supervisors, exam writers, department heads, teachers,

curriculum writers, examiners, parents and the children themselves of the need to reformteaching and learning in the Northern Province?

This paper sets out to list some of the changes that should be made in order to improve

educational system in terms of content and process, with special reference to the Northern

Province. It

suggests ways of managing and implementing change change in curriculum,

textbooks, classrooms, exams, school inspections and school-leavers heads

challenges the thinking behind what policy makers and school authorities do with

primary and secondary education in Sri Lanka

explores strategies for involving school stake-holders and making them more

supportive of educational change

looks strategically at where change can begin

shows how, by understanding the bigger picture, education reformists can find a

place to start

suggests ways donor money can be spent on individual reform components that add

up to a larger and more systematic reform programme.

1.3 Sources

The principles, best practices and lessons learnt in this paper are derived from The Department for Education and Employments literacy and numeracy reform in

primary education in Britain, (John Stannard, Director of the National Literacy

Strategy and Anita Straeker, Director of the National Numeracy Strategy) 1996

2002

The development of national competency and performance curriculum standards for

Qatar in Maths, Science, English and Arabic, Grades 1 13 according to a

competency based approach (The Supreme Education Council supported by RAND

and CfBT), 2003 2006

The British Vietnamese Governments development of provincial-based teachertraining systems and national exams for grade 6 9 English in 22 provinces of

Vietnam (Psyche Kennett, DFID/CfBT), 1997 2003

The UKs Department for International Development support for educational reform

in primary Maths and primary and secondary English in Sri Lanka (British Council

and Cambridge Consultants), 1994 - 2002

The USAID/UNICEF funded English Language Teaching Communities Project

(TELT) in Jaffna and Trincomalee, (Amy Hamlyn, British Council), 2004 - 2005.


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Descriptions of education reform theory and practice can be followed up in

Earl, L, Katz, S and Watson, N (2003) Large - Scale Reform: Life Cycles and

Implications for Sustainability, CfBT

Elmore, R. F. (1996) Getting to scale with good educational practiceHarvardEducational Review, 66(1), 1-26

Fullan, M. (2001) The new meaning of educational change (3rd edition) New York:

Teachers College Press

Fullan, M et al (2003) Watching & Learning 3, Final Report of the External

Evaluation of England's National Literacy and National Numeracy Strategies,

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Hall, G., & Hord, S. (2001) Implementing change: Patterns, principles, and potholes,

London: Allyn & Bacon

Togneri, W., & Anderson, S. (2003) Beyond islands of excellence. Washington, DC:

The Learning First Alliance

Watson, N (2003) English Language Teacher Training Project (ELTTP) Vietnam,

Report of Evaluation Consultancy CfBT (Research and Development Committee)


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2. Coherence

2.1 Coherence and sustainable educational reform

Coherence means promoting the same methodological message across curricula, materials,

school levels, subjects and institutions so that it can be reinforced efficiently and sochange can happen in a sustainable way. Most government systems and ministries of

education, including those in the US and the UK, lack coherence, because different

systems grow organically, idiosyncratically, and all the while new policy is adopted

without throwing out old.

The history of educational change and reform is replete with examples of innovations that

had an impressive impact on teaching and learning. Such innovations generate enthusiasm

and effort, but once the project ends, so does the innovation. When changes are associated

with a specific project, they rarely survive changes in staff or administrative arrangements.

The challenge is to embed the changes to build them into the education system.

Instead of being 'one more thing' the innovation becomes 'the way we do things here in the

Northern Province. Only then do new procedures and behaviours become the norm.

Only then are changes likely to be sustained.

Building change into the system in this way is not easy. Several aspects of the educational

system need to be changed to give a coherent message about what is expected. There is

little point in changing teaching methods or textbooks if students or teachers continue to

be judged by old-style examinations. If the examinations are not aligned with the new

approaches, teachers would be well advised to continue their old methods if these are

successful in preparing students for the kind of examination used. In other words, policies

and practices need to be aligned in such a way that curriculum, assessment and even

teacher education are based on similar principles about teaching and learning.

Working at project level, it is possible to achieve internal coherence, but coherence has to

go beyond project outputs to include the sustaining authorities and the institutions that also

influence what goes on in the classroom. Typically this means that although projects are

usually the baby of one department in the central or provincial ministry of education,

they must establish institutional links with many others.

2.1 Curricula coherence: reforming curricula, exams and textbooks

In the past many of Sri Lankas educational reforms have centred either on infrastructure -

school buildings, furniture and equipment, science labs, supply of textbooks, sports

facilities - or on pre-service or in-service teacher training usually within a single subject

area like English or Maths. This is because most educational reform in the past three

decades has depended on foreign funding. From the Sri Lankan side, foreign technical

interventions in school infrastructure and teacher training are non-threatening. From the

donors side, the emphasis, until recently, has been on resource centres and classroom

methodology.

However, educational reform has to cover content as well as process. School facilities andteacher training are only half the picture - they are the process of education. Education


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reform must also include curricula, textbook and examination reform they are the

content of education. It is quite usual for a host government to allow a donor to help

implement a new teacher training system, but it is unusual for a host government to invite

outsiders to re-write the textbooks, the curriculum or the exam. Usually curricula,

textbooks and exams come under the purview of a politically selected few an elite who

control the futures of millions of children. They dictate what children will learn and whatthey will not, how they will name the world around them, how they will integrate or not

integrate with children from other ethnic communities, how they will think, analyse, solve

problems for themselves. In short, curriculum writers and examiners determine how future

generations will be equipped or at a loss to deal with the needs of their rapidly changing

environment.

Reforming education content is a major task which usually requires strong political will

because it involves upheaval and a challenging of the old ways. Tony Blairs strategies for

primary education in Britain and the Emir of Qatars alternative school system and

curriculum were both massive undertakings, in terms of money, time and labour, and in

both cases they needed the backing of the nations parents, to succeed. In Britain, studentsgot a new literacy and numeracy curriculum and a dedicated extra hour for each per day.

In Qatar, new, secularised curricula for Maths, Science, Arabic and English were

introduced from Kindergarten through to Grade 12 (their last year of high school) and

parents were queuing up to get their children out of the old Ministry schools and registered

in the new Emir-supported system.

