Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations purposes, policies, and practices in education 9781910744031

Table of contents :
Maia Chankseliani, Iveta Silova Reconfiguring Education Purposes, Policies and Practices during Post-socialist Transformations: setting the stage, 7-25

Elena Minina, Nelli Piattoeva, Vera G. Centeno, Xingguo Zhou, Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido Transnational Policy Borrowing and National Interpretations of Educational Quality in Russia, China and Brazil, 27-44

Sanja Djerasimovic Constructing the European Citizen: the origins and the development of the Serbian post-2000 civic education discourse, 45-62

Simon Janashia Introduction of the Per Capita Funding Model of Finance in the Post-Soviet Countries: the cases of Latvia and Georgia, 63-83

Tatiana Khavenson Post-socialist Transformations, Everyday School Life and Country Performance in PISA: analysis of curriculum education reform in Latvia and Estonia, 85-103

Mihaylo Milovanovitch, Kate Lapham Good Intentions Cast Long Shadows: donors, governments and education reform in Armenia and Ukraine, 105-125

Merli Tamtik, Emma Sabzalieva Emerging Global Players? Building International Legitimacy in Universities in Estonia and Kazakhstan, 127-145

Bridget A. Goodman, Laura Karabassova Bottom Up and Top Down: comparing language-in-education policy in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 147-166

Garine Palandjian, Iveta Silova, Olga Mun, Rakhat Zholdoshalieva Nation and Gender in Post-socialist Education Transformations: comparing early literacy textbooks in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Latvia, 167-192

Iveta Silova Comparing Post-socialist Transformations: dead ends, new pathways and unexpected openings, 193-206

Notes on Contributors, 201-206

Reconfiguring Education Purposes, Policies and Practices during Post-socialist Transformations: setting the stage
Maia Chankseliani, Iveta Silova

Citation preview

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations purposes, policies, and practices in education

Edited by Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

Oxford Studies in Comparative Education Series Editor: David Phillips

Symposium Books PO Box 204, Didcot, Oxford OX11 9ZQ, United Kingdom www.symposium-books.co.uk

Published in the United Kingdom, 2018

ISBN 978-1-910744-03-1

This publication is also available on a subscription basis as Volume 28 Number 2 of Oxford Studies in Comparative Education (ISSN 0961-2149)

© Symposium Books Ltd, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Hobbs the Printers, Southampton www.hobbs.uk.com

Contents Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova. Introduction. Reconfiguring Education Purposes, Policies and Practices during Post-socialist Transformations: setting the stage, 7 Chapter 1. Elena Minina, Nelli Piattoeva, Vera G. Centeno, Xingguo Zhou & Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido. Transnational Policy Borrowing and National Interpretations of Educational Quality in Russia, China and Brazil, 27 Chapter 2. Sanja Djerasimovic. Constructing the European Citizen: the origins and the development of the Serbian post-2000 civic education discourse, 45 Chapter 3. Simon Janashia. Introduction of the Per Capita Funding Model of Finance in the Post-Soviet Countries: the cases of Latvia and Georgia, 63 Chapter 4. Tatiana Khavenson. Post-socialist Transformations, Everyday School Life and Country Performance in PISA: analysis of curriculum education reform in Latvia and Estonia, 85 Chapter 5. Mihaylo Milovanovitch & Kate Lapham. Good Intentions Cast Long Shadows: donors, governments and education reform in Armenia and Ukraine, 105 Chapter 6. Merli Tamtik & Emma Sabzalieva. Emerging Global Players? Building International Legitimacy in Universities in Estonia and Kazakhstan, 127 Chapter 7. Bridget A. Goodman & Laura Karabassova. Bottom Up and Top Down: comparing language-in-education policy in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 147 Chapter 8. Garine Palandjian, Iveta Silova, Olga Mun & Rakhat Zholdoshalieva. Nation and Gender in Post-socialist Education Transformations: comparing early literacy textbooks in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Latvia, 167 Iveta Silova. Conclusion. Comparing Post-socialist Transformations: dead ends, new pathways and unexpected openings, 193 Notes on Contributors, 201

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations

INTRODUCTION

Reconfiguring Education Purposes, Policies and Practices during Post-socialist Transformations: setting the stage MAIA CHANKSELIANI & IVETA SILOVA

This volume revisits the book edited by David Phillips and Michael Kaser in 1992, entitled Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. That book demonstrated ‘the immensity of the tasks facing educational development’ in the region and at the same time showed the ‘extraordinary optimism and idealism of those charged with implementing change’ (Kaser & Phillips, 1992, p. 13). Two and a half decades later, our volume reflects on how post-socialist countries [1] have engaged with what Kaser and Phillips called ‘the flush of educational freedom’ (p. 13), offering analyses of education policies and practices that the countries in this region have been developing and implementing since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. Unlike the original book, that largely focused on post-socialist Southeast and Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, New Germany), the majority of chapters in this volume examine the countries of the former USSR (Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine). The shift of the geographical focus eastwards could be explained by the fact that the editors at the time of publication of the original book had limited access to people and knowledge from the former Soviet countries, while information on the developments in Eastern Europe was more accessible. Since then, knowledge production in/about post-Soviet education has increased significantly, resulting in more active knowledge exchange and publication flows in and out of this part of the post-socialist region (Chankseliani, 2017). At the same time, it is possible that the theme of comparing post-socialist education transformations may have

7

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

become less relevant for some researchers in Southeast/Central Europe who have been increasingly more preoccupied with comparing education dynamics in and across the European Union (EU) rather than within the post-socialist region, especially following their countries’ accession to the EU in 2004 and 2010.[2] As Hann et al (2002) noted, sooner or later, ‘the category of postsocialism is likely to break apart and disappear’ as the term itself is often perceived to signify ‘a constricting, even insulting label, something imposed from outside that seems to imply constraints on the freedom of people in these countries to determine their own futures’ (p. 13). Indeed, we are acutely aware of the limitations of the term ‘postsocialism’ and note the additional constraints it entails, including the risks of homogenising the geopolitical, historical, and cultural diversity of the region, universalising the variety of post-socialist conditions, or rendering invisible the unique histories and future imaginaries of education in different countries of Southeast/Central Europe and the former Soviet Union (see Tlostanova, 2012; Silova et al, 2017). Yet, we deliberately chose to use this term for the purposes of our volume because it offers, despite its limitations, a productive lens to interpret the complex dynamics and shifting nature of education transformations in the region. In this context, the term ‘post-socialist’ goes beyond the geographical boundaries of the countries in Southeast/Central Europe and the former Soviet Union; rather, it captures the region as both a geopolitical and epistemological construct. Rooted in the historical legacies of the Cold War, the term ‘post-socialist’ as a geopolitical construct serves as a reminder of the artificial division of the world (or the so-called three worlds ideology’), signalling the ambiguities of geopolitical boundaries and revealing the coexistence of ‘multiple postsocialist spaces, places, and times’ as well as their relatedness based on various political, geographical, economic or historical commonalities (Silova et al, 2017, p. 76). As an epistemological construct echoing the notion of the ‘south’ in ‘Southern Theory’, the term ‘post-socialist’ reminds us about the persisting socialist legacies in culture, subjectivity and knowledge, while pointing to the potential of the region to serve as ‘a source of unique but often un- or misrecognized knowledge developed through layered and localized experiences of socialism and coloniality’ (Silova et al, 2017, p. 77). As such, the term ‘post-socialism’ marks an intellectual space that has the potential to disrupt the hegemony of dominant globalisation narratives, while enabling us to see, experience and interpret ongoing post-socialist education transformations through the lens of pluralities. Broadly speaking, our book aims to explore three interrelated questions. First, it seeks to capture complex reconfigurations of education purposes during post-socialist transformations, noting the emergence of neoliberal education imaginaries in post-socialist spaces and their effects on policy discussions about education quality and equity across the region. Second, the book examines the ongoing tensions inherent in post-socialist transformations, suggesting that beneath the surface of dominant neoliberal 8

INTRODUCTION

narratives there are always powerful countercurrents – ranging from the persisting socialist legacies to re-emerging premodern imaginaries to other alternative conceptualisations of education futures. Although often invisible in mainstream education policy and practice, a more careful examination of these countercurrents helps us understand the diverse trajectories of postsocialist education transformations. And finally, the book engages with the question of ‘comparison’, prompting both the contributing authors and our readers to reflect on how research on post-socialist education transformations can contribute to rethinking comparative methods in education across space and time. Reconfigurations of Education Purposes during Post-socialist Transformations Changing education institutions is hard; changing education institutions to change society is even harder. Educators work at the same time to reproduce society, to transmit knowledge and culture, and also to improve society, to enable students to have more choices and be freer than their parents. The conceptualisation of the relationships between education and societal change usually involves viewing education as an image/reflection of society (Durkheim, 1897) that ‘perpetuate[s] and reinforce[s] this homogeneity by fixing in the mind of the child ... the essential similarities that social life demands’ (Durkheim, 1972, p. 203), and/or as a driver of change (Baker, 2014; Carnoy & Samoff, 1990). The history of education can be interpreted as the struggle between these two missions: the mission that seeks to conserve society, its traditions, knowledge, institutions and structures, and one that seeks to transform it. The struggle between these two missions has been highly pronounced during the post-socialist education transformations. However, the notorious resistance to change has been under-investigated in the comparative and international education literature on post-Soviet countries (Chankseliani, 2017). Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia have faced simultaneous demands of political and economic transformations, usually formulated as a strategic move away from the socialist past and towards a (Western) European future. Education has been both a driver and a reflection of such transformations, playing a central role in the discussions of policy futures associated with Europeanisation, democratisation and marketorientated globalisation. At the same time, national education systems and practices have shown considerable path dependence, with teachers continuing to teach and leaders continuing to lead the same way they used to do in the Soviet times. Further complicating the nature of post-socialist transformations, education policy imaginaries and school practices in some

9

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

countries have invoked ideas that reach back into pre-socialist (and perhaps pre-modern) times. In this context, how have the purposes of education been (re)conceptualised during the period of post-socialist transformations? Most of the chapters in this volume grapple with this question, illustrating how education purposes have been reshaped by the changing nature of societies, their socioeconomic, political and cultural heritage, as well as their visions for the future. According to Nicholas De Witt (1961), the purpose of Soviet education was to serve the collectivist state, not the individual. The collectivist state commonly identified itself with the common good and always aimed at subordinating individuals’ rights and choices as well as their training to its own needs. ‘It is only within the confines of choice determined by the state that the individual may develop his personal abilities’, wrote De Witt (1961, p. 5). This included ‘remould[ing] the character of the individual and [inculcating] a uniform pattern of prescribed beliefs, attitudes, sentiments, and values consonant with communist ideology’ (De Witt, 1961, p. 5). The quality of education during the Soviet period was defined in practical, applied terms, and vocational occupations used to be highly valued and children were taught that only through work for the general good could they attain happiness (Zajda, 1980). A survey of upper-secondary school students in 1974 showed that ‘labour, serving the society, and contributing to the happiness of others were for them the most important social and moral values which determined the purpose and meaning of life’ (Zajda, 1980, p. 125). A central aim of the Soviet school system was the development of communist morality, emphasising such traits as a sense of good and bad behaviour; truthfulness, honesty, kindness; atheism; self-discipline; diligence in work and care of possessions; friendship with classmates; love of one’s own locality and the Motherland (Bronfenbrenner, 1971; Higgins, 1995; Kliucharev & Muckle, 2005). The USSR designed and implemented a number of educational reforms in the period from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. However, continuity in education policy direction was retained to some degree (Tomiak, 1986; Grant, 1992; Chankseliani, 2017). The purposes of education have been (re)conceptualised with the arrival of the capitalist market economy and the departure from the exclusive focus on the needs of the communist state. While the economic and political purposes of education continue to be highly relevant, the social and moral purposes that used to be at the core of the Soviet system of education have become less visible. Instead, most governments in the region have prioritised the political and economic purposes of education. The political purposes of education mostly serve the interests of nation (re)building, including but not limited to national unification, regional influence (soft power), and international legitimacy. In some cases, these also include European integration and international legitimisation (see more on these below). Meanwhile, the economic purposes of education have been viewed largely 10

INTRODUCTION

within the human capital framework. This includes accounts of the acquisition of skills and knowledge in order to increase the productivity and competitiveness of individuals and nation-states, ultimately leading to economic modernisation and the creation of a knowledge economy. Within the human capital framework, the social and moral purposes of education are typically overlooked (Mercer et al, 2010). Many post-socialist countries appear to have prioritised – at least in policy discourse – purely pragmatic ideas about developing human capital, establishing particular expectations for post-socialist education transformations. Given the prevalent focus on the political and economic purposes of education, it is not surprising that issues of education quality – rather than issues of equality/equity – have received predominant attention in policy and school practice accounts as well as in the academic literature. Reflecting the state of the art, education quality appears to be the common ground that unites most of the chapters included in this volume. Predominantly, education quality is conceptualised in terms of the ability of the system to achieve the predefined purposes of education. In the Soviet Union, where education was viewed as a public good to meet the social, moral and economic needs of the society, as well as the political aims of the ruling class, education quality was a state responsibility. Education was entirely funded and managed by the state and all efforts were made to unify educational systems in 15 constituent republics, as explained by Khavenson in this volume and Mitter (1992) in the original book by Phillips and Kaser (1992). However, the narrowing down of educational purposes to the economic and political dimensions in the post-Soviet context brought about new conceptualisations of education quality, as illustrated in the chapter on Russia, China and Brazil in the current volume (Minina et al), as well as in that on Armenia and Ukraine (Milovanovich & Lapham). In particular, Minina et al argue that quality was ‘re-interpreted in the neoliberal paradigm’, becoming a major policy issue broken down into different stakeholder-, context-, input-, process-, output-, outcome- and performancespecific concepts and indicators. Changes in understanding education quality were accompanied by changes in measuring quality through new mechanisms of evaluation and accountability (Minina et al in this volume). Arguably, in the early 1990s, the ‘quality revolution’ declared by the Russian government was driven by the transition from quality-control to quality-assurance paradigms (Minina, 2017). There were three new phenomena introduced in the discourses on quality in Russia: external quality assessment, stakeholder quality criteria, and a national system of quality assurance. Education stakeholders such as students, parents, employers and civil society were reconceptualised as consumers of education. Thus, the system was now viewed not as accountable to the state, as in the former socialist countries, but as accountable to the stakeholders, leading to re-defining education as a private rather than a public good. 11

