Search results

If schools do not adequately meet the needs of their parental community, then over time the students and resources on which those schools depend are likely to suffer a progressive decline or withdrawal. There are administrative implications of this for all schools, but particularly perhaps for non‐government schools. In order to remain responsive to the needs and expectations of their supporting parent environments, schools must develop methods of communication whereby they may exchange evaluative information about performance. This study examined some of the issues and channels of communication between one school and its parent body. From a sample comprising 187 of the parent body, it seems clear that parents had definite preferences regarding the content of, and procedures for, communications with the school. The four issues identified as of most importance for discussion between the school and the parents were: academic progress; teacher, parent and child relationships; vocational guidance and careers; and behavior/discipline. The most preferred method for finding out what is happening at the school was by weekly circular from the school. On the other hand, parents showed a general preference for direct, personal methods of communicating their own concerns to the school. There was some variability of results according to the year level of the student. The study suggests a number of administrative strategies which the school can implement to enable it to remain open to the ideas, preferences and expectations of parents.

Challenging behaviour among school pupils has been the focus of extensive research in the UK and beyond; however, there has been a lack of recent comparable research on these issues in the further education (FE) sector. This paper aims to report the findings from a larger PhD research examining the introduction of interventions based on restorative justice implemented in colleges. This study focuses on the extent and nature of challenging student behaviour, as explained and understood by the students and staff.

The author used an interpretivist exploratory case study design and mixed qualitative research methods. The institute considered in the case study, Restorative College (pseudonymised), has education provisions for students aged 16+ years and enrols over 16,000 students annually. In the academic year 2017/2018, Restorative College committed itself to becoming a “restorative” institution. Data collection consisted of three stages (including semi-structured interviews, analyses of institutional policy documents and focus group discussions) and was conducted over 14 months.

The extent and nature of challenging student behaviours in the FE sector are significant and merit further research and analysis to support policy development.

Given the research methods adopted (single case study and qualitative research), the findings do not necessarily represent experiences across the FE sector.

This study emphasises the need to expand research on challenging behaviour in the FE sector, which has been limited thus far, also making a contribution in this direction.

Vietnam is firmly committed to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals articulated in the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Goal 4 concerns quality education, and target 4.3 refers to ensuring access by all men and women to quality and affordable technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university education. In 2017, the Prime Minister issued a directive that included five actions to be taken by Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training to achieve target 4.3 in the context of the higher education sector. This chapter provides an opportunity to review some challenges the Ministry faces in implementing the five actions specified.

The higher education (HE) sector in Myanmar is currently in a fragile, backward-looking state. Its fragility is due to the 2021 coup with its consequent civil disobedience movement, continued conflict between the military and people’s defence force, the junta’s spurious delivery of a post-Covid and post-coup education system, and the junta’s apparent abandoning of the previous civilian government’s progress with the National Education Strategic Plan. It is backward-looking because the current junta, like previous juntas in Myanmar, use education as a tool for military propaganda and to populate the education system with civil servants that are loyal, or at least supine, to the military. The task of this chapter is to provide an overview of HE in Myanmar and how its current condition aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 4.3. This task is contextualised by considering the role of universities in the history of socio-political uprisings in Myanmar. Universities as theatres of communicative action have been and continue to be spaces of public resistance. This resistance and its accompanying vertical tension continue to shape the physical constitution of universities and the delivery of HE in Myanmar.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

The higher education system in Vietnam has expanded rapidly during the past two decades, creating opportunities for personal advancement by hundreds of thousands of young Vietnamese. On the limited evidence available, however, it appears that these opportunities have not been distributed equitably. Young people from better-off homes from urban areas and from the ethnic majority group seem more likely to have benefitted. Girls also appear to have benefitted, a trend that is a reverse of the past. In this paper, we report on the state of access to higher education in Vietnam and we report on areas of policy that relate to achieving a more socially inclusive higher education system.

This paper examines the experience of the two year action research programme Better Government for Older People within the wider context of an ambition to create ‘quality in ageing’. It argues that within the limits of the originating aims and values of the Better Government for Older People a great deal has been achieved to improve services for older people, and to encourage and recognise the direct contributions of senior citizens within 28 pilot areas and wider Networks of local authorities across the UK. However, the author suggests that such service improvements and experiments in engagement are unlikely to be sustained and developed without a wider commitment by central and local Government to the development of strategies for an ageing population.The paper describes the antecedents of the Better Government for Older People programme, its structure and operational practices. It goes on to examine the programme's achievements against its stated aims and values, seeking to identify what still needs to be achieved. In the final section it seeks to explore the barriers to realising the ambitions of quality in ageing, arguing that ageism coupled with political and professional inertia are major constraints. In conclusion it argues that legislation is likely to be a pre‐requisite for the cultural and organisational shift required in order to move to a system based on older people as citizens rather than service recipients.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This paper focuses on the issue of exclusion from school in England. Exclusion from school is seen as indicative of behaviour that teachers find unacceptable within school, as such it represents their limits to tolerance. Aggressive, disruptive and non‐compliant behaviour features strongly in reasons given by schools for excluding pupils. The word “violence” is still applied sparingly as a descriptor for pupil behaviour. An overview of the evidence about the scale and nature of school exclusion is provided, drawing on the author's empirical research in the field. The paper also presents an overview of policy responses to the issue and how these relate to broader issues of child welfare. The paper concludes by reviewing policy tensions relating to school exclusion, particularly in relation to the social inclusion agenda.