Without such political will from the centre, it is hard for any provincial ministry to reform

the content of the curriculum or textbook or exam. Creating an alternative or parallel

system and allowing parents to choose, as the Emir of Qatar did, is unfortunately not an

option. However, if you take the emphasis off the system itself and look instead at

intended outputs from that system educated and able school leavers with enhanced job

prospects then some parallels exist. Instead of creating an alternative syllabus or

textbooks, it is possible to strengthen alternatives that already exist Sri Lankas private

tutories, for example. Strengthening public-private links in education and working towards

public-private coherence can be achieved through teachers who work in both systems,

through engaging the business community and the private schools themselves to offer

scholarships, to work with commercial publishing houses to create affordable new books

that supplement the existing ones, and to seek sponsors for higher education and research

from industry.

2.2 Methodological Coherence

Methodological coherence involves promoting the same approaches from primary school

through to upper secondary school, and even beyond, to tertiary level.

More often than not participatory approaches are introduced and employed at primary

level because at primary level the method is clearly the message process is content.

Many primary educationalists agree that learning processes such as how to communicate,

express themselves, participate, work in groups, share, respect others, socialise, be part of

a team and a community, problem solve, complete tasks, etc. are the real aim of primary

education and along the way children also get a firm grounding in the content mastering

basic literacy and numeracy.


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However, as soon as the child enters secondary education all this is lost and secondary

school methodology is based on traditional lecture style, content-heavy lessons that are

teacher centred and all chalk and talk. There is no methodological coherence between

primary and secondary because of this swap from process to content. That it is why, in

traditional systems, it is very dangerous to ask university experts to advise on primary

education they themselves are lecturers, content specialists, used to teaching adults.They are not process-oriented teachers of small children, and as such know nothing about

the pragmatics of participatory, task based, child-centred methodology.

As well as striving for methodological cohesion in a vertical sense primary to secondary

to tertiary it is also important to consider methodological cohesion in a horizontal sense.

This means if a learner centred approach is to be adopted, then techniques such as guided

discovery should not only be found when teaching science but also when teaching

literacy or dance. Likewise self access should not be restricted to content-heavy subjects

like history or literature but should also be encouraged for maths and biology.

Finally, as well as vertical and horizontal cohesion, methodology should also beconsidered in terms of a looped cohesion. When there is coherence between content and

process, the medium mirrors the message and a positive loop is formed. What the teacher

says is reinforced by what the teacher does; the how and the what become interlinked

to strengthen learning and teaching.

If, in a teacher training college a lecturer gets up and gives a lecture on The Advantages

of Group work there is no process-content cohesion because the message is group work

but the medium is lecture. If, however, a teacher educator in a teacher training college puts

the participants in five groups, gives each group a different reading text on The

Advantages of Group work, has them read and discuss the main points, then mixes them

up by putting them into new groups where each member represents his/her former group

and has them teach each other what they have just read, then there is strong process-

content cohesion: the message is group work and the process uses group work as the

medium of delivery process and content have been looped.

2.3 Institutional coherence

Teacher training initiatives in Sri Lanka in the past have often failed because of a lack of

institutional coherence. Change is initiated, for example, at pre-service level and not at in-

service level or vice versa; the Regional English Support Centres (RESCs) are involved inmethodological change for teaching English but In-service Advisors (ISAs) are not;

teachers are selected and trained as trainers for their subject but when a new donor-funded

initiative is introduced other untrained teachers are selected to become trainers.

In many education systems in Asia which depend on foreign interventions, dependency

brings with it reactive rather than pro-active behaviour. Often, there is no master plan, no

capacity development scheme whereby master trainers or ISAs have their skill

systematically improved and utilised. Instead there is a kind of turn taking and spreading

of inputs in order to give everyone an equal chance. This results in bits and pieces that

dont add up to anything; there is no use of outputs.


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One way of strengthening institutional coherence is to have an HRD database where

teachers, trainers and administrators competencies can be recorded and updated.

Teacher education projects should be made to state, using coherent standards laid down by

the Provincial Ministry, what was achieved, in terms of job competencies. These

competencies can then be aligned with or added to fields in the database. Likewise the

competencies in the database can start driving up standards for classroom supervision and

performance appraisal. New projects coming in can then draw on the database to identify

key trainers or materials writers with the right competencies.

Another way of strengthening institutional coherence is to provide guidelines to projects

so that they coordinate the system for grouping schools and designating key schools at

district level. This involves formalising and mapping lead schools by district such as the

(World Bank funded) Lighthouse schools, (DFID funded) RESC schools, and UNICEF

supported school clusters, for greater sustainability. The same goes for disseminating past

project reports to new projects to avoid duplication and, as mentioned above, to exploit

and sustain already developed capacity, tools, and lessons learnt.

The Czech NGO PIN recently engaged in an English language improvement project for

volunteer English teachers in Trincomalee town, duplicating similar inputs by the

Trincomalee RESC and the British Council TELT project but without building on lessons

learnt. For similar reasons it would be useful if the JICA Improving School Management

to Enhance Quality of Education project, ISMEQuE read the two external evaluations

written up on the TELT project (Psyche Kennett 2005; Jill Knight 2006) before involving

English in its plans.

With the de-merger of the North East Provincial Council, coherence amongst donorfunded education projects and building on lessons learnt from previous projects is

particularly important for the Northern Provincial Council so that institutional memory in

the Northern Provincial Ministry of Education is maintained from the start.


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3. Managing change in education

3.1 Change management

Change management in education utilises a simple set of strategies, based on past

experience, that make it possible to implement and sustain reforms. The key factors ofchange management in education are

1. Applying both pressure and support

2. Working from top down and bottom up at the same time

3. Establishing trust and winning support through professional credibility

4. Accumulating a 'Critical Mass' of change agents to change institutions from within

5. Effecting behavioural change in the way people work

6. Starting small and working towards incremental change or the snowball effect

7. Implementing realistic changes

8. Allowing time to assimilate change

9. Establishing and maintaining cross-institutional links

3.2 Pressure and support

Education reform requires a balance of pressure and support - pressure to force teachers to

change, support to encourage them to change (Watson 2003). Pressure is usually

considered a bad thing and support, a good thing, but in education reform there is often a

positive role for both. The NIE and the Ministry of Education tend to maintain the status

quo (despite interventions); when change does occur, it is because pressure builds up and

leads people to act. Sometimes it is difficult to separate pressure and support; indeed thepossibility of change is increased when the two are combined.

In practical terms, clear policy and a certain element of prescriptivism stating the

changes required - can provide the necessary pressure and support. There is nothing

more stressful for a semi skilled teaching force to be told to make changes without being

told how to make them. For example, in Qatar, the introduction of the new literacy

curriculum standards for teaching Arabic were highly threatening to the majority of

teachers who didn't understand literacy teaching and didnt have the methodology to turn

the standards into real lessons. This was pressure without support. But once an

accompanying scheme of work and a series of model lesson plans were provided by the

Supreme Education Council, the Arabic language teachers felt much more supported andwere then able to transfer the new curriculum standards into resources, lesson plans and

lessons.