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

Translating Economic Purposes of Education into Policies Education reforms directed at the development of knowledge economies prioritised the role of the market over the state and took a clear neoliberal turn in many countries as part of their transition to a free market economy ( Lauder, 2006; Amsler, 2008; Chankseliani, 2014). Traditionally, there have been three major neoliberal arguments – related to efficiency and effectiveness, fiscal constraints, and equality – rationalising the increase of the market role in education. The efficiency and effectiveness argument relates to the idea that publicly financed education is of poor quality and low internal efficiency (Colclough, 1997), demonstrated by teacher absenteeism and poor school infrastructure, among other things. The proponents of education system privatisation, which is a central ‘ideological imperative’ of neoliberalism (Zajda, 1980), argue that it increases efficiency gains, as public schools are competing with private schools and try to change their institutional structure. Chubb and Moe (1990), for example, maintain that private schools are more autonomous as they are controlled by the market and less political; therefore, their structure is less bureaucratic and student achievement is higher. The latter argument has been often used together with the democratic notion of free choice. The fiscal constraint argument explains that governments in developing countries do not have enough resources available from traditional revenue instruments (Colclough, 1997). Finally, the equality argument revolves around the idea that the state misallocates resources; some people are altogether denied access and others, mostly rich, benefit from it (Colclough, 1997). Also, the public sector cannot put things right as the interest groups on whom governments depend are richer and therefore the resource allocation will always be inequitable (Colclough, 1997). Those who promote market solutions maintain that marketisation allows families from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to select better schools outside their area of residence, and can ensure the provision of better-quality education to the poor (Kwong, 2000; Tooley et al, 2009). A deliberate marriage between the neoliberal paradigm and democratic ideals may explain the expansion of marketisation policies across the globe and in the former socialist countries in particular. In the post-socialist space, however, marketisation policies (and neoliberal policies more broadly) have raised strong scepticism and critique among researchers and education stakeholders (see Lapham et al, 2014; Silova et al, 2014). In particular, marketisation of education systems in the post-socialist region has been associated with optimisation and reorganisation of public educational institutions, the emergence of private providers, as well as voucher financing of schools and universities (Silova & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008; Chankseliani, 2014). The first two types of reforms resulted in considerable changes in institutional landscapes. The educational institution optimisation that took place in a number of post-Soviet countries led to a shut-down or consolidation of compulsory and post-compulsory education institutions (see Chankseliani, 2014; Milovanovich & Lapham in this volume). Academic and 12

INTRODUCTION

research institutions were also affected by the processes of institutional reorganisation. Academies of Science were disestablished in many countries, and research institutes that used to be part of Academies of Science were merged with higher education institutions. Estonia was one of the first countries in the region to implement this reform (Valk, 2008). This process, as explained by Tamtik and Sabzalieva in their discussion of education reforms in Estonia and Kazakhstan in this volume, was guided by European experiences of institutional autonomy, the credit system, and accreditation involving external experts. The process of institutional reorganisation was driven by the goal of establishing the knowledge economy through researchbased knowledge production and increasing global competitiveness by connecting research and teaching at higher education institutions. At the same time, a number of new educational institutions emerged, many of these private. Private higher education institutions and fee-paying sectors in public universities were established to meet the increasing demand for university education (Chankseliani, 2013). Public higher education institutions opened their doors to fee-paying students who did not have sufficient academic preparation to enrol in publicly funded places at public universities. The emergence of private schools was rather driven by the demand for a different type of schooling than the unmet demand for schooling as often happens in other developing countries of Asia and Africa. Private schooling has been complementing rather than substituting public schooling in the post-Soviet context (Chankseliani, 2014). However, not all new educational institutions were private – for instance, the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools and Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan operate as public education institutions. The latter is described as being ‘at the vanguard of the country’s effort to put its university system on a global footing in terms of quality and delivery’ (Nazarbayev University, 2013, p. 6). The reader will find more on this in Tamtik and Sabzalieva’s chapter in this volume. Linked with the optimisation of school systems is the per capita or the so-called voucher financing of education. Voucher financing is recognised as ‘the most prominent market reform in education’ (Levin & Belfield, 2003, p. 185) as it allows students and parents to choose providers and often diverts public resources in support of private provision, allegedly promoting competition, choice and efficiency. For example, Janashia’s chapter in this volume explains how Latvia and Georgia introduced per capita funding when they had governments with strong neoliberal orientation – since the mid1990s in Latvia and almost a decade later in Georgia. Janashia’s chapter discusses these two different market-based models of per capita financing, one of which (Georgia) was rather more extreme than the other (Latvia). The chapter also shows the role of international organisations versus local actors in introducing these systems in the two former socialist contexts. Educational research promoting the marketisation agenda often ignores the evidence that choice is available only to those parents who can afford to 13

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

make choices; the disadvantaged do not have choices (Whitty et al, 1998; Lauder & Hughes, 1999; Reay & Lucey, 2003). There are equity implications related to the private choice of disadvantaged families. Belfield and Levin (2002) demonstrate that richer and more educated families gain more benefits from privatisation than poor and less educated families. Research also shows that parents with higher socioeconomic status (SES) have all the necessary resources to fully use the choice option, whereas the lower SES parents do not have the same resources in terms of information, additional resources to meet the tuition costs, or transportation ( Goldhaber, 1999; Carnoy, 2000; McEwan & Carnoy, 2000; Levin & Belfield, 2003). Thus, individuals may need equal access opportunity to different levels of education rather than the much-promoted free choice which they may not be able to utilise. Linked with the strengthening of the idea(l)s of marketisation is the observation that during the post-socialist transformations, individualisation and competition have become much more pronounced than the equal treatment of all and the related one-size-fits-all approaches, which used to be more prominent during the socialist period. This has been demonstrated at different levels, including curriculum reform. Khavenson writes in her chapter in this volume that her research participants in Estonia and Latvia often talked about the concepts that had been brought about by the education reform, such as individualisation. The interviews in both Baltic countries showed that teachers pay considerable attention to individual students’ performance in specific subjects; they are ready to give different tasks to different students and to assess students’ progress individually, increasing student motivation to solve different numbers of items on the same test. According to the evidence analysed in Khavenson’s chapter, the one-size-fits-all approach was associated with Soviet education, and postSoviet Russian-medium schools in Estonia and Latvia no longer rely on it. Finally, per capita funding is often discussed in the context of educational decentralisation, especially in the former socialist countries. Similar to Latvia, municipalities in Armenia and Ukraine were put in a position to take responsibility for school budgets. As Milovanovich and Lapham explain in this volume, this was a way to remove costly services from the national balance sheets in Armenia and Ukraine. Strongly encouraged (and sometimes imposed) by international development agencies, decentralisation in these two countries also resulted in reductions in the numbers of teachers and cuts in extra-curricular activities. Large disparities emerged by region and by school. In Armenia, for example, a 43% difference in funding allocation was discovered between two schools in comparable locations. Such situations may be bordering on corruption. When education is severely underfunded and its purpose is viewed as serving the needs of the society, there may be incentives for schools and parents to come up with new shadow solutions mostly involving informal payments, such as private tutoring with school teachers and informal payments to support schools. In 14

INTRODUCTION

their chaper in this volume, Milovanovich and Lapham describe the cases of Armenia and Ukraine in great detail to show how these informal remedial solutions lead to the favourable treatment of individuals who take up private tutoring with their school teachers or whose parents make informal contributions to schools; they also show that these informal remedial practices are usually rather efficient at the school level, but far from providing equal treatment or outcomes to education recipients, or ensuring system-level efficiency. Translating Political Purposes of Education into Policies and Practices While pursuing the economic purposes of education, the post-socialist states have continued to use education as a tool for setting political agendas that revolve around the ideas of nation (re)building and unification, as well as expanding regional influence. In some cases, nation (re)building has also involved efforts for pursuing European integration and achieving international legitimacy. European integration has been a powerful driver for education reforms in many post-socialist countries, specifically those countries that have aspired to join the EU. In the Baltic States, for example, pressures to adopt European values were particularly strong, as ‘being left out wasn’t politically acceptable’ (Valk, 2008, p. 3). Responding to political conditionalities associated with the EU accession processes, these countries substantially changed their national curricula to align them with European quality standards. Focusing on education reforms in Russian language schools in Estonia and Latvia, for example, Khavenson describes this process in her chapter in this volume and compares student achievement results in the Baltic States with those in Russia where schools have continued to teach in the traditional, Soviet way until very recently, when new reforms were introduced in 2010 and implemented in 2012. European integration was a strategic component of higher education development as well. In particular, the Bologna Process provided an opportunity of integrating local higher education systems with the European Higher Education Area by introducing the three-cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate), developing quality assurance, and simplifying recognition of qualifications and periods of study. Out of 29 post-socialist countries, all except four Central Asian countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Kosovo are not part of the Bologna Process. Those closer to Western Europe were the first to join in 1999, and among these were the Baltic States. Kazakhstan, that is geographically farther away, joined only in 2010. The Bologna Process has directly influenced higher education reforms in many post-socialist states. For example, in their chaper in this volume, Tamtik and Sabzalieva outline three goals of the Estonian Higher Education 15

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

Strategy 2006-2015, which reflects aspirations for Europeanisation and internationalisation more broadly: strengthening the international dimension of higher education institutions and participating as an equal partner in regional and Europe-wide academic cooperation; introducing higher education quality assurance on a level comparable to the Nordic countries and the EU; and ensuring the appropriate funding base for higher education. Furthermore, Tamtik and Sabzalieva show how flagship universities in Estonia and Kazakhstan have sought international legitimacy by striving to establish themselves as global players, thus (re)building identities that are pivotal for obtaining international recognition. While Estonia is attempting to do this by drawing on European values such as academic freedom and institutional autonomy, Kazakhstan is advocating for new standards to build on its hybrid identities of Kazakh (linked to a political entity), Kazakhstani (focusing on its multi-ethnic and Eurasian elements), and transnational (emphasising global image and reputation) (Laruelle, 2014). This hybridity is epitomised through Kazakhstan’s self-representation as a symbolic bridge between the East and the West (Marat, 2009) in order perhaps to introduce independent Kazakhstan to the world through education (e.g. Nazarbayev University). At the same time, post-socialist states have invested in their national unification agendas. Education has been viewed as ‘the main vehicle of the state to consolidate the nation’ by ‘resuscitat[ing] languages and cultures that have played a subordinate role under the past communist regime’ (Janmaat, 2008, pp. 1-2). Khavenson’s chapter looks at the Baltic States that implemented reforms aiming at the ‘de-ideologisation’ of curriculum, revising textbooks and teaching materials, and retraining teachers in schools with the national language of instruction. As shown in Khavenson’s and Goodman and Karabassova’s chapters, the language of instruction has been a core aspect of educational reforms aiming to serve nation-building agendas. Because of their ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity, which was largely due to the Soviet policies of ‘silent Russification’ (Anweiler, 1992, p. 31), some former Soviet countries have had particularly complicated experiences using education for nation (re)building. In Latvia and Estonia, for example, the USSR made increasing efforts popularise Russian, leading to a dramatic decline in the number of schools with indigenous languages of instruction (Anweiler, 1992). As explained by Khavenson, the situation changed after the dissolution of the USSR. Similar to the Estonian case, the Latvian language was adopted as the medium of instruction in all schools and as ‘the language of unification’ based on the new national standard, which was approved in 1998. In both Ukraine and Kazakhstan, keeping Russian as a language of instruction for ethnic minorities has allowed the governments to acknowledge the importance of national cohesion. Both countries prioritised their national languages – Ukrainian and Kazakh, respectively, followed by foreign (nonRussian) languages. Kazakhstan has committed to having 20% of the 16

INTRODUCTION

population speaking English by 2020. While Russian is one of the three languages promoted by the government of Kazakhstan as a part of the trilingual education policy that aims to elevate the use of Kazakh, Russian and English among the country’s population, it is at the bottom of the language priority list in Ukraine (Goodman & Karabassova in this volume). As explained by Anweiler (1992) in the original volume in this series (by Phillips & Kaser, 1992), in many former Soviet countries, English is becoming more popular at the expense of Russian, signalling ‘the restitution of the traditional affiliation of the majority to the Latin heritage of Europe’ (p. 31). In their chapter in this volume, Goodman and Karabassova explain how Kazakhstan has been developing the policies and practices of trilingual education, while making significant investments in teaching in English to support the state programme of industrial innovation development and to enhance global competitiveness. Despite the concerns from Kazakhstani educators that the trilingual education policy with a focus on English may diminish the role of the Kazakh language (Goodman & Karabassova), the socalled Trinity of Languages project has been implemented in about 82 schools and 42 higher education institutions across the country. Teaching is undertaken in Kazakh and English, while Russian is taught as a separate language subject. Starting from 2017-2018, all preschools have introduced elements of trilingualism and all first graders are expected to shift to the trilingual education model. Although the new language policies may be serving the purpose of national unification and European integration, there is insufficient evidence that the trilingual policy, for instance, helps individuals (and the country) to become more academically competitive and linguistically proficient. Based on the findings from existing research, Goodman and Karabassova show that the trilingual policies and practices in Kazakhstan are somewhat problematic as trilingual schools do not currently lead to the multilingual proficiency of their graduates. There are also concerns among Kazakhstani educators that knowledge of academic subjects may suffer when the language of instruction is the central priority. Meanwhile, Khavenson argues that the introduction of bilingual education policies in the Baltic States has not undermined the quality of education among students in Russian language schools. In fact, she argues that language reforms in Estonia and Latvia, which were accompanied by some broader changes in teaching pedagogy, have resulted in higher student achievement outcomes compared with those in Russia where reforms have been delayed. Finally, education has been used for the purpose of retaining regional influence or what some would call soft power interests. This has been done in the context of the internationalisation of education, which has been gaining momentum in the former socialist countries. On the one hand, we have an old player, Russia, that is expanding its soft power by providing education (often fully funded) to students from former Soviet countries (Malinovskiy & 17

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

Chankseliani, forthcoming). On the other hand, there are a number of cases of rapid internationalisation for the purposes of gaining international legitimacy (with political and economic interests in mind) and/or attracting foreign capital in the form of foreign students or international branch campuses (Goodman & Karabassova, this volume). In this context, the economic rationale of attracting foreign students is quite strong. Furthermore, ‘research-based knowledge production as part of the idea of the knowledge economy’, as Tamtik and Sabzalieva put it in this volume, is rather popular in countries as diverse as Estonia and Kazakhstan. These two countries have put in place a variety of internationalisation reforms in order to expand research-based knowledge production and subsequently enhance the trustworthiness of their systems, leading to strengthening their international legitimacy (Tamtik & Sabzalieva). Yet, their success in establishing and maintaining international legitimacy is seriously obstructed by the uneven power dynamics in the global higher education market, especially by the global hegemony of a small number of countries and universities in North America and Western Europe. The discourse on building international legitimacy is also linked with the idea of modernisation that has been profoundly embedded in policy narratives across the region. Modernisation is an ‘ambivalent and questionable’ term (Sakwa, 2013), which in the post-socialist context includes a variety of initiatives involving foreign countries and international actors such as China’s University Alliance of the New Silk Road or the Commonwealth of Independent States’ University Network. Most commonly, the idea of modernisation in the post-socialist contexts invokes references to market economies and global competitiveness, although with significant variations across the region. As Tamtik and Sabzalieva explain, strategic documents in Kazakhstan and Estonia underscore market economy values and see education as a tool for modernisation. They note, for example, that Kazakhstan’s 2011-2020 State Program of Education Development incorporates policies on education at all levels under the overarching goal of increasing competitiveness (Government of Kazakhstan, 2010). Similar to the Estonian Higher Education Strategy, the strategic priority for higher education reform in Kazakhstan has been improving quality and integrating into the European Higher Education Area (Government of Kazakhstan, 2010). The focus on quality improvement has also been the main driver of educational modernisation in Russia, as discussed by Minina et al in this volume. Taken together, the chapters in this volume point out – whether explicitly or implicitly – that there is a symbiotic relationship between the economic and political purposes of education, both aiming to reconfigure education in post-socialist spaces along Western neoliberal lines. Meanwhile, the emphasis on social and moral dimensions of education appears to have visibly decreased, leading to growing concerns over declining education equity and persisting corruption in education. 18