Likewise reflective approaches to teacher education can lack the pressure element and fail

just as prescriptive approaches can lack the support element and fail. In an AusAID

tertiary science and technology teacher training project in Vietnam, out of a group of 50

in-service college teachers who designed small scale classroom research projects, only one

teacher actually carried out the research because implementation was voluntary and

unsupervised in the trainees own institute. The research project was designed as a task to

support trainees professional development without putting them under any pressure. If,

however, the research project report had been required as part of the formal final


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assessment, all the trainees would have completed it, and would have benefited more from

having done so.

3.3 Top down and bottom up

The most effective change occurs in the system when change is pushed and supported

from senior management level down through the system and from parent/ student/teacher

level up through the system. Pressure and support is therefore applied top down and

bottom up. Traditional education systems are usually hierarchical and top-down only.

Directives are sent from management to the chalk face. But when reform is also

motivated from the grass-roots level and passes up through the system, then things really

begin to change. Ultimately, top-down/bottom-up approaches act like a pair of pincers on

the middle management who are usually the group most impervious to change. Top

managers have vision for change; chalk-face practitioners have the skills to implement

change; middle managers are the administrators and bureaucrats who sit in the middle and

wish to maintain the status quo. Pressure from the top and the bottom helps to squeezethese middle managers into action.

For example, the Provincial Ministry could introduce a new set of curriculum standards

and resources for mother tongue Tamil language classes, incorporating critical thinking

skills and literacy skills. A directive would be sent to implement the change. ZDEs, ISAs

and school principals would probably remain unconvinced. Teachers and ISAs would

receive training in how to teach the new standards for Tamil, using a more

communicative, task based, learner centred methodology. Training would be paid for by a

donor funded project. As training went on, teachers would become enthusiastic about the

new Tamil classes because they would be more interesting to deliver and they could seebetter results from the students. Students would enjoy classes more, attendance rates

would go up and a buzz of popularity would start to surround the new approach to

teaching and learning Tamil. ZDEs, ISAs and school principals would be required to

monitor the progress of the new Tamil curriculum, as directed by the Provincial Ministry,

who would require them to conduct classroom visits on a regular basis. During these visits

school principals would begin to see for themselves the change taking place in the way

students participated in class and the improved fluency and accuracy in the written work

they produced. The more involved the school principals became, the more enthusiastic

they would get about the change taking place at least in theory!

Top-down donor funded projects, such as the GTZ supported Performance Improvement

Project, tend to put the emphasis on building organisational capacity through management

- in Northern Province education terms this would translate as strengthening the capacity

of the Provincial Ministry of Education and the ZDEs, and relying on them to organise and

get messages through to school principals. On the other hand, evidence from research

suggests the value of a focus on the school, with greater involvement of a 'critical mass' of

principals and greater focus on school teams to provide support and help shift school

culture, early on in a project (e.g. Togneri & Anderson, 2003).It doesn't make sense to

send a changed individual back into an unchanged environment. The emphasis then, is on

the whole school as the bottom up unit of change, not the individual teacher, as was the

case in many donor funded teacher training projects in the past.


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Increasing the focus on the school would mean connecting directly with more school

principals, as well as working with teachers in school teams on the same cascade, with at

least two teachers trained together from each school at any one time. Pulling out more than

one teacher from a department at any one time will never be popular with school

principals, but once they become convinced of the efficiency and longer term

sustainability of mutually supporting pairs of teachers, they may be persuaded.

The top-down/bottomup approach to change means neither end of the hierarchy should

feel excluded. On the contrary, they should be persuaded on professional grounds to buy

in to change, and feel ownership for it.

3.4 Establishing trust through credibility

Persuasion is only possible if an element of trust has been established, and that trust is

built on professional credibility, flexibility, the ability to utilise best practice and lesson

learnt from previous interventions, good communications, transparency and reliability.

The drivers of change might be technical experts in a donor funded project, or the central

ministry, or commercial education providers putting pressure on the system from outside.

Their professional credibility comes from their ability to be flexible, develop reforms

along a process model which in-builds revision to the reform strategy as a matter of

course. It also comes from their ability to utilise effective custom-built solutions, at the

same time paying heed to best practices and lessons learnt from previous initiatives. To

make this happen, a taxonomy of best practices and lessons learnt needs to be recorded,

published and held within the institutional memory.

Establishing professional credibility is very difficult in a public service culture where

everyone is a generalist and everyone may be moved on to another department at a

moments notice. It is further complicated by the fact that many of the lessons learnt,

which should feed into institutional memory, are lost once the project ends. A great deal of

time is wasted reinventing the wheel, making the same mistakes, failing to build on what

went before or utilise those who were trained before.

Therefore good reporting and good communications are very much at the heart of change

management. Initiatives need to be explained and reported on a regular basis not only to

the senior management but also to the school directors and the parents. Results need to be

published and stamina and consistency are required to do this on a regular basis. As withmost educational reform, things start small and grow incrementally. Very often at the point

where stakeholders have lost interest, the initiative begins to show results. Good reporting

and PR can cover this delay, anticipate scepticism in the long wait for results and bolster

motivation and commitment until the project starts delivering the goods.

In addition, good communications and regular reporting provide stakeholders with

transparency and persuade them of reliability and these points of good governance need

to be established with pupils, parents and principals just as much as with ZDEs and the

Provincial Ministry staff.


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3.5 Winning support

3.5.1 Engendering can do mentality

There is a strong correlation between skills, confidence and implementing change. Change

requires a can do mentality. Can do mentality comes from confidence and confidence

from ability. It is only untrained, inexperienced teachers who say Were not allowedtosupplement the textbook. The Ministry wont let us. Once they know how to supplement

the textbook effectively with well designed lesson plans and materials taken from other

sources and still achieve the curriculum objectives teachers stop saying they arent

allowed to do it.

Confidence, skill and attitude to innovation influence behaviour in senior management too.

I cant do it therefore it cant be done. I dont know about it therefore it doesnt exist.

It was never done like that before therefore it cannot be done like that now. These are

common reservations that permeate government institution resistance to change.

To counter reservations and win support, it is necessary to build the confidence and skillsof the biggest detractors of change, in a protected environment. This means capacity is

developed in a non threatening way with little or no possibility of failure. One way of

doing this is to persuade senior managers (ZDEs) and supervisors (ISAs) those with a lot

to loose to take on new skills.

In Vietnam, on the English Language Teacher Training Project, the equivalent of the ISAs

plus some senior methodology lecturers from Hanoi University were all persuaded to go

back into the classroom, learn the new methodology and teach grade 6 students while the

Grade 6 teachers observed them. This initiative reversed all the roles those who normally

sat at the back and criticised now had to stand at the front and teach. Those who normally

taught were allowed to sit at the back and criticise for a change. For many of the older and

more senior supervisors and lecturers this was a high-stakes exercise there was a lot to

loose. But they were coached and supported so that they couldnt fail in the classroom in

front of their peers and juniors. In addition, their peers and juniors were trained to give

constructive, non judgemental feedback not something any of them had experienced

before. For many of them it was a seminal experience. They realised, perhaps for the first

time, how easy it is to sit at the back and demand change, how hard it is to get up to the

front and do it. They learned new respect for the practitioners at the chalk face. They also

became convinced by the methodology because they experienced, first hand, how well the

Grade 6 students responded to it. For them the experience was empowering and created for

the project a new group of quite powerful change agents. With this success came theirsupport.

3.5.2 The power of inclusion

In education there are so many stakeholders that it is quite easy to overlook some of them.

But exclusion from the change process is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes in change

management. Exclusion is threatening, inclusion empowering. In Thailand, DFIDs

Provincial In-service Secondary Education and Training (PISET) project neglected the

regional supervisors in favour of the master teachers and designated in-service teacher

trainers. This second group of practitioners became greatly empowered with new skills

and new roles and responsibilities. The regional supervisors, too proud to be re-trained

ultimately lost out as the in-service trainers and master teachers grew in stature andshowed themselves to be more proficient. Thailand has an extremely hierarchical culture


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of management, just like Sri Lanka, and there was a great deal of loss of face which

could have been avoided if the project experts had been more flexible, experienced and

had had the credibility to persuade the regional supervisors to join in.

In three educational zones in Jaffna District, on the other hand, ISAs were included as

master trainers on the USAID/UNICEF/ British Council TELT project and as a result thementoring procedures which evolved from the project are now used in some zones as the

official approach for ISAs. While participating in the training two of the ISAs were

persuaded to delegate some of their school follow-up visits to their fellow course

participants - experienced teachers and trainers - who they recognised as peers. To achieve

this delegation of duties which made the follow-up more systematic and therefore more

sustainable - it was important for the ISAs not to feel threatened or usurped but rather to

feel supported and professionally affirmed.

School principals are the other group of stakeholders who must be won over, and for many

of them in the Northern Province, there is a lot to be learnt in terms of educationalconcepts. Due to the conflict situation in the Northern Province, school directors have

become de-skilled and many function as little more than administrators. Although there

are many striking exceptions, chronic under budgeting and understaffing have made some

lose their vision for the school, lose there will to make a difference. Training in setting

new educational standards, pride of place and quality assurance would greatly empower

them and give them the confidence to stop being doorkeepers and start being leaders.

3.5.3 Anticipating stakeholders objections

One of the best ways of winning support and gaining professional credibility is for those

involved in managing change to anticipate, classify and deal with the objections that will

arise from parents, teachers, principals, supervisors, directors, curriculum and textbookwriters, examiners, the press. Classifying these objections can usually be done under the

following headings - time, money, access, ability, school culture, purpose and politics.

Counteracting stakeholder objections and at the same time demonstrating flexibility and a

willingness to deal with real problems has a powerfully winning effect. Psychologically,

many stakeholders are simply flattered that you have taken the time to anticipate their

problems and look for appropriate solutions. They are impressed by the fact that your

experience has put you on their wavelength.

A shortlist ofreal objections will always remain and these will need time and effort,

negotiation, compromise and thinking out of the box to resolve. But the majority of

objections will stem from the cant do mentality; a feeling of being threatened or

excluded. As stated above, the way forward is to build stakeholder confidence, empower

them with new skills, inform them and keep them informed, on board and very much

included as a beneficiary of change.

3.6 Critical mass

There is little point returning a changed individual to an unchanged environment. It is

important to accumulate a critical mass of change agents to change institutions from

within. What number constitutes this critical mass is determined by the situation and themagnitude of the reform. But at a certain point when enough changed individuals are in


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place, momentum begins to gather new messages and ways of working begin to become

the norm. Whereas in the past the changed individual was in the minority and could be put

under pressure not to rock the boat, now the changed individuals are in the majority and

can put the unchanged individuals under pressure to join them. A powerful group in this

regard are the students themselves. They constitute the ultimate bottom up force for

change. One good teacher can raise the expectations of the 250 plus students s/he teachesjust by showing them what good teaching and learning can be. No wonder the rest of the

department fear changed individuals they create new expectations from the clients

the students and this puts them under pressure to change too. Another powerful group, as

mentioned in 7.5.2 above, are the school principals.

A critical mass of school principals can put pressure for change on the system both

upwards to the ZDEs and downwards to the teachers, students and pupils.

The accumulation of this 'critical mass' of change agents is slow because like drops of rain,

change agents take time to gather in different places, spread, join up, form a pool. Once

however a certain momentum is created, things begin to move more quickly. It becomeseasier to convince others so the size of the movement and speed at which it moves is

incremental. It starts to have a snowball effect. This is the point education reform projects

should aim for. They need to plan for, and persuade stakeholders to buy into, a slow start-

up time, usually for a pilot phase. They need to predict what numbers and amongst which

stakeholder groups change agents will join up to create the critical mass. They then need

to have the resources in place to accommodate an expansion phase. They also need to

anticipate unexpected impact and spread that might, for example, be horizontal (i.e. across

the curriculum) when vertical spread (i.e. from lower to upper secondary) was originally

envisaged and planned for.

Likewise the Chief Secretarys Office and the Provincial Ministry of Education need toexamine project proposals with a view to change management, change agents and the

accumulation of a critical mass. If the right elements for this evolutionary process are not

sufficiently in-built in the project design, or the individual project cannot be slotted as a

discrete component into a more integrated master plan that takes the issues of change

management into account, then it can be said that the proposed project is not sustainable.

3.7 Behavioural change

It is also useful to remember that, when implementing a capacity development initiative

which seeks to effect a behavioural change in the way teachers work, both time andintensity are needed. 120 hours full time, participatory, task based study is a good unit of

change in this regard. Any less time spent, or the same amount of time spent distributed

over the period of an academic school year, for example, will not produce the same

results. Sri Lanka is famous for doing in-service training at the weekends 30 week,

week-end courses. The same materials in a 120 hour course can be covered at weekends in

this way, but the accruing skills, the hot- house or crucible effect of full time study is

dissipated during the week and a great deal of catching up where we left off last week

undermines the impact of such courses. As the weekends go on, motivation decreases,

drop out rates increase and the outcome is a watered down version of what might have

been. (It is for the same arguments that the PIP supported Skills Through English for

Public Servants STEPS programme is a four week, full time, intensive, residential

course.)