INTRODUCTION

Ongoing Tensions over Education Purposes: examining policy undercurrents Although the emergence of Western neoliberal imaginaries is clearly visible in education policy narratives in many post-socialist contexts, there are also multiple tensions, complexities and contradictions associated with the ongoing reconfigurations of education purposes and values, as well as with their subsequent translations into education policy and practice. In particular, some chapters in this volume discuss the enduring socialist legacies and their unexpected interactions with neoliberal reforms; others examine powerful reinterpretations of global norms to suit local education purposes; and yet others point to the re-emergence of premodern imaginaries and other alternative conceptualisations of education futures. Collectively, they reveal an uneven terrain of education policy landscape in post-socialist spaces, where multiple and often contradictory education visions coexist side by side. In other words, these chapters collectively illustrate that there is little evidence of educational convergence towards neoliberal educational goals when looking beyond policy rhetoric and digging deeper into local educational contexts. From this perspective, several chapters in this book contribute to existing research on globalisation and education policy borrowing. Commenting on the arrival of neoliberal ‘education reform packages’ in postsocialist spaces (Silova & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008), they vividly highlight how national governments often adopt the language of global reforms, including such buzzwords as quality assurance, standardisation, or performance outcomes, but they imbue these global buzzwords with distinctly local meanings (Anderson-Levitt, 2003; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). For example, Minina et al examine three country cases – Russia, China and Brazil – which have faced a global wave of quality assurance reforms transmitted through policy borrowing, which was facilitated by educational lenders as well as national and transnational expert networks. Based on the comparison of three cases, the authors argue that global reforms may travel across different national contexts without necessarily diffusing the ideologies of the institutions that invented them (as illustrated by the case of Brazil) or that borrowing the neoliberal script is often used to mask national reforms rooted in political projects that have nothing to do with globally travelling reforms per se (as in the case of Russia and China). For example, the notion of ‘educational quality’ in official policy discourses in Russia and China was framed as both a source of and a solution to educational problems, leading to the reconceptualisation of educational quality as a tool for educational governance and a means of reform legitimisation. Interestingly, both Russian and Chinese governments have continued to exercise strict control over the content of ‘education quality’, thus using the concept for political ends. Further complicating the adoption of global norms is Janashia’s chapter on the introduction of per capita student financing reforms in Latvia and Georgia. This chapter provides a gateway to understanding different 19

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

rationales and policy adoption strategies of policy actors in Georgia and Latvia who introduced a similar approach of calculating the general education finances on a per capita basis. However, a more nuanced examination of these reforms in their national contexts shows that as the policy problems differed in these countries, so did the implementation of policy solutions. In Georgia, the per capita funding was an integral part of the large-scale education reform package that promised an increase in the transparency, effectiveness and fair distribution of funds through the introduction of a market-based school funding system. In Latvia, the introduction of a per capita funding system served a more ceremonial purpose of securing international donor funding during a time of financial crisis. In particular, per capita student funding was introduced to avoid school optimisation – that is, the merging and closure of small rural schools – another neoliberal reform imposed by international development agencies in Latvia. In both cases, while introducing seemingly identical reform packages, Georgian and Latvian policymakers used different rationales for reform implementation and eventually transformed these reforms in a way that bears little resemblance to the initially imported reform. Despite differences in reform topics and geographical contexts, the ‘lessons learned’ from the comparative study of per capita student finance reforms in Latvia and Georgia and the case study of quality assurance in Russia, China and Brazil reveal striking parallels. Both highlight the existence of glaring disconnects between the ‘original’ versions of Western neoliberal reforms and their reconfigurations in various post-socialist contexts. Similarly, several chapters in this volume delve deep into examining how borrowing of global education reforms brings to light the prevailing tensions between socialist legacies and travelling neoliberal policies. For example, Goodman and Karabassova acknowledge that one of the main rationales for language-in-education policies in Ukraine and Kazakhstan – both aiming to introduce English alongside titular languages in their education systems – was a move away from a Soviet past (associated with the hegemony of the Russian language) and towards a more Western future (associated with strengthening English and titular languages). However, the ways in which each country has navigated the past and the future vis-à-vis language policy are strikingly different not only from each other, but also from Western expectations for both English and additional languages in the respective contexts. Again, reform articulation and implementation in these two cases were driven not by any international ‘best practices’ but rather by local power dynamics and national language policy priorities. Focusing on the development of civic education reform in Serbia, Djerasimovic (in this volume) offers another powerful example of educational transfer, one which did not fully reflect ‘European’ or English citizenship education discourses. Although striving to re-integrate into the international educational community through the adoption of a policy overtly dedicated to active, democratic citizenship, Serbian policymakers insisted on an in-depth 20

INTRODUCTION

engagement with civic education concepts to articulate reforms that would preserve education’s function as a public good in the broader context of neoliberal reforms. Echoing socialist education values, Serbian policymakers purposefully and overtly chose to emphasise (psycho-)social dimensions of civic education – including intercultural socialisation, recognition of the other, tolerance of difference, peaceful and constructive conflict resolution, conflict mediation, and non-violent communication – which differed sharply from the conceptualisation of the abstract universalism of active citizenship in the English and the European educational space. More importantly, Serbian policymakers were able to avoid references to the economic discourses, which feature so prominently in a transnational education context. This chapter thus convincingly challenges the widely accepted thesis that a single (neoliberal) policy discourse travels across national and transnational spaces, pointing instead to the influence of local actors who draw broadly on experiences, ideas and inspirations beyond the ideological geopolitical divisions, thus effectively complicating the existing conceptual polarities of global/local, West/East or North/South. Finally, a chapter by Palandjian et al further complicates our understanding of post-socialist education transformations by illuminating the ambivalent and ambiguous narratives of post-socialist constructions of nation and gender, which reflect multi-layered and sometimes contradictory histories of the region. By focusing on feminist discourse analysis of early literacy textbooks in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Latvia, they argue that post-socialist transformation processes have been accompanied by gendered nationalism, often deeming women unqualified to participate in the new nation-building projects. In this context, socialist legacies have continued to coexist with (Western) neoliberal imaginaries, reproducing modernity’s patriarchal gender norms that assign men to nation/culture and women to nature. Yet, beneath modernity’s dominant narrative there exist countercurrents that seek to undermine it, often leading to ambivalence and ambiguity about how nation and gender are understood and imagined in post-socialist contexts. As the chapter vividly illustrates, these counternarratives draw on pre-Soviet (and premodern) imaginaries that reach back into indigenous traditions and nature-centred spiritualities, offering more complex symbolic representations of women and men, as well as girls and boys, and thus challenging modernity’s gendered rhetoric. Echoing world views from paganism in Armenia and Latvia to Tengrism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, some textbooks intimate the existence of a plurality of divine beings, including female deities and spirits. Here, (powerful) women reign as goddesses of Sun and Fortune, or appear as Mother Nature ruling over the earth, thus contradicting modernity’s portrayals of women as irrational, weak or backward. By locating women in premodern nature, such images and texts inevitably create associations of women (re)gaining power by transcending the perceived boundaries between women and men, space and time, animals and humans. 21

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

Broadly spanning different post-socialist spaces and education areas, the chapters in this volume powerfully remind us that perhaps there is much more to the post-socialist education transformations than immediately meets the eye. Collectively, the authors invite us to look beyond the neoliberal rhetoric that appears to have engulfed the post-socialist region since the early 1990s. While acknowledging a strong push for Western (neoliberal) reforms and their undeniable influence on national policy rhetoric – ranging from ‘democracy’ and ‘market economy’ to ‘education competitiveness’ and ‘quality assurance’ – they convincingly challenge the perceived hegemony of Western policy rhetoric and instead illuminate local reconfigurations of education reforms in various post-socialist spaces. As a result, we gain a much more complicated understanding of post-socialist education transformations, highlighting ongoing ambiguities and existing contestations over education reform trajectories, while offering alternative insights and interpretations of possible post-socialist education futures. Notes [1] For the purposes of our analysis, post-socialist countries include the 15 former Soviet states of Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), Eastern Europe (Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine) and Russia; as well as 10 post-socialist states in south-eastern Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia) and four states in Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia). [2] In 2004, eight Central and Eastern European countries joined the EU – namely, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007, followed by Croatia in 2013.

References Amsler, S. (2008) Higher Education Reform in Post-soviet Kyrgyzstan: the politics of neoliberal agendas in theory and practice, in J. Canaan & W. Shumar (Eds) Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University, pp. 101-127. New York: Routledge. Anderson-Levitt, K.M. (2003) Local Meanings, Global Schooling: anthropology and world culture theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980359 Anweiler, O. (1992) Some Historical Aspects of Educational Change in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in D. Phillips & M. Kaser (Eds) Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, pp. 29-39. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42 Baker, D. (2014) The Schooled Society: the educational transformation of global culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

22

INTRODUCTION

Belfield, C. & Levin, H. (2002) Education Privatization: causes, consequences and planning implications. Paris: UNESCO, IIEP. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001330/133075e.pdf Bronfenbrenner, U. (1971) Two Worlds of Childhood: US and USSR. London: George Allen & Unwin. Carnoy, M. (2000) School Choice? Or is it Privatization? Educational Researcher, 29(7), 15-20. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X029007015 Carnoy, M. & Samoff, J. (1990) Education and Social Transition in the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400860692 Chankseliani, M. (2013) Higher Education Access in Post-Soviet Georgia: overcoming a legacy of corruption, in H.D. Meyer, E.P. St John, M. Chankseliani & L. Uribe (Eds) Fairness in Access to Higher Education in a Global Perspective: reconciling excellence, efficiency, and justice, pp. 171-187. Rotterdam: Sense. Chankseliani, M. (2014) Are We Using Friedman’s Roadmap? A Comparative Analysis of Stimuli of Private School Enrolments in Post-Soviet Countries, International Journal of Educational Development, 38, 13-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2014.05.005 Chankseliani, M. (2017) Charting the Development of Knowledge on Soviet and Post-Soviet Education through the Pages of Comparative and International Education Journals, Comparative Education, 53(2), 265-283. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2017.1293407 Chubb, J. & Moe, T. (1990) Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Colclough, C. (1997) Education, Health, and the Market: an introduction, in C. Colclough (Ed.) Marketizing Education and Health in Developing Countries: miracle or mirage?, pp. 3-36. Oxford: Clarendon Press. De Witt, N. (1961) Education and Professional Employment in the U.S.S.R. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation. Durkheim, É. (1897) Suicide: a study in sociology. London: Routledge. https://ezproxyprd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr ue&scope=site&db=nlebk&AN=137283 Durkheim, É. (1972) Emile Durkheim: selected writings, ed. A. Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628085 Goldhaber, D. (1999) School Choice: an examination of the empirical evidence on achievement, parental decision making, and equity. Educational Researcher, 28(9), 16-25. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X028009016 Government of Kazakhstan (2010) State Program of Education Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2011-2020. Astana, Kazakhstan: Government of Kazakhstan. https://kaznmu.kz/eng/state-program-of-education-development-inthe-republic-of-kazakhstan/ Grant, N. (1992) Education in the Soviet Union: the last phase, Compare: a journal of comparative and international education, 22(1), 69-80. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305792920220107

23

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova Hann, C.M., Humphrey, C. & Verdery, K. (2002) Postsocialism as a Topic of Anthropological Investigation, in C.M. Hann (Ed.) Postsocialism: ideals, ideologies and practices in Eurasia, 1st edn. London: Routledge. Higgins, A. (1995) Teaching as a Moral Activity: listening to teachers in Russia and the United States, Journal of Moral Education, 24(2), 143-158. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305724950240203 Janmaat, J.G. (2008) Nation Building, Democratization and Globalization as Competing Priorities in Ukraine’s Education System, Nationalities Papers, 36(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905990701848317 Kaser, M. & Phillips, D. (Eds) (1992) Introduction, in D. Phillips & M. Kaser (Eds) Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, pp. 7-14. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42 Kliucharev, G. & Muckle, J. (2005) Ethical Values in Russian Education Today: a moral maze, Journal of Moral Education, 34(4), 465-477. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240500412521 Kwong, J. (2000) Introduction: marketization and privatization in education, International Journal of Educational Development, 20(2), 87-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0738-0593(99)00060-7 Lapham, K., Pop, D. & Silova, I. (2014) Editorial Introduction, European Education, 46(2), 3-7. https://doi.org/10.2753/EUE1056-4934460200 Laruelle, M. (2014) The Three Discursive Paradigms of State Identity in Kazakhstan: Kazakhness, Kazakhstanness, and Transnationalism, in M.Y. Omelicheva (Ed.) Nationalism and Identity Construction in Central Asia: dimensions, dynamics, and directions, pp. 1-20. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Lauder, H. (Ed.) (2006) Education, Globalization and Social Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lauder, H. & Hughes, D. (1999) Trading in Futures: why markets in education don’t work. Buckingham: Open University Press. Levin, H. & Belfield, C. (2003) The Marketplace in Education, Review of Research in Education, 27, 183-219. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X027001183 Malinovskiy, S. & Chankseliani, M. (forthcoming) International Student Recruitment in Russia: heavy-handed approach and soft-power comeback, in A. Oleksiyenko, Q. Zha, I. Chirikov & J. Li (Eds) International Status Anxiety and Higher Education: Soviet legacy in China and Russia. Hong Kong: CERC-Springer. Marat, E. (2009) Nation Branding in Central Asia: a new campaign to present ideas about the state and the nation, Europe-Asia Studies, 61(7), 1123-1136. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668130903068657 McEwan, P. & Carnoy, M. (2000) The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Private Schools in Chile’s Voucher System, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22(3), 213-239. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737022003213 Mercer, J., Barker, B. & Bird, R. (2010) Human Resource Management in Education: contexts, themes and impact. London: Routledge. Minina, E. (2017) ‘Quality Revolution’ in Post-Soviet Education in Russia: from control to assurance? Journal of Education Policy, 32(2), 176-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2016.1250165