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In short, weekend courses work on an administrative level - ensuring no disruption to the

school, no need for substitute teachers but weekend classes are not, ultimately, cost

effective, because they dont bring about the desired behavioural change. However, it

takes some confidence on the side of the school principal to allow a teacher to be absent

for four weeks in the hope that they will return to do a better job, than it does to keep themwhere they are, underperforming for the rest of the year. It also takes commitment. As

these are the very skills needed in school principals, their willingness to release staff for

intensive four week in-service training is a good indicator of school principal capacity.

3.8 A realistic shift

When working for behavioural change, it is important to set realistic objectives, and not to

be over ambitious or inflate the real change that occurs. For example, to develop capacity

in learner centred teaching, in order to make students more independent learners

initiative-takers with better critical thinking skills - teachers have to move away fromlecture-based, teacher centred lessons towards more task-based, learner-centred lessons.

At the same time, the content of lessons needs to be less that of rote learning and copying

models, motivated by punishment or reward (behaviourism) and more critical thinking

based: observing and discovering, testing hypotheses, generalising and applying own rules

(cognitive approach). It is unrealistic to expect a methodological shift from teacher centred

to learner centred and at the same time from behaviourist to cognitive approaches:

Teacher centred

Behaviourism

x x x

x x

x

Cognitiveapproach

x

x x

xxx

Learner centredFigure one: optimum behavioural shift in the way teachers conduct classes

A more realistic target would be to expect the majority of teachers to have shifted one

quadrant into the next dimension, either, from more teacher-centred to more learner

centred-teaching, but still behaviourist, copying models:

Teacher centred

Behaviourism

x x x

x x

x

Cognitive

xxx

x x

x

Learner centredFigure two: realistic behavioural shift in the way teachers conduct classes (a)


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or, from more behaviourist teaching to using more cognitive approaches, but still rather

teacher centred:

Teacher centred

Behaviourism x x x

x xx

X x xx x

Cognitive

Learner centredFigure three: realistic behavioural shift in the way teachers conduct classes (b)

3.9 Assimilating change

Personal (and indeed national) development takes much longer than the donors or thegovernments time line allows. This simple factor is continually undermined by hot-

house, battery hatched projects and the need for verifiable impact after one or two years.

One of the main lessons to be learnt is the three-day workshop that appeals to bankers and

government officials alike, is perhaps the biggest waste of time in the whole field of

education and development. As we have seen, the unit of change of behavioural change

is around 120 hours: four weeks, done intensively. The time to assimilate and own the

skills accrued on such a course, however, may take much longer. To assimilate is to go

beyond the steps, the recipes, the techniques, the reflection: it means to master the

repertoire, to adapt it, to make its generative potential generate whats required for

specific, new situations. As in the acquisition of all new skills, the process of assimilation

includes several stages, but once learnt, occupies less and less conscious brain space, andbecomes more automatic, like learning to ride a bicycle or word-process a document.

The stages of accruing skills and experience: The Assimilation Concertina

awareness raising (which can include challenge, even hostility to the new model)

over acceptance (where all behaviour is interpreted through the same model)

over use (other more suitable solutions may be disregarded)

time to let things settle (a filtering process; things become less black and white)

harmonisation (of new skills with old skills and whereby models are personalised)

adaptation (experimentation begins; parts of one model mix with parts of another) assimilation (whereby the model or skill or information becomes second nature)

optimum use (concertinaed in the brain, but representing a wealth of experience).

The biggest obstacle to validating this theory is that education projects are not allowed this

filtering time in their budgets. Impact studies are rarely carried out or, if they are, they are

expected to show results too soon. Indeed, any initiative that might take longer than the

political life of a new policy or a new minister of education, is not considered as a viable

activity. Educational change involving a) behavioural change in teachers, b) the

assimilation concertina and c) on-going professional development, requires both time and

money. Long term, on-going monitoring and support visits should be factored in to any

plans for sustainable change.


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3.10 Establishing cross-institutional links

Finally, change management must work across traditional institutional links. Change may

not happen in straight horizontal or vertical lines as discussed in 3.6 above.

Parallel lines might include regulation and reform of the private pre-schools and tutories

through local government, not the Provincial Ministry of Education. Diagonal lines might

link central and provincial education and training institutes that deal with young adults

for example the Management Development Training Department (MDTD) to the

Vocational Training College, Trincomalee.

(See also section 2.1, last paragraph, which gives more examples of unconventional links,

such as public-private partnerships, to achieve institutional coherence.)

This then brings up the question of de centralising change. Usually one of the factors of

change management is de centralisation. But a discussion of the devolved and concurrent

duties of the Central and Provincial Ministries of Education requires a strategy paper all of

its own! However, it is important to point out that central ministries and institutions ofeducation will behave like the stakeholders described in 3.5.2 above. If excluded from the

change initiative, they will become threatened and obstructive, if included, they will

become empowered and supportive.


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4. Exams

4.1 Exams as a driving force for educational change

The most powerful driver for educational change is changing the exams and the

examination system. The exam is the tail that wags the dog. This is the case becauseexams are high stakes: they validate the educational culture, the system, the teachers, the

learners and their futures. The sooner educational reformists recognise this fact, the sooner

they will be able to make sustainable changes to the way subjects are taught and learnt.

Take, for example, the introduction of testing mental arithmetic in Britain. Superseded by

calculators, children could no longer do sums in their own heads. Mental arithmetic testing

at primary level became a new initiative to test an old skill that had somehow fallen out of

the curriculum. Mental arithmetic tests were included in the national primary school

exams. Everyone knew that without the pressure of the exam, it would not have been

taught. In addition, because it was mental arithmetic, it could not be tested by reading

and writing. It had to be tested by an oral exam (presented as an audio recording or read

aloud by the teacher) with answers written down by the pupils. Both the content and the

way of examining were new, but had a powerful wash-back effect on the classroom.

Mental arithmetic is now systematically taught in all UK primary schools.

If, instead of mental arithmetic skills, a learner-centred, task based methodology were

required, the examination system could also be utilised to drive that change. Informal

assessment could be introduced to partially take the place of traditional exams. Students

could be assessed by portfolio on their coursework or by averaging their continuous

assessment grades for written work throughout the school year. The exam would

underwrite the principles of the task-based, learner centred methodology.

Similarly, if children are required to be critical-thinking problem-solvers, then school

exams must include the testing of these skills. If a more articulate work force is required,

school leavers who can produce and express ideas rather than simply recognise

information, then the exclusive use of multiple choice exams must stop. If teacher training

involves practical skills then an observed and assessed practicum must become an

integral part of the final assessment that qualifies them as teachers.

In short, if the exam reflects what is being taught not just in content but also in process

then there is coherence between subject and exam, between the methodology of teaching

and the methodology of testing. If there is innovation in the exam there will be innovationin the subject. It is up to educational reformers to take a firm hold of the tail that wags the

dog.

4.2 Exam alternatives

Changing the exams and the examination system often means engaging with university

experts. In traditional education systems like Sri Lankas, most exams lead to a

university entrance exam. This is an unfortunate fact - unfortunate because the university

experts who write the exam are often the most conservative educationalists in the

system. They are the gate keepers, wielding power over an ever-growing population ofwould-be university goers, guarding the too-few university places that do exist against the


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majority. It is not from this camp that an innovative exam is likely to be provided! Indeed,

it is to their advantage to keep the exam traditional and elitist even though it has the

potential to drive enormous change back down through the system.

However, based on the premise that 98% of students dont qualify for university in Sri

Lanka in the first place, one solution is to take the impetus away from university entranceexams and to begin to offer other kinds of exams that lead to other kinds of qualifications

and confer other kinds of status.

For example, it may be possible for a Provincial Council to enter a contract with an

international examining body like the University of Cambridge Local Examinations

Syndicate (UCLES) to offer alternative O and A levels or internationally recognised

English certification at elementary level (Key English Test or KET), pre intermediate level

(Preliminary English Test or PET) and intermediate level (First Certificate English).

Donor funding could be used to pay for two or three such exam places per school or

school district and then establish a scholarship competition within the school which in

turn drives reform in the way things are taught.

Another solution is to offer alternative, scientifically validated, innovative exams,

developed by the Provincial Ministry itself, again, with technical assistance funded by

project donors, for non examined subjects.

The non-examined subject is low stakes and non threatening students do not have a lot

to win or lose by taking it; all the more reason for examining the non-examined subjects in

an innovative way. An innovative exam can have a positive wash-back on the subject it is

examining and thereafter on other subjects in the curriculum that start to follow suit. The

aim is to build a reputation around that exam so that it really qualifies school leavers in a

particular area. As time goes on, employers learn the value of that qualification and startasking for it. Demand from employers rather than from universities re-orientates parents,

students and through them teachers and school directors.

As English is a non-examined subject there is little standardisation in the end-of-year

exams. In many districts, exams are bought in from private institutions for example in

Trincomalee District exams are bought from a private school in Negombo, because it is

cheaper than having the district produce its own exam. On close inspection, the Negombo

exams leave much to be desired.

Instead, English teachers and ISAs could be encouraged to develop skills in test

specification, item writing, and standardisation of marking. They should also learn how topilot and analyse sample data on test item validity and reliability. ZDEs could be

persuaded to balance cost effectiveness with standards and professional effectiveness.

Expertise could be utilised from the British Council, possibly utilising their Exams Unit

and the English Language Services Manager's work to provide training, awareness-raising

about testing, the benefits of positive wash back, and the development of a test item bank.


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5. Curriculum standards

5.1 Textbook as curriculum

When governments mistrust the ability of their teaching workforce, they prescribe, to the

letter, what must be taught on which day. As late as the 1970s, France was a nationfamous for the fact that every class at the same grade level in every school across the

nation was on the same page on the same day. This extreme model is prescriptive to the

point of indoctrination not for a moment does it consider the differences in individual

needs of students, communities, and regions. It treats teachers, classrooms, textbooks and

students as parts of a machine. Cambodia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka are not as extreme as

1970s France, but to a lesser or greater extent these countries use the prescribed textbook

for each subject at each grade as if it were the curriculum. There is pressure to cover the

textbook to do each page, and the assumption is, that by studying each page in the

book, students will pass the exam.

If teachers maintain the spirit of what is being taught in the textbook but do it in their own

way they are generally not appreciated for their efforts not by their department nor their

school director, nor by their students nor the parents of their students In most South and

South East Asian school systems it is not good to be seen to be different. There is a great

deal of pressure, in Vietnam, for example, for student teachers not to excel, and not to

experiment with new-fangled methodology or materials. Within a short period of getting a

permanent appointment, new teachers are brow-beaten by the rest of the department to

sink to the same level of mediocrity, in order not to raise student expectations as to what

could really be achieved in a 45 minute lesson, and most importantly, not to put other

teachers under pressure to do more preparation. What better way to enforce the idea of

uniformity than by making uniformity equal minimal effort? It is easy then to insist thatthe textbookis the curriculum and that the duty of the teacher is to cover the book.

5.2 Content and performance standards

If however the government has faith in the ability and sincerity of teachers, understands

the need to cater for the different needs of different groups of learners, and is secure

enough to tolerate and encourage diversity, then the opposite of the old French system can

be introduced: curriculum standards. The education authority produces a list of

curriculum standards, divided in to grades and subjects. The list is made up of content

standards and performance standards. Content standards stipulate what topics,information, skills and knowledge need to be taught. Performance standards stipulate what

levels need to be achieved to what level of mastery. These curriculum standards operate

like a detailed syllabus, but they do not say when or how to teach the items listed.

It is up to the school, school department, or head of department, to take the curriculum

standards and turn them into a scheme of work, timetable, series of lesson plans. In many

cases it is also up to the department to match textbooks and resources to the standards.

Some schools might find a single textbook to match the standards very closely; others

might draw on a range of published and in-house materials as exponents of the standards.

In Thailand, the Ministry of Education approves four or five books per subject per gradewhich closely fit the curriculum standards. It is then up to the individual schools to specify


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which books they will use. If the books work in a sequence, building, for example, skills

over three school grades, then the school must commit to using those books for at least one

complete cycle.

Education ministries vary from country to country as to how much control they exert in

this area. In Qatar, the Supreme Education Council only exerts control insofar as thecurriculum standards must be adopted. Then it is entirely up to individual schools to use

their own expertise and resources to choose which textbooks and supplementary materials

they will use. Each school is given a student per capita grant for the purchasing of

textbooks and resources. It is up to each school how they utilise this grant.

Crucially, in this approach, the same standards which are decided on for curriculum and

syllabus are used for the examinations as well. One document is used for all. This makes

the whole system of teaching, learning, and evaluation both coherent and transparent.