24

INTRODUCTION

Mitter, W. (1992) Education in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union in a Period of Revolutionary Change, in D. Phillips & M. Kaser (Eds) Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, pp. 15-28. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42. Nazarbayev University (2013) Strategy 2013-2020. Astana: Nazarbayev University. http://nu.edu.kz/cs/groups/public/documents/document/mdaw/mdmy/%7Eedisp/a pkecm.nu.edu.032561.pdf Phillips, D. & Kaser, M. (Eds) (1992) Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42 Reay, D. & Lucey, H. (2003) The Limits of ‘Choice’: children and inner city schooling, Sociology, 37(1), 121-142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038503037001389 Sakwa, R. (2013) The Soviet Collapse: contradictions and neo-modernisation, Journal of Eurasian Studies, 4(1), 65-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2012.07.003 Silova, I., Lapham, K., Pop, D. & Froumin, I. (2014) Editorial Introduction, European Education, 46(3), 3-6. https://doi.org/10.2753/EUE1056-4934460300 Silova, I., Millei, Z. & Piattoeva, N. (2017) Interrupting the Coloniality of Knowledge Production in Comparative Education: postsocialist and postcolonial dialogues after the cold war, Comparative Education Review, S000–S000. https://doi.org/10.1086/690458 Silova, I. & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2008) How NGOs React: globalization and education reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Mongolia. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2004) The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. New York: Teachers College Press. Tlostanova, M. (2012) Postsocialist ≠ Postcolonial? On Post-Soviet Imaginary and Global Coloniality, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48(2), 130-142. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2012.658244 Tomiak, J. (1986) Western Perspectives on Soviet Education in the 1980s. Basingstoke: Macmillan, in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07179-1 Tooley, J., Dixon, P., Shamsan, Y. & Schagen, I. (2009) The Relative Quality and Cost-effectiveness of Private and Public Schools for Low-income Families: a case study in a developing country, School Effectiveness and School Improvement: an international journal of research, policy and practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/09243450903255482 Valk, A. (Ed.) (2008) Bologna protsess Eestis 2004-2008 [The Bologna Process in Estonia 2004-2008]. Archimedes Foundation. www.hm.ee/index.php?popup=download&;id=8966 Whitty, G., Power, S. & Halpin, D. (1998) Devolution and Choice in Education: the school, the state, and the market. Buckingham: Open University Press. Zajda, J. (1980) Education in the USSR. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

25

Maia Chankseliani & Iveta Silova

26

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations

CHAPTER 1

Transnational Policy Borrowing and National Interpretations of Educational Quality in Russia, China and Brazil ELENA MININA, NELLI PIATTOEVA, VERA G. CENTENO, XINGGUO ZHOU & HELENA HINKE DOBROCHINSKI CANDIDO

ABSTRACT Quality has emerged as an essential element of the common language of education, both as a means of problematising education and as a solution to diverse problems at grassroots level. This three-case comparative study explores how the apparent global consensus on the centrality of quality as a measurable attribute of education systems and as a legitimate purpose of and justification for education reforms manifests itself in Brazil, China and Russia. The analysis explores the extent to which educational quality complies with the global quality script, how national re-conceptualisations of quality exhibit links to transnational educational agendas through educational discourses and policies and how the global is recontextualised and reinterpreted in domestic contexts. Analysis of the three cases reveals a common assumption of quality as a quantifiable and measurable attribute of the education system that is best examined through national and international standardised tests of learning achievements. Standardised testing is seen as both a way to identify quality and as a central instrument of quality improvement. At the same time, comparison of the three cases reveals interesting differences in the way the quality paradigm has been adopted locally.

Evaluation and quality have become major policy issues in education (e.g. Kamens & McNeely, 2010; Valverde, 2014). Through various mechanisms of education policy development, including ‘learning from elsewhere’ (Phillips, 2000), lobbying by major international financial organisations, 27

Elena Minina et al

expert networks and policy borrowing, the concepts of educational quality assurance through measurement and standardised assessment have made their way to the heart of national education modernisation reforms across the world. The globally circulating concept of quality provides a list of specific components used to define and assess quality. For example, frameworks proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank operate with the notion of quality through such variables as stakeholder, context, input, process, outcome and performance (see e.g. World Bank, 1996; Kis, 2005). These frameworks assume that once quality is broken down into components, it can be assessed and compared through measurable performance indicators. The process of transnational policy borrowing has given rise to qualitatively similar national education policies and a shared policy language (Moutsios, 2010), imposing as ‘evident’ and ‘natural’ specific solutions for educational problems (Nóvoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003, p. 425). Quality is widely operationalised in terms of outcomes in standardised tests of educational achievement – a phenomenon Valverde (2014) describes as the global quality-of-outcomes policy (see also Lingard et al, 2013). The number of countries participating in standardised tests has increased dramatically in recent years. Their numerical outcomes are simplistically equated to the level of human capital, and related to the prospects for economic growth and global competitiveness in individual nations (Valverde, 2014). The change that quality imposes tends to be manifested in the introduction of further standardised measurements, at both national and international levels (Nóvoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003; Kamens & McNeely, 2010; Valverde, 2014). Quality has thus emerged as both a means of problematising education and a solution to diverse domestic problems. While quality and standardised testing have become strong features of education across the globe, they have also provided new ‘soft’ tools of governance by comparison and benchmarking at national and transnational levels (Nóvoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003). While exogenous policy models and arguments are actively adopted and adapted by nation-states, in this process the global blueprints are significantly shaped by local conditions and discourses (Alasuutari & Qadir, 2014). The processes of globalisation and policy convergence thus interlink with the recurring processes of culture-specific diversification, and the two reciprocally enhance or undermine one another (Schriewer & Martinez, 2004). In the age of education globalisation, policy-makers are continuously under pressure to borrow from and compare their education systems with international high performers, retrospectively defining a local problem that fits the already existing global solution or reform package (Silova & SteinerKhamsi, 2008; Steiner-Khamsi, 2014). Local actors also translate problems to bridge the gap between local goals and broader policy initiatives. While national governments may adopt the international language of reform, including such powerful and ambiguous buzzwords as quality assurance, standardisation and performance outcomes, these so-called empty vessels can 28

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

then be filled with a localised meaning (Steiner-Khamsi, 2014). Accordingly, the quality imperative and the policy prescriptions it carries are negotiated locally against international norms as well as domestic conditions and expectations, leading to results that both concretise international models and preserve cross-national heterogeneity. Policy borrowing is thus selective and reflects the context-specific conditions for adopting travelling policies and models (Steiner-Khamsi, 2014, pp. 155-156). Over the last two decades the governments of our three case countries – Russia, China and Brazil – have faced the global wave of quality assurance imperative transmitted through direct policy borrowing, demands of educational lenders and lobbying by national and transnational expert networks. Our focus in the following comparative analysis is on how the interpretation of hegemonic quality imperative unfolds in these three middleincome countries with strong domestic political and pedagogical agendas. Russia, China and Brazil, together with India and South Africa (the so-called BRICS countries), have been referred to as major emerging societies on account of their economic, political and human potential. The BRICS countries leverage their economic and political position through education policies, with the idea of ‘quality in education’ at the forefront of the ongoing education reforms. The emergence of the new political configuration of the BRICS countries has popularised comparisons of these previously rarely contrasted entities to probe the reality of their stated political and economic commonality. The limited number of comparative studies of these countries in the realm of comparative education suggests that still ‘we have only seen some social spaces, only some social times, and only some political processes’ (Cowen, 2009, p. 1277; for some exceptions, see Schweisfurth, 2002; Borevskaya et al, 2010; Li et al, 2013). Echoing Rappleye (2010, p. 59), our chapter contributes to the growing scholarly effort to introduce ‘new cartographies’ in comparative education, challenging the unspoken assumption (made mainly based on the comparison of western nations) that education borrowing would be rather similar among different countries. Despite substantial differences in the cultural and historical settings, the political systems, and the extent of integration into the global economy, Russia, China and Brazil invite a comparative exploration as they are all cases of Robert Cowen’s (2000, 2009) ‘transitologies’. Brazil’s post-dictatorial restoration, Russia’s post-Soviet political and economic reforms, and China’s gradual, but no less fundamental, policy of opening up to the world and transforming into a ‘socialist market economy’ all occurred around the same period since the end of the 1980s. Comparing Russia’s post-Soviet transformation with non-socialist transitologies is an exercise in both overcoming the old cartographies and attempting to explore the particularity of post-socialist reforms through their comparison with other similarly comprehensive political changes. Other features that invite comparison include the status of the three countries as rapidly ‘emerging markets’, their image as ‘revisionist states’ – that is, states that believe in their entitlement to 29

Elena Minina et al

a more influential role in world affairs – the ‘large country syndrome’ that leads to policies premised on the notions of strong national sovereignty and suspicion towards delegation of authority to international bodies, and their massive ongoing reformatory efforts aimed at achieving these goals through revising and strengthening their education systems. They also share an ambiguous position as intermediate states ‘in between’ the developing and developed countries that have expressed clear dissatisfaction with the USdominated power balance in world politics (Hurrell, 2006; Rowlands, 2012; Piattoeva & Takala, 2015). Through a three-case comparison of Russia, China and Brazil, this chapter probes theoretical assumptions of policy borrowing and provides insights into the globalising world educational order and the emerging dynamics of policy borrowing and lending in the age of a global market economy. The methodology of the chapter draws on ‘individualising comparison’ (Tilly, 1984) and ‘contrast of contexts’ (Skocpol & Somers, 1980) in order to ‘increase the visibility of one case by contrasting it with another’ and thus identify the main trends in the national revisions of educational quality from the early 1990s onwards (Skocpol & Somers, 1980, pp. 179-180). Comparative methodology brings out the ‘unique features of each particular case’ and shows how ‘these unique features affect the working-out of putatively general social processes’ (Skocpol & Somers, 1980, p. 178). Drawing on educational laws and official policy statements of the three countries as well as secondary academic literature, the comparative analysis below unpacks the dynamics of quality conceptualisations in Russia, China and Brazil in the context of national socio-economic priorities over the past three decades. Domestic Reception of Quality: country analysis Russia Since the early 1990s, the concept of educational quality has undergone unprecedented changes (Minina, 2017). Traditionally, the ‘golden standard’ of Soviet education was perceived as an inherent quality of the system indivisible into proximal components. In philosophical terms, the absolutist notion of quality was associated with the idea of ‘excellence’ and ‘meeting the highest standard’. In a socio-political sense, educational quality was seen as a public good. Quality was subsidised by the welfare state with a focus on good or effective management of schools by the state, and quality assurance was a prerogative of the state. Conformance to state quality requirements was ensured through the mechanisms of state checks and control. This understanding changed dramatically in the late 1990s to early 2000s, when the idea of quality was completely reinterpreted in the neoliberal paradigm. Throughout the 1990s, policy recommendations proposed to Russia by a number of prominent international organisations, including the World Bank and the OECD (World Bank, 1996; OECD, 1998), pressed for 30

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

a reform of Russia’s traditional examination system, the need for a state-wide educational statistics apparatus, and a political transition from direct control to indirect means of ensuring compliance with state standards through evaluation and accountability. They pointed to the limitations of the system of oral examinations and emphasised the indispensability of numerical data as a regulatory tool in the absence of the old ‘command-and-control’ system (Piattoeva, 2015). Throughout the 2000s, these demands made a rapid ascent into the socio-political space through the government elite, particularly through the neoliberally oriented government advisers and experts from Russia’s academic community. As a result, the Russian government pronounced the reform of educational quality as the main strategy of education modernisation reform. Among a plethora of measures proposed under the general umbrella of ‘quality assurance’, three major components of the quality paradigm were introduced into the quality narrative: external quality assessment, stakeholder quality criteria, and a national system of quality assurance. In addition to the state and educational institutions, the new quality paradigm included such entities as students, parents, employers and civil society – now reconceptualised as consumers of education services. The official recognition of an external, non-state demand for quality education has de facto signified an introduction of stakeholder-relative quality criteria into the quality framework. Positioned as an alternative to traditional state quality control and intra-institutional quality assessment, the quality reform essentially aimed at relativising the idea of quality – that is, breaking a homogeneous, subjective and stakeholder-neutral notion into a multi-variate, more objective and stakeholder-driven one. Through an increased institutional accountability and transparency, external assessment mechanisms and nationwide educational standards would provide the desired standard of quality and render the system accountable to a variety of educational stakeholders. Quality was said to guarantee equal access to education, facilitate meeting the demands of the modern economy and society, and secure international competitiveness. Framed in strong opposition to the Soviet-era model, the new concept of quality was presented by the government as a revolutionary novelty and a complete break from the Soviet tradition of quality control. In an attempt to introduce independent assessment into the quality framework, a Unified State Exam (henceforth USE) was developed and made mandatory from 2000 – an external tool for school leavers’ performance assessment aimed at enhancing school-leavers’ mobility nationwide and eliminating corruption (Gounko & Smale, 2007; Piattoeva, 2015). Despite fierce resistance from university administrators and society at large, and punctuated by allegations of new forms of corruption and exam cheating, Russian educational legislation was amended to institutionalise the USE as a single combined school-leaving and university-entry examination. Standardised testing was acknowledged as a strong measure of equity and a 31

Elena Minina et al

means of quality improvement (Bolotov, 2004). In the years following its mandatory introduction, the results of the USE quickly became politicised in that they were used as assessment criteria for regional authorities (Piattoeva, 2015; Gel’man & Starodubtsev, 2016). The de facto re-definition of performance outcomes through USE results and the open publication of school rankings became a means of external motivation for teachers, school administration and local authorities to comply with state educational standards (Bochenkov, 2013). In the absence of national large-scale assessment programmes for ‘[s]ystem monitoring and accountability purposes, the USE has ended up being used to fill this ga[p]’ (Tyumeneva, 2013, p. xi), despite the fact that it was not initially designed to yield this kind of information. Compliance with international testing standards was justified through the discourse of international competitiveness and the need for Russia to catch up economically with OECD member countries. Along with the emergence of the USE as a central instrument of quality measurement, a comprehensive system of quality evaluation and assurance was developed throughout the 2000s. It included instruments that had been in use for a long time, such as licensing and accreditation of schools and teachers, inspection and census, as well as a number of new instruments, such as the USE, official state surveys, school rankings, and self-evaluation reports. Russia also started to participate in international student achievement tests, including PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). These tests serve as a measure of national educational quality and a benchmark for developing national instruments of assessment (Kasprzhak et al, 2004, Kovaleva et al, 2004; Piattoeva & Gurova, 2018). Russia’s ‘unsatisfactory’ PISA results fuelled the discussion on generic and problem-solving skills, which were later included in the newly developed national education standards (Kasprzhak et al, 2004; Misarenko, 2009; Gurova et al, 2015). While Russia’s experimentation with standardised testing is clear evidence of international policy borrowing, the degree of conceptual and cultural adaptation of the global quality paradigm is a contested issue. Some analysts (Forrat, 2009; Magun, 2010; Minina, 2017) argue that the reform process has thus far failed to bring together multiple stakeholder perspectives, contrary to the objectives listed in the national education policies. Analysis of Russia’s post-1991 educational laws and policy statements (Minina, 2017) shows that quality continues to be characterised by contradictory traditional, authoritarian and neoliberal ideas. Despite government claims of an inclusive ‘quality revolution’, the concept of quality continues to be perceived as an exclusive prerogative of the state, which in the course of post-Soviet education reform withdrew from its social responsibilities as a quality provider and simultaneously re-institutionalised a command-and-control model through compliance with state-set standards and high-stakes standardised testing. 32

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

China While educational quality has traditionally been one of the cornerstones of education policy in China, since the intensification of Chinese education reform from the mid-1990s onwards, the national discourse of quality has been shifting from the socialist orientation of guaranteeing basic education for all to the issue of improving quality of education (Law, 2007; Liu, 2008; Della-Iacovo, 2009). China’s current blueprint for education in 2010-2020 (State Council, 2010) pronounces quality improvement as the main goal of education reform. China has a long-standing tradition of learning and policy borrowing from other countries. As for its quality assurance systems, the bulk of the modern school inspection was borrowed from Japan (Han, 2011), whereas the student assessment system corresponds more closely to global trends in standardised testing (Yang, 2008; Wang, 2009). China’s Centre for National Assessment of Education Quality has been closely following international trends, its representatives actively participating in international conferences on quality assessment and engaging in mutual cooperation with individual countries such as the USA and France, as well as with transnational organisations such as the World Bank (WB), UNESCO and the OECD in the field of quality assessment and monitoring (NAEQ, 2010). The national endeavour to evaluate the ongoing national reform of compulsory education complied with recommendations from the WB to join international largescale assessments. Seen by the Chinese government as an instrument of national economic development, the quality discourse emerged alongside the introduction of a market economy, which created a free and competitive labour market and required new skills to meet the needs of the information technology and innovations industry. In order to enhance its visibility on the international market, improving educational quality was conceptualised in terms of fostering innovation, raising the country’s intellectual potential and increasing the competitiveness of the nation in the global arena (Han, 2011). The notion of ‘quality education’ was introduced as a conceptual tool for targeting specific problems of Chinese education, most notably modernising the traditional high-stakes examination and exam preparation through rote learning (Kipnis, 2006; Law, 2007; Della-Iacovo, 2009). Going back thousands of years to the Imperial Examination of the Sui Dynasty era, the highly competitive college entrance examinations and rankings have been the main tool of quality evaluation. Traditionally, high scores have been equated with a high quality of education, promoting a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and causing enormous student and parental anxiety, even though the college examination is also seen as the most equitable admission tool. In an attempt to modernise its system of education, Guidelines 2010-2020 (State Council, 2010) proposed a systematic reform under the name of Modern School System (MSS). MSS includes such policy initiatives as the creation of a school quality evaluation system, as well as a better 33

Elena Minina et al

examination and recruitment system, and a revolutionary pedagogical retraining system supporting measures such as revision of national quality standards, redistribution of educational resources, introduction of the media, parents, politicians and non-government actors as education stakeholders and launching of more efficient budgeting and teacher accreditation systems (State Council, 2010). In pursuit of improved quality, in 2007 China adopted an assessment system based on standardised testing that evaluates and diagnoses the quality of basic education, and builds a database to allow the government to systematically gather education statistics across Chinese regions. Emphasising the need for innovative ideas and breakthroughs in education policy, the official quality discourse borrowed the idea of evidence-based policy-making and insisted that determining the ‘true quality’ of education through generating education data was a precondition for the reform (Cai & Xiang, 2015). The establishment of the Centre for the National Assessment of Education Quality in 2007 officially authorised the use of standardised tests to evaluate the academic achievement of pupils at certain stages, and in 2015 the official assessment system was established. Testing methodology includes assessing students’ academic achievement and local education infrastructures, such as the condition of school facilities (Cai, 2015; Cai & Xiang, 2015). As a result, for the first time, policy-makers are able to rely on a rich nationwide database as a tool for policy formation. Commonly referred to as ‘China’s PISA’, the national assessment system is modelled on largescale international assessment frameworks, such as PISA (Wang & Jing, 2013; Cai, 2015), with a significant amount of cultural adaptation of test questions and assessment techniques (Wang, 2009; Wang & Jing, 2013). In the logic of international assessments, analysis of test results is presented as a prerequisite for the promotion of high-quality education, and standardised testing is seen as a means to an end of collecting valuable knowledge on the regionally diverse education system (Xu & Li, 2011; Xin & Kang, 2012). In addition to testing, curriculum reform has been ongoing since 2001, featuring under the banner of quality the importance of ‘competence education’ (Kipnis, 2006) which includes the formation of such modern competencies as creative thinking, independent problem-solving, teamwork, inquisitiveness, intercultural skills and individual initiative. Alongside this global push to connect the idea of quality to the demands of a competitive market economy, the re-conceptualisation of quality was primarily rooted in China’s specific socio-cultural settings and pedagogical priorities. Following Confucian education, the domestic notion of quality is culturally interpreted as a positive characteristic of being a ‘well rounded, skilled in many areas, moral and nationalistic’ person (DellaIacovo, 2009, p. 242). Strong patriotic and nationalistic connotations are organically tied to the idea of the holistic cultivation – through discipline and practice – of superior physical, mental and moral skills for the purpose of achieving a higher status in the societal hierarchy and contributing to the 34

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

good of society (Kipnis, 2006; Della-Iacovo, 2009). Over the course of education quality reform, the Chinese government has made efforts to harmonise the traditional, socialist and neoliberal definitions of quality into a single national narrative. Earlier education manifestos describe qualified talents within the socialist framework as having four features: aspirations; moral integrity; knowledge; and a sense of discipline. Later documents, such as the current blueprint for education (State Council, 2010), tend to contextualise the term in a broader international perspective, emphasising building powerful human resources nation-wide, while focusing on developing domestic priority competencies, such as all-round intellectual, physical and moral abilities, including creative thinking, good health and aesthetic appreciation. China’s contemporary discourse of ‘reinvigorating China’ is based on the idea of cultivating highly qualified human resources through science and education, where individual competitive qualities are linked to the priority goals of national revival, strategic development and strengthening China’s global positioning as a major global power, which is popularised as the China Dream. Brazil In Brazil, just like in Russia and China, quality became a constitutive notion of the education sphere in the 1990s (Centeno et al, 2017). Historically, quality was a contested term associated with elitist education and linked to a conservative political agenda. Against striking socio-economic inequalities, education debates and policies favoured quantity at the expense of quality (Azanha, 2004). Whereas in the first half of the twentieth century the focus was on the universalisation of school access and increasing school enrolment rates, in the second half the progressively attained expansion of education directed attention to school completion and retention (Nardi et al, 2014). In contrast to China and Russia, Brazil does not administer high-stakes tests, as they have been considered antithetical to the democratic ideals of Brazilian education. Furthermore, although some states and municipalities use nationally or locally developed standardised assessments for teacher and staff accreditation and bonus pay, the Brazilian federal government does not encourage this practice. The understanding of quality began to change in the 1980s, following transnational influences and domestic challenges. In the aftermath of the long military dictatorship (1964-1985), Brazil simultaneously faced the need for economic adjustments (Wirth, 1997) and growing financial constraints in the education sphere. International donors called for structural reforms and quality first surfaced in the education policy arena through the application of Total Quality Management (TQM; Winn & Green, 1998) to both public administration and education. Whereas policy-makers, economists and sociologists embraced ‘total quality education’ (Ricardo Filho, 2010), educators strongly criticised it as an undesired neoliberal approach (Gentili & 35

Elena Minina et al

Silva, 1995). TQM contributed to the legitimation of the politically charged notion of quality and brought the language of education quality to the fore. The renewed political understanding of education quality within the framework of managerial practices paved the way for the development of performance assessments in the 1990s. As education reform faced major challenges from the 1970s onwards, Brazilian states and municipalities – the major public providers of education – attempted to increase student flow by means of palliative measures, such as automatic grade progression, provision of acceleration classes and reorganisation of studies into cycles (Franco et al, 2007). These policies challenged the traditional indicators (Oliveira & Araujo, 2005), forcing education secretaries to develop performance tests as alternative ways of gathering information already in the late 1970s (Gatti, 1987). The World Bank influenced many of these state programmes (Gatti et al, 1991), while its loans have enabled the elaboration of large-scale assessments since the late 1980s (see Kauko et al, 2016). This cooperation led to the creation of the Brazilian Evaluation System of Basic Education (SAEB) in 1990. Whereas the WB played an important role in the technical construction of SAEB, the UNESCO Education for All programme and the proposals of the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL; Freitas, 2004) were fundamental to the construction of a horizon of reference that legitimated education reforms based on quality monitoring. SAEB was the first in the long sequence of policies to operationalise quality through large-scale assessments. This direction of reform culminated in the National Plan for Education (PNE 2014-2024), which reiterated the goal in the 2007 Education Development Plan (PDE) of reaching the OECD PISA average by 2021. PISA presently serves as a benchmark for national educational quality. As can be seen from the above, Brazil was an early adopter of managerial practices in education, systematic performance-assessment schemes, and national large-scale assessments. This could be attributed to the long-standing historical involvement of international actors in Brazilian education through financial, technical or conceptual assistance and collaboration with national experts (Centeno, 2010). Concomitantly, the public debate on education crystallised around the assurance of education quality and was supported by various powerful networks that cut horizontally and vertically across the education arena. These included public and private actors, civil society movements and unions, parents and researchers. Although the meaning of quality varies according to the ideological and political stance of the actor (Gusmão, 2013), interpretations combine the democratic ideal of the universalisation of school access and completion with the managerial understandings of school success, effectiveness and performance. Thus, whereas international policy borrowing supported the development of measurement tools in Brazil, their appropriation is deeply 36

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

embedded in cultural and conceptual specificities that diverge from the global script. From the first calls for the government’s social responsibility in the early 1900s to the 1980s battles for democratic social rights, education has occupied the top position on the list of social demands. After the restoration of Brazilian democracy and adoption of the 1988 Constitution, a dynamic social-democratic movement emerged that successfully pushed for the advancement of social rights, among which education came first (Oliveira, 2007). The movement established a new political definition and public understanding of education as a principle and a right (Cabral & Di Giorgi, 2002). At the same time, the Constitution prepared the ground for the understanding and legitimation of quality in terms of ‘guaranteed standards’ for all, non-discrimination, pluralism of ideas, and equality of conditions for access and remaining in school. Importantly, it also sealed the government’s duty to evaluate and assure the quality of school education (Freitas, 2004). The federal legislation that followed associated educational quality with both student achievement and school efficiency. The political objectives and tools were yet again framed within the social framework. For example, SAEB aims ‘to evaluate the quality, equity and efficiency of Brazilian education’ (INEP, n.d., para. 3), and the Development Index of Basic Education (IDEB) was designed to combine SAEB performance assessment with school flow. In the PNE 2014-2024, most strategies are concerned with quality in education, which is recognised as a social right. Overall, the conceptualisation of quality in Brazil emerged as a discursive adaptation of both social equity concerns, new managerial practices, and the state’s commitment to improving school flow and student learning. Conclusion In Russia, China and Brazil, the arrival of the quality paradigm into the domestic political agenda coincided with consolidating relations with international organisations or building them anew, and in Russia and China with the opening up of the economy and new pressures to compete in global markets. Our analysis highlights the common theme in the language of quality in the three cases: the assumption that quality is a quantifiable and measurable attribute of the education system best examined through national and international standardised tests. Standardised testing is simultaneously a means to identify quality and a central instrument of quality improvement and evidence-based governance. As traditional testing systems are increasingly presented as lacking in depth and objectivity, new measurements and indicators are sought to provide nuanced, reliable and commensurable information on education quality. The comparative and contrasting analysis of the three cases also reveals interesting differences in the way the quality paradigm has been adapted locally. Our analysis sheds light on how locally embedded practices and longer socio-historical, socio-economic, political and discursive conditions 37

Elena Minina et al

facilitate the import – whether factual or discursive – of models and ideas (e.g. Steiner-Khamsi 2014). In comparison with Brazil and China, Russia’s case demonstrates a greater acceptance of the neoliberal quality script without much cultural adaptation to historically inherited structures, pedagogy and indigenous values. However, Russia’s approach to quality reform is also characterised by a number of contradictory pulls. A rhetorical absorption of the neoliberal quality narrative and ‘voluntary compliance’ with the majority of the specific quality-related policy reforms recommended by international experts are evidence of the continuing monopoly of the state over quality-assurance practices. China and Brazil, in turn, are illustrative cases of selective adaptation of the international agenda, with the state and society serving a mediating function in the cultural adaptation of global practices. China’s government opted for selectively adopting large-scale assessment methodologies in the context of the country’s domestic socio-political priorities and China’s ambition for a leading role in the global economy. Brazil, a country that has been exposed to the global quality imperative the longest, tends to treat international quality frameworks as a contextual background, focusing its rhetorical energy on the country’s specificities and prioritising domestic social needs. The discourse of quality and standardised assessment in Brazil is strongly associated with democratic ideals and pragmatic schooling issues, such as improvements in learning achievement, student flow and school completion. In Russia and China, the domestic recognition of the need for reform, supported by the critique of their traditional education systems by international stakeholders, fostered a political will to ‘modernise’. Quality became associated in these two countries with the acquisition of ‘contemporary competencies’ as opposed to knowledge through rote learning or subjective assessment. At the same time, the notion of ‘educational quality’ was framed in official state discourses as both a source of and a solution to education problems, effectively reconceptualising educational quality as a tool for education governance and a means of reform legitimisation. Both Russian and Chinese governments continue to exercise control over the content of ‘education quality’, utilising the concept for political ends. Russia’s comparison with other countries in general, and the non-Soviet transitologies in particular, helps to avoid explaining the Russian case solely within the post-socialist transformation framework, thus acknowledging and highlighting the embeddedness of reforms in the global structures and travelling discourses that affect many other countries in the same period of time. Though more research is needed to explain Russia’s absorption of quality reforms without apparent cultural adaptation, Russia’s comparison with China and Brazil yields interesting tentative interpretations linked to the particularity of its post-Soviet transitology as opposed to the political processes experienced by the other two countries. In the Chinese case, the 38