Transparent, because only those items which have been described core standards are

tested. In this way, teachers and students can work towards achievable, objective goals.

They can also avoid becoming victims of rote learning and the memorisation of wholepages from the textbook: the textbook is no longer the curriculum. It is no longer

important to know what happened on page 57. Students begin to have the opportunity to

learn life skills, not just become good at schooling and school books.

Most countries with education systems which are rated highly by UNICEF have

curriculum standards for content and performance. These are usually published documents

and can be made available to the Northern Provincial Council. In many cases they can also

be accessed though the internet. In this way, a great deal of time and effort can be saved.

Curriculum standards for Sri Lanka do not have to be developed from scratch. Moreover,

by studying and copying the education standards of other countries Sri Lanka can alignitself with international standards, and by so doing raise its own standards and

expectations about what teachers and students should be striving to achieve.

One place to start is to use another countrys curriculum standards, to analyse how a

universal subject, like Maths or Science, is being taught in the Northern Province. The

curriculum standards could be used in this way to do a needs analysis, to measure the

shortfall of what is not being taught. Then, supplementary curriculum standards, schemes

of work, lesson plans and materials could be developed and sourced, to fill in the gaps and

bring those studying the subject more in line with what is internationally accepted.

5.3 Competency based standards

One of the most important factors in the curriculum standards approach, is that each

standard is written as a competency, as a can do statement. For example,

from the Qatar English as a second language curriculum standards, Grade 2:

Students can develop reading strategies and actively participate in reading with the teacher to:

apply phonic strategies to decoding of simple, regular words in context;

identify and read sight words using expanding vocabulary knowledge, word/symbolcorrespondence, context and phonic knowledge;

distinguish lines of print from sentences;

read simple sentences aloud with acceptable pronunciation and stress relevant to meaning; identify and understand basic sentence punctuation: capital letters, full stops and question marks.


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and from the Maths Grade 7 curriculum standards:

Most students can

identify alternate, supplementary and corresponding angles

describe angle properties related to diagonals of squares, rectangles, parallelograms and rhombuses use these and other properties to find the values of unknown angles in geometric figures use a ruler and

compasses to construct angle bisectors and perpendicular bisectors and, together with a protractor, toconstruct simple geometric figures from given data.

Students who progress further can calculate interior and exterior angles of polygons solve problems using angle and symmetry properties of polygons and angle properties of parallel and

intersecting lines construct 2-D shapes from given information, including scale drawings.

Students who make slower progress can recognise vertically opposite angles, angles on a straight line and around a point work out the sum of the angles of a triangle and the relationship between the exterior angle of a triangle

and its interior opposite angles use these and other properties to find the values of angles in geometric figures use a ruler and protractor to construct triangles, given two sides and the included angle, or two angles

and the included side.

Curriculum standards expressed as competencies force teachers, parents, learners,

examiners, school inspectors, education officials and ultimately politicians, to start

thinking in terms of building up individual components of learning to form a well rounded

education, the skills base of the next generation, achievable outputs and goals, school

leavers with the right competencies to join the work force and a can do mentality for

students, teachers and teacher trainers.

5.4 Competency based assessment

Once the required competencies are specified, by subject and grade, they not only

formulate the objectives of each lesson or block of work, they also automatically form the

assessment criteria for progress and achievement tests. In terms of progress assessment,

the teacher keeps a record of how well each student is doing on each competency. For

example, this assessment tool can be used for evaluating student progress in Tamil literacy

Tamil Language Grade 7 Competencies for on-going assessment Class 7G

Students can Ravi Theva Sameem Shanti Pushpa Dasa

summarise key messages from straightforward texts.

write descriptions of people.

understand spoken text and take relevant notes.

express certainty and possibility in future plans.

construct a polite written invitation.

write a letter giving advice.

express a point of view, likes and dislikes in writing.

write a short discursive text (advantages, disadvantages.

write well ordered multi step instructions.


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Key

The marks in the form are built up over one or two terms. Each 'can do' statement would be achieved after

one or several units of work, so the marks are modified by the teacher as the lessons go on. A mark given

by the teacher as an empty circle () means the sub skill is not yet evident in the student being assessed.

The teacher then draws a diagonal line through it () once the student starts to show evidence of using thesub skill. When the student develops the sub skill the teacher crosses the diagonal line in the circle () and

once the student masters the sub skill and uses it appropriately in a consistent manner, the teacher then

colours in the circle (). Different sub skills are built up through different units of work until all the boxes

are filled.

Likewise, passing a final exam can be related to achieving competencies instead of

meaningless grades or marks. Results are expressed in terms of a list of competencies

mastered, developed, attempted, not achieved, for example.


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6. Textbooks

6.1 Sri Lankan textbook options

All this is a far cry from the World Bank funded multi-option book system through the

NIE. A multi option system should by definition, allow for a range of textbooks and giveeducation zones the right to choose. The World Banks provision of multi options for

English, for example, provides, in fact, just two titles, both written by the same pool of

authors, coming from the same background and approach. Unfortunately the result is not

aligned to current international English language teaching standards. The English

textbooks for grade 7, for example, are outdated and obscure in vocabulary, topics and

attitude, the language curriculum is low frequency and idiosyncratic, and there is a serious

absence of discrete items in terms of language building bricks. These books are

incredibly difficult to teach and learn from. They do not help students become

independent, fluent, initiative-taking users of English. They dont even help students

master the basics. Education advisers, supervisors, directors, trainers and teachers need to

become much more critical of short comings in textbooks and if they cannot hope for

better outputs from the textbook authors, they must start building up their own resources.

6.2 Confidence in alternative resources

Fortunately, guidelines for using textbooks in the Sri Lankan school system have always

been quite flexible and this is an advantage the Northern Province can capitalise on. There

are ways of working around the textbook problem. First is to build up the confidence and

skills of teachers, school directors, ISAs, ZDEs and Provincial Ministry of Education so

that they are not afraid of doing something different for the Northern Province. Then thereis the need to examine just how closely they must use the NIE prescribed textbooks and to

what extent these books can be supplemented. They will find that, in fact, there is quite

some room for manoeuvre.

Some tools that the Northern Provincial Ministry of Education can develop on a limited

donor budget - in addition to the introduction of competency based content and

performance curriculum standards, as described in section 4 above include the

development of:

confidence building measures for school officials, teachers, parents and students to

promote competencies, curriculum standards and demote textbooks;

schemes of work which select the best and leave the rest, in terms of textbook pages;

collections of skeleton lesson plans which help teachers break unwieldy textbook

sections into manageable lessons;

high frequency vocabulary lists/glossaries for Tamil, Sinhala and English;

in-house supplementary resource collections which can be shared within departments;

book boxes, mobile resource collections, mini libraries and alternative, parallel

textbooks from other countries.