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

reform was very gradual and more technical rather than political or ideological in nature. The strong criticism of traditional rigid examinations as impairing the new education quality necessary for the development of the socialist market economy and China’s stronger global position legitimised the introduction of education quality evaluation through new standardised tests. In Brazil, where reforms were more radical than in China, though not as overwhelming as in the Russian case, the political prestige of the idea of ‘social quality’ fostered a cautious and only partial adoption of the global script, despite long-lasting and deep links to large-scale international actors. ‘Social quality’ helped to unite stakeholders around the notion of quality as a measurable attribute, and this consensus legitimised standardised testing as a measure of quality. Russia’s rapid and dramatic political transformation that aimed at enabling a decisive breakaway from the Soviet-era practices is unique among the three cases. The rejection of the past de-legitimised tradition as a filter of travelling reforms, while in the context of no viable alternative, the neoliberal quality assessment paradigm became inescapable (see Gurova et al, 2015; Minina, 2017). More recently, Russia’s recentralising state sees these reforms as important vehicles in reinstating its power through globally travelling ideas. Overall, our study underlines the need to avoid a diffusionist mode of thinking that conflates, often erroneously, practical means with the underlying ‘regimes of truth’ (see Kipnis, 2008; Centeno et al, 2017). The Brazilian example in particular is a revealing illustration of the possibility that local social and political circumstances help to diffuse particular travelling ideas without, however, absorbing the ideologies that invented them (Kipnis, 2008; Centeno et al, 2017). Alternatively, as the cases of Russia and China exemplify, national reforms and local practices can be masked by the international borrowing of labels and terms for very locally rooted political projects or practical solutions. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under grants 274218, 307310, 273874. We would like to thank all members of our research consortium for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. References Alasuutari, P. & Qadir, A. (2014) Introduction, in P. Alasuutari & A. Qadir (Eds) National Policy-making: domestication of global trends, pp. 1-22. Abingdon: Routledge. Azanha, J. (2004) A Reflection on the Formation of the Elementary School Teacher, Educação e Pesquisa, 30(2), 369-378. (in Portuguese) Bochenkov, S. (2013) Teacher, School, System of Education in the Mirror of USE [in Russian], Problemy sovremennogo obrazovaniya, 3. http://docplayer.ru/264045-

39

Elena Minina et al Uchitel-shkola-sistema-obrazovaniya-v-zerkale-ege.html (accessed 4 December 2017). Bolotov, V. (2004) USE: interim results [in Russian], Voprosy Obrazovaniia, 2, 155-167. Borevskaya, N., Borisenkov V. & Zhu, X. (2010) Educational Reforms in Russia and China at the Turn of the 21st Century: a comparative analysis. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre. Cabral, K.M. & Di Giorgi, C.A.G. (2002) The Right to Quality in Basic Education in Brazil: an analysis of the relevant legislation and of the educational definitions needed for judicial demand [in Portuguese], Educação, 35(1), 116-128. Cai, L. (2015) Establishing National Quality Monitoring System for Compulsory Education [in Chinese], 16 April. http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_fbh/moe_2069/xwfbh_2015n/xwfb_150415/ 150415_mtbd/201504/t20150416_187220.html (accessed 10 September 2015). Cai, W. & Xiang, Q. (2015) The measurement of quality in compulsory education: national compulsory education quality monitoring system [in Chinese], 18 April http://www.eachina.org.cn/eac/dcdt/ff8080814cc32293014ce5d464c70037.htm (accessed 10 September 2015). Centeno, V.G. (2010) Agency in Establishing a Transnational Space: Brazilian interest in US-American Educational Assistance Programs (1956-1974), in U. Engel & M. Middell (Eds) World Orders Revisited, pp. 155-176. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag. Centeno, V.G., Kauko, J. & Candido, H.H.D. (2017) Quality Assurance and Evaluation through Brazilian Lenses: an exploration into the validity of umbrella concepts, Comparative Education [online first]. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2017.1348084 Cowen, R. (2000) Comparing Futures or Comparing Pasts? Comparative Education, 36(3), 333-342. https://doi.org/10.1080/713656619 Cowen, R. (2009) Then and Now: unit ideas and comparative education, in. R. Cowen & A. Kazamias (Eds) International Handbook of Comparative Education, pp. 1277-1294. Dordrecht: Springer. Della-Iacovo, B. (2009) Curriculum Reform and ‘Quality Education’ in China: an overview, International Journal of Educational Development, 29(3), 241-269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.02.008 Forrat, N. (2009) The Issues of Quality in Higher Education: global challenges and their adaptations in Russia [in Russian], Voprosy Obrazovaniia, 2, 121-138. Franco, C., Ortigão, I., Albernaz, A., Bonamino, A., Aguiar, G., Alves, F. & Sátyro, N. (2007) Quality and Equity in Education: reconsidering the meaning of ‘intraschool factors’ [in Portuguese], Ensaio: Avaliação e Políticas Públicas em Educação, 15(55), 277-298. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-40362007000200007 Freitas, D.N.T. (2004) Evaluation of Basic Education and Federal Normative Action, Cadernos de Pesquisa, 34(123), 663-689. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-15742004000300008 Gatti, B.A. (1987) Tests and the Evaluation of Education in Brazil, Educação e Seleção, 16, 33-41.

40

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

Gatti, B.A., Vianna, H.M. & Davis, C. (1991) Problems and Impasses in the Evaluation of Educational Projects and Systems: two Brazilian cases, Estudos em Avaliação Educacional, 4, 7-27. Gel’man, V. & Starodubtsev, A. (2016) Opportunities and Constraints of Authoritarian Modernisation: Russian policy reforms in the 2000s, Europe-Asia Studies, 68(1), 97-117. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2015.1113232 Gentili, P. & Silva, T. (Eds) (1995) Neoliberalism, Total Quality, and Education [in Portuguese], 6. edn. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes. Gounko, T. & Smale, W. (2007) Modernisation of Russian Higher Education: exploring paths of influence, Compare: a journal of comparative education, 37(4), 533-548. Gurova, G., Piattoeva, N. & Takala, T. (2015) Quality of Education and its Evaluation: an analysis of the Russian academic discussion, European Education, 47(4), 346-364. https://doi.org/10.1080/10564934.2015.1107377 Gusmão, J.B. (2013) The Construction of the Notion of Quality in Education [in Portuguese], Ensaio: Avaliação de Políticas Públicas Educacionais, 94(236), 299-322. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-40362013000200007 Han, Qinglin (2011) A Review of and Reflection on the Development of the Supervision System with Chinese Characteristics over 30 Years [in Chinese], Educational Research and Practice, 11, 4-16. Hurrell, A. (2006) Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order: what space for would-be great powers? International Affairs, 82(1), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2006.00512.x INEP (n.d.) SAEB: ANEB and ANRESC [in Portuguese]. http://provabrasil.inep.gov.br (accessed 19 October 2016). Kamens, D. & McNeely C. (2010) Globalisation and the Growth of International Educational Testing and National Assessment, Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 5-25. https://doi.org/10.1086/648471 Kasprzhak, A., Polivanova, K., Tsukerman, G., Mitrofanov, K. & Sokolova, O. (2004) Russian School Education: a view from outside [in Russian], Voprosy Obrazovaniia, 1, 190-231. Kauko, J., Centeno, V.G., Candido, H., Shiroma, E. & Klutas, A. (2016) The emergence of quality assessment in Brazilian basic education, European Educational Research Journal, 15(5), 558-579. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904116662889 Kipnis, A. (2006) Suzhi: a keyword approach, China Quarterly, 186, 295-313. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741006000166 Kipnis, A. (2008) Audit Cultures: neoliberal governmentality, socialist legacy, or technologies of governing? American Ethnologist, 35(2), 275-289. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2008.00034.x Kis, V. (2005) Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education: current practices in OECD countries and a literature review on potential effects, Tertiary Review: a contribution to the OECD thematic review of tertiary education 14(9). Kovaleva, G., Krasnokutskaia, L., Krasnianskaia, K. & Loginova, O. (2004) Results of Russia’s Participation in the International Programme of Assessment of

41

Elena Minina et al Educational Achievements (PISA) in 2003 [in Russian], Voprosy Obrazovaniia, 1, 181-189. Law, W. (2007) Legislation and Educational Change: the struggle for social justice and quality in China’s compulsory schooling, Education and the Law, 19(3-4), 177-199. Li, P., Gorshkov, M.K., Scalon, C. & Sharma K.L. (Eds) (2013) Handbook on Social Stratification in the BRIC Countries: change and perspective. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1142/8398 Lingard, B., Martino, W. & Rezai-Rashti, G. (2013) Testing Regimes, Accountabilities and Education Policy: commensurate global and national developments, Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 539-556. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2013.820042 Liu, H. (2008) The Meaning of Imperial Examination and Exploration of its Origins [in Chinese], Journal of Xiamen University, 5, 70-91. Magun, A. (2010) Higher Education in Russia: is there a way out of a neoliberal impasse? http://www.academia.edu/882671/Higher_Education_in_Russia_Is_There_a_Wa y_out_of_a_Neoliberal_Impasse (accessed 4 December 2017). Minina, E. (2017) Quality Revolution in Post-Soviet Education in Russia: from control to assurance? Journal of Education Policy, 32(2), 176-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2016.1250165 Misarenko, G. (2009) On the Way to Educational Standards of the New Generation [in Russian], Narodnoye Obrazovanie, 1, 62-68. Moutsios, S. (2010) Power, Politics and Transnational Policy-making in Education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 8(1), 121-141. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767720903574124 NAEQ (2010) Third Issue of the Bulletin of the Center for National Assessment of Education Quality [in Chinese]. https://www.eachina.org.cn/eac/zxjb/ff8080812b488c9c012b4b9f77fc000b.htm (accessed 4 December 2017). Nardi, E., Schneider, M. & Rios, M. (2014) Quality in Basic Education: dynamic actions and strategies [in Portuguese], Educação & Realidade, 39(2), 359-390. https://doi.org/10.1590/S2175-62362014000200003 Nóvoa, A. & Yariv-Mashal, T. (2003) Comparative Research in Education: a mode of governance or a historical journey? Comparative Education, 39(4), 423-439. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305006032000162002 Oliveira, R. (2007) From the Universalisation of Primary School to the Challenge of Quality: a historical analysis [in Portuguese], Educação & Sociedade, 28(100), 661-690. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302007000300003 Oliveira, R. & Araujo, G. (2005) Education Quality: a new dimension in the struggle for the right to education [in Portuguese], Revista Brasileira de Educação, 28, 5-24. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1413-24782005000100002 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (1998) Reviews of National Policies for Education: Russian Federation. OECD: Paris.

42

EDUCATIONAL QUALITY IN RUSSIA, CHINA AND BRAZIL

Phillips, D. (2000) Learning from Elsewhere in Education: some perennial problems revisited with reference to British interest in Germany, Comparative Education, 36(3), 297-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/713656617 Piattoeva, N. (2015) Elastic Numbers: national examinations data as a technology of government, Journal of Education Policy, 30(3), 316-334. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2014.937830 Piattoeva, N. & Gurova, G. (2018) Domesticating International Assessments in Russia: historical grievances, national values, scientific rationality and education modernization, in C. Alarcón & M. Lawn (Eds) Pupil Assessment Cultures in Historical Perspective. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Piattoeva, N. & Takala, T. (2015) Russia as a Returning Donor: four roles in development assistance to education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 13(3), 388-410. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2014.972343 Rappleye, J. (2010) Compasses, Maps, and Mirrors: relocating episteme(s) of transfer, reorienting the comparative kosmos, in M. Larsen (Ed.) New Thinking in Comparative Education. Honouring Robert Cowen, pp. 57-79. Amsterdam: Sense. Ricardo Filho, G.S. (2010) The Discourse about Education Policy: cohesions and ramifications among educational experts (1990-2007) [in Portuguese]. PhD thesis, Faculdade de Educação, Universidade de São Paulo. Rowlands, D. (2012) Individual BRICS or a Collective Bloc? Convergence and Divergence amongst ‘Emerging Donor’ Nations, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 25(4), 629-649. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2012.710578 Schriewer, J. & Martinez, C. (2004) Constructions of Internationality in Education, in G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.) (2014) The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, pp. 29-53. New York: Teachers College Press. Schweisfurth, M. (2002) Teachers, Democratisation and Educational Reform in Russia and South Africa. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.49 Silova, I. & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Eds) (2008) How NGOs React: globalisation and education reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Skocpol, T. & Somers, M. (1980) The Uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22(2), 174-197. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500009282 State Council (2010) National Medium- and Long-term Educational Guidelines 2010-2020. Beijing: Ministry of Education. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2014) Cross-national Policy Borrowing: understanding reception and translation, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(2), 153-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2013.875649 Tilly, C. (1984) Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Tyumeneva, Y. (2013) Disseminating and Using Student Assessment Information in Russia. Washington, DC: World Bank.

43

Elena Minina et al Valverde, G. (2014) Educational Quality: global politics, comparative inquiry, and opportunities to learn, Comparative Education Review, 58(4), 575-589. https://doi.org/10.1086/678038 Wang, L. (2009) China’s Large-scale Education Assessment Reform: lessons learned from PISA [in Chinese], China Examinations, 5, 17-25. Wang, L. & Jing, A. (2013) What China has Learned from PISA: a study based on Chinese experiences of the PISA test [in Chinese], Peking University Education Review, 1, 172-180. Winn, R.C. & Green, R.S. (1998) Applying Total Quality Management to the Educational Process, International Journal of Engineering Education, 14(1), 24-29. Wirth, J.D. (1997) Reviewed Work: The Means of Our Salvation: public education in Brazil, 1930-1995 by David N. Plank, American Journal of Education, 105(4), 484-488. https://doi.org/10.1086/444168 World Bank (1996) From Plan to Market: executive summary. World Development Report. Washington, DC: World Bank. Xin, T. & Kang, C. (2012) Qualitative Advances of China’s Basic Education since Reform and Opening up: a brief overview, Chinese Education and Society, 45(1), 42-50. https://doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-1932450105 Xu, F. & Li, H. (2011) Research of the Quality Standards of Basic Education and Quality-evaluating System [in Chinese], Education and Teaching Research, 3, 48-50. Yang, X. (2008) Study on the Characteristics of PISA and its Inspirations for Chinese Reforms of Evaluation Systems [in Chinese], Educational Scientific Research, 2, 22-25.

44

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations

CHAPTER 2

Constructing the European Citizen: the origins and the development of the Serbian post-2000 civic education discourse SANJA DJERASIMOVIC

ABSTRACT Twenty-five years ago, the European Union (EU) and the idea(l) of ‘Europeanness’ served as relatively fixed elements of the narrative of ‘return’ that directed most of the post-communist countries’ reforms. In the contemporary context of the former’s renegotiation, this chapter examines the discourse of citizenship as constructed in the civic education policies at the opposite ends of the ‘common’ European space – in Serbia, an EU candidate country, and one of the handful of formerly communist states not to have yet formally ‘returned’ to Europe, and in England at the dawn of Brexit. The analysis reflects on the normative qualities of the late transition of Serbia’s educational system, which began with the introduction of civic education in 2001, as well as on the international and transnational nature of educational policymaking in the European educational space in the twenty-first century, as the author queries the meaning and productivity of the ‘transfer of discourse’ approach to the comparative study of education policies. The findings identify shared key concepts and various points of divergence and convergence in the two countries’ substantive construction of civic education discourses, without, however, suggesting the direct transfer of discourse mechanisms. The chapter finally argues for a complication of global/local, East/West and similar polarities in the conceptualisation and methodology of educational policy research in the present context of dissolution of erstwhile rarely examined analytical categories.

Introduction The United Kingdom is engaged with the process of ‘Brexit’ negotiations, having decided, in a national referendum, to leave the European Union 45

Sanja Djerasimovic

(EU). At the (south)eastern border of the Union, a handful of countries, following in the steps of numerous other members of the post-communist family, are still hoping to join it. Fifteen years ago, for Serbia – one of these countries and the focus of this chapter – Europe represented the myth of a better life, an antithesis to the isolationism, authoritarianism, poverty, corruption and conflict that marked much of its post-communist transition during the 1990s. Serbia’s post-communist transition was a ‘belated’ one, not having properly started until 2001 when the first government following the nationalist authoritarian [1] regime of Slobodan Milošević was installed. Although the Serbian experience of communism ended in 1990, the dissolution of the then Yugoslavia to which Serbia belonged, and the civil wars that followed, overshadowed any actual negotiation of the establishment of new political and educational institutions. It is for this reason that ‘transition’ in the sense it has been used in post-communist scholarship only became particularly pertinent in the literature as well as in Serbian public discourse after 2000. I use the term here to denote a range of systematic reforms following the break-up of communism, while acknowledging that Serbia has been ‘transitioning’ since its first post-communist elections in 1990. Similar to many other post-communist countries where public discourses after the collapse of communism were dominated by the idea of a ‘return to Europe’ (Bîrzea, 1994), the latter was one of the main topics permeating Serbia’s political and policy space in late 2000. The ‘Return to Europe’ discourse was declared one of the priorities for the new Serbian society. The opening statement in the 2002 education reform White Paper asserted: Education is a priority area for the development of Serbia to facilitate its economic recovery, creation of a democratic society and re-integration into the international community. Considering the years of deterioration of the education system at all levels, the new Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) has assumed a major role in the reforms that Serbian society is undergoing to the extent that it must provide for new generations to be oriented towards living together in a modern, European, multiethnic country. (Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education and Sport, 2002b, p. 5; my emphasis) One of the first educational changes made by that first modern democratic government in 2001 was to introduce civic education in primary and secondary school curricula as a part of the wider programme of education for democracy, which coincided with the second phase (2001-2004) of the Europe-wide initiative for Education for Democratic Citizenship, led at the time by the Council of Europe (hereafter CoE). While civic education had existed across the formerly communist region as a political/ideological subject 46

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

designed to instil Marxist values in students and was usually among the first subjects to be eliminated in the process of the ideological ‘purging’ of the curriculum post-1989, it reappeared later in various forms as education for democracy. Nevertheless, civic education was a completely new and novel subject in Serbia’s schools, especially given its interactive pedagogy as well as its content. Another curiosity was that the introduction of civic education was accompanied by the (re)introduction of religious education as religious instruction, that had been absent from schools for some sixty years. All pupils were faced with a compulsory choice between the two subjects, which created a symbolic and discursive opposition between ‘democracy’ and ‘modernity’ on the one hand, and ‘nationalism’ and ‘tradition’ on the other. This curriculum policy is taken as a point of departure and examined in its symbolism as the first step in Serbia’s democratic education reform, with the context in which this has taken place set against the background of other early democratic reform efforts described and conceptualised elsewhere (see Phillips & Kaser, 1992). This chapter explores dominant narratives in the construction of the Serbian civic education discourse; it also examines dominant narratives of Serbian post-communist educational reform that was a decade behind most other post-communist countries, and as such absent from all of the major theoretical and exploratory accounts of post-communist reforms.[2] I draw theoretical and contextual comparisons as I analyse how conceptualisation of post-communist policymaking has changed over the years, and consider a potential contribution of the Serbian case to the broader literature. In the second part of the chapter, I bring a magnifying glass to the external – foreign as well as supranational – influences on this policy. At the time of the introduction of civic education, Serbian experts relied on transnational civic education policy documentation prepared by the CoE, as well as seeking advice from a small number of relevant NGOs such as the Citizenship Foundation. The latter had been involved in developing and delivering civic education programmes around Europe in collaboration with the CoE and played an important role in the introduction of citizenship education into the English National Curriculum a year later (in 2002). In this part of the chapter, I examine Serbian civic education policy through a comparative discourse analysis against the background of both English citizenship education and the CoE’s education for democratic citizenship policies. The comparative focus will remain on England (as opposed to the whole of the UK) owing to the above connections, but also to the lack of a unified national curriculum, and the fact that England is the only one of the four UK nations where citizenship education is a compulsory part of the curriculum. I seek to establish parallels in the national-level constructions of ‘ideal’ citizens, one at the point of building a new democratic system of government and hoping to ‘join’ Europe, and the other in the atmosphere of ‘democratic deficit’ (Featherstone, 1994) in one of the oldest modern democracies in the 47

Sanja Djerasimovic

world that is on the verge of ‘leaving’ Europe. This will offer a valuable opportunity to examine, on one hand, the horizontal (even if unidirectional, from UK ‘experts’ to Serbian educationalists) and vertical (from the CoE to national contexts) flows of educational discourses in contemporary educational policymaking. On the other hand, the analysis will identify discursive points of contact and divergence in a world portrayed as beset by shared problems and concerns in UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education (GCE) initiative, proclaimed in 2014 as one of the top post-EFA priorities, and perhaps no longer suffering from past (global) East/West polarisations that might have shaped the theorisation of educational policy transformations a quarter of a century ago. The Rise of Civic Education in European Educational Space Civic education gained in popularity towards the end of the last century, as a number of ‘newly democratised’ countries, first in southern Europe, and then those rebuilding their educational systems in the aftermath of communism and in some instances the dissolution of large federations, sought to define the role of education in building a new society and a new state. In the meantime, ‘established’ western democracies started reporting a democratic deficit (Featherstone, 1994), which was perceived as political apathy and lack of social cohesion. In world in which globalisation, a marketisation of the public sphere, and multiculturalism both opened up opportunities but also caused fears of individualisation, lack of trust in democratic institutions, marginalisation of social groups, and racism (Turnbull, 2002; Forrester, 2003), the idea of introducing or strengthening educational programmes that would help shape an active, engaged and informed citizen (Janmaat & Piattoeva, 2007) proved very appealing in the ongoing, and now almost ubiquitous project of liberal democracy (Schmidt, 2008). Thus, democracy, national identity and social cohesion became three main domains of national civic education policies (Steiner-Khamsi et al, 2002a), the first two being particularly pertinent in the context of post-communist countries, where nation-building and promotion of democratic values have been noted as important priorities of early educational reforms (Anweiler, 1992; Bîrzea, 1994; Coulby, 2000). During the second half of the 1990s, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this was reflected both in a number of international policies, such as the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) decade of human rights education (1995-2004) and the CoE’s initiative of Education for Democratic Citizenship, as well as in a number of large-scale, multi-national surveys of the nature of civic education or the degree of ‘active citizenship’ in different contexts (see e.g. Hahn, 1998; Torney-Purta et al, 2001; Bîrzea, 2004), and of the effect of civic education programmes on students’ attitudes and behaviour (Finkel, 2002; Kahne et al, 2006; Schmidt, 2008).[3] 48

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

It is in this wider context that Serbian civic education policy was born. Following decades of communism and a nationalist, isolationist ideology of the 1990s, this was an opportunity to both legitimise the new democratic government through a promotion of a policy overtly dedicated to active, democratic citizenship, and also to demonstrate Serbia’s ‘re-integration’ into the international educational community. In the meantime, citizenship education was about to become a compulsory part of the English national curriculum, following the recommendations of the Crick Report (Advisory Group on Citizenship, 1998), and having travelled the path from a postWWII version which was a course on duties and responsibilities, then suffering fierce opposition by the Conservative government in the 1970s and 1980s as ‘partisan’ and unpatriotic in the context of British tradition (Kisby & Sloam, 2011, pp. 4-5), and finally returning to the political agenda in the 1990s among the concerns around political engagement, and the strength and shape of the British multicultural identity. In both countries, many of the policy ‘key words’ were the same: issues of political literacy and active citizenship, concerns surrounding nationality, culture and xenophobia. Such similarity, and the fact that civic education was at the time internationally promoted and supported, made this policy a potentially good example of transnational policy convergence, or at least an ‘abstract universalism’, a term used by Schriewer (2003, p. 273) to denote concepts that ‘fan out’ as internationally disseminated models and interact with context-bound social meanings and educational cultures. In the second part of the text, I examine the level of convergence by looking at the contextspecific discursive fleshing-out of these universalisms, and what the expectations of these modern, European citizens were in order for them to successfully tackle seemingly similar problems. First, however, I address the 25-year-old contextual gap, and examine the conditions and consequences of Serbia’s ‘belated’ transition that started with this very policy. Analysing a ‘Belated’ Post-communist Transition Studying the beginnings of a post-communist reform well into the twentyfirst century offered a plethora of available examples and approaches, but also presented significant challenges in terms of appropriateness, particularly bearing in mind my intent to avoid context generalisation. In particular, I harboured reservations towards using ‘post-communist’ as an umbrella term to describe in some cases vastly different cultural, historical and political settings. While I continue to use this term to explore education in a country that was once communist, I acknowledge, and attempt to tackle in my approach, the problems of homogenisation it created. One such problem is in the very construction of transition that has coloured a lot of the literature produced during the 1990s. With occasional exceptions, the expectation was that the post-communist transition would be a transition to a neoliberal democracy, a process of modernisation of the 49

Sanja Djerasimovic

backward and ‘side-tracked’ region (Radó, 2001), marking a global convergence towards similar educational models (Meyer & Ramirez, 2000), and resulting in Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’. Occasional political theorists noted that ‘democratisation in compressed time’ (Offe, 1991) would inevitably lead to some hybrid states, such as later conceptualised by Mungiu-Pippidi (2006) as ‘democratisation without decommunisation’. Overall, however, the field of ‘transitology’ adopted a teleological approach, and ‘transition from’ (communism) became ‘transition to’ (neoliberal democracy) (Jović, 2010). But even ‘transition from’ carries an implication of the same set of circumstances from which different societies began their reforms, a premise that was, despite identifying some common elements in individual countries’ systems, challenged by multiple studies, such as those compiled in Phillips and Kaser’s (1992) volume, as well as in volumes edited by Karsten and Majoor (1994), Sayer et al (1995), and Beresford-Hill (1997). These studies emphasised the historical context, the varied experience of communism, and local, regional and national concerns, and opened up room for uncertainty regarding the direction of reform. Nevertheless, by the turn of the century, such uncertainty gave way to Europeanisation, and with the admission of several formerly communist countries into the EU in 2004, ‘transition’ increasingly seemed to be conceptualised as ‘transition to’, reflected in part in the paucity of studies that went beyond assessing the success of the modernising, democratising, Europeanising project of individual countries. There were several models developed during the 1990s and early 2000s that theorised the transition process: Bîrzea (1994) created a five-stage model that takes the system from political rupture to stabilised self-regulation; McLeish (1998) discussed concentric circles and ‘ripples’ of macro- and micro-reform; and Polyzoi et al (2003) proposed an adaptation of the Triple I model of initiation, implementation and internalisation. Importantly, all of these major models assumed a progressive trajectory, a journey whose end point can be judged a success or a failure. Working under such a presumption, the authors then sought to chart the paths of various reforms and focused on identifying facilitating and obstructing factors. However, the last decade or so has seen a ‘post-post-communist’ (Djerasimovic, 2015) approach to educational changes across the postcommunist space, as authors such as Silova (2010, 2004) and SteinerKhamsi (2004a) sought to challenge the view of transition-asdemocratisation against which any departure from the standardised path was conceptualised as a crisis, a divergence or even a retardation. These authors and colleagues working in a similar vein offered a conceptualisation of changes as multiple transformations rather than a single forcibly homogenised transition, happening as a result of local configurations that might transfer a certain discourse as an externalising, legitimising symbol, but either not change the actual practice, or produce various forms of educational practice hybridisation. 50

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

It is from this perspective that I analysed the beginnings of Serbia’s educational reform, marked by a policy that could have intuitively been considered a ‘flag of convenience’ (Lynch, 1998) and a legitimising symbol. My approach, in addition to working with the ‘transfer of discourse’ paradigm, also incorporated policymakers’ personal narratives into the policy discourse, relating them to key concepts. In this way, I attempted to further the theorisation of policymakers’ agency, while creating a richer background for policies – especially those treated as ‘symbolic’ – and therefore moving beyond the assumptions of the ‘flags of convenience’ motivation or a copy– paste system used in the rush to develop an internationally desirable course for reform. On Policies as Discourses and Methodology of Late-modern Policy Analysis Treating a policy as discourse [4] implies treating it as a means of construction of reality, prescribing roles and identities (Ball, 1993) and allocating desired values and ways of being through the construction of problems and solutions (Bacchi, 2012) and then using critical discourse analysis to unpack its ‘taken-for-grantedness’. I relied on one of Fairclough’s (2003) frameworks of discourse analysis, which examine construction of styles (ways of being), genres (ways of (inter)acting), and discourses (ways of representation) as constitutive of the order of discourse: the semiotic aspect of the network of social practices. My variation is in using ‘discourse’ to designate these ‘orders’, allowing me to speak of economic, educational, political discourse. In addition, I use ideological narratives to mark a ‘scenario’ (of, for example, an ideal citizen) in which discursively constructed ways of being and interacting are integrated, and that can encompass several discourses, just as a single discourse can carry several ideological narratives. Various texts, including interview data, policy documents and media pieces, are seen as the artefacts of the policy discourse, produced in different fields of social practice, and constructing multiple, either complementary or competing, ideological narratives. ‘Ideology’ is used following van Dijk’s (1997) definition as shared belief or knowledge, socially bound and drawn on, as well as built, in individual and group engagements with, and constructions of, discourse. Some of the data used here were generated between 2012 and 2014, as a part of my doctoral thesis which examined the sociological and discursive aspects of the construction and introduction of the Serbian civic education policy in 2001. The data include a number of Serbian policy documents, parliamentary debates and press articles, and 19 elite interviews with various policy actors, including: most of the members of the team in charge of the Democratisation of Education programme, which was one of the key elements of the reform strategy; the then minister of education; representatives of civic education NGOs; reform working groups; opposition voices; members of the shadow cabinet; as well as a Citizenship Foundation representative. I used 51