As the Northern Provincial Council has been granted by GTZ the printing rights for the

Skills Through English for Public Servants (STEPS) 120 hour course, they could adapt it

and print it for university entrance or tertiary studies English language courses and give it

to the Northern universities to teach. Printing costs and some prior teacher training forthose who would deliver it could be funded by a donor project.


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7. Capacity building

Sometimes those who control curriculum, textbooks, exams, teacher training and school

administration do a disservice to the student population intentionally the political act of

keeping the population undereducated so that they do not question authority, demand

better job opportunities or start thinking for themselves. Under Margaret Thatcher, theBritish Government made modern history and media studies no longer compulsory at O

Level the very subjects that might make young people question politics, propaganda and

the media.

But more often than not, inadequate curriculum, textbook, exams, teachers and school

administrators are the result of a simple lack of technical expertise. Education is an

evolving and technically diverse field. Many people in senior positions of educational

management have received an education themselves, which they rely on to guide policy.

This may be subliminal, but the underlying principal is often, We will do it this way

because thats the way we did it when I was at school Perhaps more than in other

technical fields, educational policy is based on general or personal experience and not

enough credence is given to technical expertise. Just because youve experience d

something doesnt mean youre an expert on it. Just because youve learnt something

doesnt mean you can teach it. Just because the system has worked for privileged

politicians in privileged environments doesnt mean it is a good model to roll out to the

rest of the country.

This is coupled with the fact that education and education reform also has the potential to

be highly politicised. Votes are very much wrapped up with voting parents who need to be

convinced that their children will benefit from the national education on offer. English

medium education in Sri Lanka is politicised in this way. Policy plays on the fact thatparents strongly believe that English enhances the employment potential of their children.

But instead of strengthening the subject English in the curriculum and making it an

examined subject, English medium education for Maths and Science is being paraded as

the answer. It is being promoted, primarily, by those who had an English medium

education themselves, probably in Colombo or Kandy or Jaffna. But there are several

fundamental mistakes in promoting English medium teaching of Maths and Science in Sri

Lanka.

1. Research shows that A Level students consistently score higher marks when they

do Maths and Science in their mother tongue, not English. This means, if Sri Lanka

pursues its English medium for Maths and Science goal, lip-service will be paid tostrengthening English, while Maths and Science standards will drop.

2. Sri Lanka simply does not have the capacity to teach Maths and Science at A

Level in English Maths and Science teachers around the Island are not

sufficiently bi-lingual to use English naturally and fluently in class. The result: in

their effort to use English and their fear of being inaccurate, Maths and Science

teachers will rely more and more on reading out notes aloud or writing notes on the

board and having students copy. This means, guided discovery, task based

learning, group work discussion and the main aspects of a participatory, learner

centred, critical thinking approach will go out the window because the teacher and

the students will not be able to interact sufficiently in the second language.


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3. Successive governments have stipulated 6-week to 6-month English language

classes for Maths and Science teachers to enable them to teach their subject in

English. But apart from the problem of finding sufficient numbers of English

trainers to teach these teachers, the whole premise that teachers will learn enough

English to deliver A level Science or Maths in English in 6 weeks or even 6

months, is nave to say the least.

4. Sri Lankas English skills base has been systematically eroded since at least the

1960s. Such erosion cannot be put to rights, and voters cannot be satisfied, within a

presidential term. If it has taken nearly half a century to de-skill, it will take nearly

half a century and a substantial budget to bring enough teachers back up to the bi-

lingual level required for English medium teaching. There remains no long term

commitment to second language policy or implementation and little understanding

of how long it will take, realistically, to achieve results or how much it will cost.

Therefore, capacity building for educationalists has to be considered as a long term

strategy. It is also probably worth noting that technically, there is no quick fix. An examwriter or textbook writer should not be in that position without having been a teacher in

the first place. Otherwise they will not incorporate practical classroom management and

methodology in what they write. Likewise an ISA should be promoted up through the

teaching ranks and all ISAs, teacher trainers in PRESET and INSET and materials

designers should be required to go back and teach school for at least a month a year like

pilots who have to keep up their flying hours.

7.1 Generative approaches

More important than getting teachers to teach Maths and Science in English is to get

teacher trainers to adopt a generative approach to teacher education and training. Much of

teacher training in Sri Lanka focuses on basic upgrading in subject knowledge and the

teaching of methodology amounts to little more than getting teachers to repeat with their

students the same lesson they were given for their own improvement. They receive and

repeat, receive and repeat. Their copying is only good for one lesson - it is non generative.

This approach to teacher training compensates for a school system that has failed them,

but it will not help them to become competent practitioners. In addition it forms part of a

negative downward cycle: they in turn will produce the next generation of dysfunctional

teachers.

Teacher training should take teachers beyond the conservative and rather limited

apprenticeship model of simply learning how to copy. Teacher training should provide

teachers with an eclectic but practical methodology a set of lesson types, techniques,

classroom management skills and evaluation tools that can be used with any class in any

situation. Teachers can then apply these tools to syllabus, textbook, or resource, and

deliver a lesson without ever having seen it demonstrated before. This is the generative

approach to teacher training.


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7.2 Teachers toolkits: an eclectic repertoire of techniques

An eclectic approach collects new skills without eroding old skills. An eclectic repertoire

of techniques provides for a range of techniques that teachers can draw on in order to cater

for the different learning styles of their students aural-oral, visual, reading-writing and

kinaesthetic. It also helps them combine a range of approaches to teaching and learning traditional, behaviourist, cognitive, humanistic, participatory and autonomous.

Too much of what is learnt in teacher training college is exclusive or one-way. Teachers

are presented with a limited view and a sense of things being black and white: this is the

right way and that is the wrong way; modern is in, traditional is out. But it is very

important for all educational reform to guard against simplistic policy such as this and the

consequent pendulum swings it brings about. Time and again, educational reform has

thrown the baby out with the bath water. For example, in the late 1980s the NIE, under

the advice of British Government consultants, decided to embrace the Communicative

Approach to teaching English - an international innovation that was fundamentally re-

thinking the way English was being taught and learnt at that time. Unfortunately out wentthe baby with the bathwater: communication, fluency skills and speaking for

communication were in; grammar, accuracy and writing skills were out. To this day,

there is no proper teaching of English grammar, accuracy or writing skills in the school

curriculum. And meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on. Grammar is back in.

npc managing change in education report - full version new ready

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