Sanja Djerasimovic

these data sources – both documentary and empirical – in exploring the context of Serbia’s early post-communist reform and policymaking landscape, and drawing parallels with the relevant literature produced in the last couple of decades. Documents used in the comparative analysis included: the policy paper ‘Democratisation of Education and Education for Democratic Citizenship’, developed from one of the key segments of the Serbian 2002 reform White Paper; its English counterpart, the Crick Report (Advisory Group on Citizenship, 1998); one of the Council of Europe’s documents published in 2000 constructive of the Europe-wide policy for Education for Democratic Citizenship, outlining ‘Basic Concepts and Core Competencies for Education for Democratic Citizenship’; Serbian current national curriculum guidelines for secondary school civic education; English current national curriculum guidelines for Key Stages 3 and 4 citizenship education; and finally, UK and Serbian press articles published in 2014, 2015 and 2016 containing the phrases ‘citizenship education’/‘civic education’, retrieved from NewsBank and through using a Google search. These were the documents that I identified as relevant – owing to their function and their ubiquity in the wider documentary discourse – artefacts of the civic education policy discourse constructed in national and transnational spaces. I performed the analysis by searching for segments of texts constitutive of several main categories (e.g. key problems and concerns, proposed solutions, desirable values, and spheres of collective identity) and examining their syntactic and modal construction (e.g. subjects and objects, pairing and opposition, passivity and agency). I sought to identify the dominant discourses in the construction of citizen, primarily national, political and economic, as the chief three spheres in which the post-communist change had been happening, before synthesising the findings into ideological narratives or citizen scenarios. I then compared these narratives and scenarios with one another, seeking points of convergence and divergence, indicative of horizontal and vertical channels of communication, but also context-specific substantiation of ‘abstract universalisms’. Introduction of Civic Education in Serbia in 2001 and the Start of Serbia’s Belated Reform The analysis of the Serbian 2001-2003 reform revealed what I conceptualised as multiple policyspeaks (Steiner-Khamsi, 2014) or multiple ideological narratives, which varied depending on the authors and the intended primary audience. While in policy documents (both Serbian and English versions) civic education appeared as a long-planned, carefully considered, as well as integral part of the reform and its objective of educating for democracy, interview narratives, parliamentary debates, and media all constructed civic education as alternative to religion. It appeared as a reaction to religious education, allegedly reintroduced into Serbian schools as a politically 52

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

motivated concession to the Serbian Orthodox Church. A senior policy actor related – this was not shared by other interviewees – that the Church had originally planned to provide an alternative to religious education in the form of secular moral education and that, to prevent this, some of the top people at the Ministry decided to recommend the introduction of civic education. As one of the senior policy actors recounted, there was an awareness that there was something called ‘civic education’ in other countries, something we encountered during the ’90s ... which was education for peace and democracy ... something we did in the NGO sector [so] we had the capacities for it. This reflects a chaotic, sometimes ad hoc nature of decision-making in the context of transition, as well as the importance of political exchange in the absence of systems of transparency. It also suggests – as the above statement vividly illustrates – the borrowing of quick-fix solutions with the view to externally demonstrating the ‘correct’ course of the reform. However, to end the analysis in this way would be reductionist. In fact, the rest of the narrative, supported both by interviews and by key policy documents, underscores the agency of national actors and conveys a fair degree of selfreferentiality (Schriewer, 2003) in policymaking. In this narrative, leaders of Serbia’s educational reform appear as selfconstructed ‘guerrilla’, working for years on developing programmes for peace education and reconciliation in the context of the 1990s wars. After the ‘democratic revolution’, their earlier often ‘underground’ [5] initiatives became a matter of official state policy, as they were afforded an opportunity to lead the country and its education from the ‘the agony of the ten-year-long isolation’ (Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education and Sports, Quality Education for All, 2002b). Thus, the ‘problematic’ ideological narrative to be eradicated in the building of a new Serbian society became minimally informed by communism. Rather, the problem was constructed through the consistent invocation of the theme of the 1990s-as-a-dark-age, in interviews as well as in policy documents. Communism, meanwhile, was rather neutrally constructed in relation to Marxism as an obsolete (and fairly harmless) ideology. It was contrasted with the much more powerful discursive themes of xenophobia and violence employed in the construction of the 1990s, which civic education was imagined as countering: Education for Democratic Citizenship is a means in the fight against violence, xenophobia, racism, aggressive nationalism and intolerance. (Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education and Sport, 2002a) The policy problem was temporally delineated by the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, at one end, and the arrival of the postMilošević government in late 2000, at the other end, thus making the earlier question – ‘transition from what?’ – very relevant. The event that instigated

53

Sanja Djerasimovic

the transition that was constructed as starting in 2000 (rather than 1990) was variously named by the policy actors as ‘liberation’ and ‘revolution’, making the construction of the ‘break point’ similar to discursive construction of the ‘revolutions’ that led to the end of communism in some other European countries. Despite the fact that the key educational policy actors in Serbia’s first democratic government used references of return to Europe and ‘catching up’ with these other post-communist countries, accepting advice and following good examples where appropriate, they were often striving to construct Serbia’s special status using the narrative of Yugoslavian exceptionalism: Sometimes they [CoE] would send us someone, some Czech [who] probably got some licence for this during the ’90s ... to come here and, to tell you the truth, it was like trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs ... we were so much further ahead than they were. So there was quite a lot of time-wasting in those situations. (Civic education development team member) Serbian policy actors often emphasised the wealth and importance of professional experience gained during the 1970s and 1980s in what was then an atmosphere of openness and scholarly and cultural exchange between (communist, but non-aligned) Yugoslavia and the rest of the world. In this way, the country’s transition became a negation not of values and educational practices developed during the communist period, but of those that dominated in the 1990s. During the 1990s, the educationalists who were to become reform leaders were engaged in what I termed ‘active waiting’ through the development of programmes and materials, through the use of interactive pedagogy, and, on a higher level, through learning about the directions and challenges of the reforms of other post-communist countries. Such a state of the ‘informed welcoming’ of the reform then prompted them to describe their own experience of it, and especially of dealing with donors and international partners, with prevalent themes of autonomy and integrity: It was very important to have an agenda, and go with it before them, and make sure they follow what you want. If you don’t have an agenda and you let them ‘sell’ you something they had made for Tajikistan and are now recycling, you get a centaur, and you get a problem. (Senior ministry official) Such construction of policymaking by my interviewees as a conceptually autonomous process was supported by the Citizenship Foundation interviewee who described the group as ‘very impressive’, relating memories of their coming to the meetings with a clear idea in mind, seeking opinion and advice where appropriate. In case of civic education, it was this determination that gave shape to the programme that might have otherwise been developed as much more politically oriented. The insufficient focus on

54

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

the political was noted as one of the few deficiencies in the Citizenship Foundation’s otherwise very positive review of Serbia’s Civic Education National Framework in 2004. Instead, Serbian civic education, which was developed for a specific, post-war, as much as a post-authoritarian, context, and which built on the policy actors’ background, was grounded in a psycho-social discourse. Its core genres included socialisation, recognition of the other, tolerance of difference, peaceful and constructive conflict resolution, conflict mediation, and non-violent communication or, more often, communication in the service of conflict avoidance. The particular character of Serbian civic education, based on ‘soft skills’ and socialisation, is placed into sharp relief when compared with the conceptualisation of the abstract universalism of active citizenship in the English and the transnational educational space. Serbian, English and European Citizenship at the Start of the Twenty-first Century Comparative analysis of Serbian, English and ‘European’ civic education policy discourses brought up three distinct, occasionally overlapping scenarios. In the Serbian scenario, the problem to be overcome, as described above, is defined by the context of war, nationalism, international isolation and, to a lesser degree, authoritarianism. The latter is not frequently drawn upon, but it is the only scenario of the three in which I marked the presence of self-motivation as a reason for action, constructed in opposition to obedience or respect of authority. This is one of the rare examples of drawing on the ideological narrative of authoritarianism, in addition to the assumption about the lack of media objectivity conveyed through an overt need to educate for critical thought in reading media messages. In contrast, ‘media’ is in the English scenario constructed as an element of civil society, tasked with holding the state to account. There is very little educational-political interdiscursivity in the Serbian scenario, as the dominant sphere of citizenship construction is (psycho)social. Individuation is given as much presence as socialisation, and the two are portrayed as integral to each other: self-respect and appreciation of others appear in consistent collocations, as do self-knowledge and appreciation of difference in the process of social integration. Self-development, autonomy and self-actualisation are equated with development in the society; however, the syntactic relationship between self and the society is one of almost axiomatic opposition, with an underlying assumption of conflict that arises in the processes of individuation. It is for this reason that the dominant genres revolve around conflict resolution, negotiation, lack of aggression, prevention of violence, and respect for others’ individuality. Importantly, all of these references are vague and general, and apart from a single sentence constructing the new Serbian citizen in the context of European and international (re)integration, this could be any citizen of any society in the 55

Sanja Djerasimovic

world. There are absolutely no elements of ethnicity, religion or national identity here. In the words of one of the civic education curriculum developers: The focus was on the post-war context, on communication, nonviolence, acceptance of diversity ... and it was unnatural for our context for the national element to be present in civic education because it was imagined as education for co-operation. In the Serbian citizenship scenario, the national is inherently conflictual. On the other hand, an English citizen is constructed as unmistakably English. Whereas the ‘world’ in Serbian citizenship discourse appears only occasionally as a point of reference and authority (e.g. ‘international standards’), here it is a geographical concept that is in a political and economic relationship with the UK. References are also made to the common European culture (in the invocation of the dawn of political life in ancient Greece), and identity portrayed as encompassing layers of belonging and cultural diversity, but also responsibility on local, national and global levels. The main problem is constructed as a lack of political and social engagement, but in addition to these, economic discourse is drawn upon in a way in which it does not feature at all in the Serbian variant; here it is an important element of individual and social responsibility. The ideal citizen is also one who negotiates and is co-operative and tolerant, but here the emphasis is on individual responsibility, community action and political participation, which are seen as holding the potential to solve the problems caused by globalisation and liberalisation – problems of conflict, violence, exploitation and socio-economic marginalisation. In insisting on political literacy, citizenship is seen as a factor of the cognitive, more so than of the moral or (psycho)social. Only once does social cohesion appear in the English curriculum as the understanding and appreciation of different social groups; otherwise, it is constructed as an individual’s active participation in the community and as individual responsibilisation. Both of these are framed in the same way in the contemporary media discourse, in which Serbian civic education is exclusively linked to the desirable values of tolerance, multicultural harmony and respect for diversity, while British citizenship education appears as an element of the sociopolitical-economic interdiscursive space, where political literacy, participation and acting upon civic responsibility are seen as desirable ways of being and acting in the world, solutions to the problems of disengagement and exclusion. Both Serbian and English scenarios overlap with, but also significantly diverge from, the ‘European’ one. In the latter, similar to the English scenario, the ideal citizen is constructed in the context of concerns around the lack of social cohesion, caused by the ideological narratives of late modernity, globalisation and liberalisation, leading to marginalisation and the development of sub-cultures, often in conflict with one another. The conflict 56

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

is between groups, caused by named problems, not inherent in individual and social development. This is a world in which material provision is a precondition for political and civic engagement, and in which engagement and community action are seen as the solution. It is a world based on rationality and enlightenment, in which ‘basic values’ to be taught and transmitted are reasoned constructs, not innate or natural. The communal and the collective are much more important than the individual (unlike in the English case): responsibility, cohesion, cooperation and dialogue are seen as key genres, but not in solving inevitable conflicts (unlike in the Serbian case), but in building the ‘future project’ of belonging. Finally, neither of the two national scenarios deals explicitly with what is to shape the citizenship education agenda in the coming years, arriving on the back of UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education (GCE) initiative. With ‘peaceful’, ‘just’ and ‘sustainable’ appearing over thirty times in the 40-page document (UNESCO, 2014), this latest narrative is about harmonious coexistence achieved through transcending national concerns. In a way, Serbian post-communist citizenship is similarly post-national, particularly in comparison with the UK, in which the sense of Britishness, however multicultural, but still a national category, is one of the core axes of citizenship discourse. While the English scenario recognises the global space as one of ethnic-political-economic interdiscursivity, but constructs citizenship priorities on a narrower, national scale, the Serbian citizenship discourse is in its post-national orientation, as well as in its insistence on peace and dialogue, closer among the two to the UNESCO global citizenship discourse and its ideal of peaceful co-existence, however much neglecting the material base and its role in allowing for equality of access to this forum of negotiation of differences. Overall, then, both national-national and national-transnational comparisons point to problems and solutions as defined by national needs and circumstances (even if these dictate avoidance of nationalism), and different-level similarities and divergences in the construction of aspects of citizenship, as indicated above, make it difficult to speak of a single policy discourse that travels along national-national and national-transnational lines, or even of any clear ideological western/post-communist divisions. And it is certainly the case that the presence of some shared key concepts should not be immediately, and without closer examination – ideally of a widely constructed policy discourse, encompassing official documents, media texts and policy actors’ narratives – taken as evidence of international policy convergence. Such concepts, even if adopted owing to their presence and sometimes symbolic (as well as material) currency in a wider, transnational educational space, will still be discursively developed depending on more factors than can be considered within the limited space provided by this chapter, with one of the more important among them, from a policy sociology perspective, being the resources of the actors who wield them.

57

Sanja Djerasimovic

In Conclusion Returning to one of the promises given at the start of the chapter, this brief comparative analysis of two seemingly similar educational discourses connected through distinct international and transnational channels of potential discourse transfer not only served to indicate contextual specificities of a ‘post-communist’ and a ‘western’ (however currently similarly extraEuropean) educational space, it also aimed to provide a springboard for conceptualising educational policymaking in a post-communist context. Here, the focus on the contextual richness of the landscape of policy making, and not only policy implementation, particularly through using policymakers’ narratives as an aspect of the policy discourse, proved very important in, if not entirely avoiding, then at least complicating the conceptual polarities of global/local or West/East. Such an approach, and the insights yielded by it, not only contribute to challenging world culture assumptions, they also challenge some of the world culture critique, in similar vein to, for instance, Silova and Brehm (2015) and Silova and Rappleye (2015). In their contribution (the latter as an editorial) to the 2015 Globalisation, Societies and Education special issue on the state of the contemporary world culture debate, Silova and Rappleye invite a reevaluation of the usefulness of local/global and convergence/divergence binaries marking much of the debate. I add to this call for a conversation that transcends binaries which appear either as emphases on a disconnect between the global and the local, or as theorisations of superficial acceptance of (global) policies without the change in (local) practice. I argue that without even needing to examine the ‘disconnect’ between policy and practice (a problematic distinction in discourse theory), and by focusing on policymaking alone, we can begin to examine the nature and provenance of instances of convergence, but also explore where policy discourses diverge in the complex process of policy discourse construction. In the case of Serbian civic education, policy discourse construction relied substantially on the key actors’ background in child psychology and peace education, both during the 1990s and in the communist period, and on Serbia’s specific post-authoritarian, post-conflict experience. The policy discourse construction as such did not fully reflect a transfer of either ‘European’ or English citizenship discourses. Though similar in appearance, the latter was different in substance, specific to the needs of the UK and its concerns around political apathy and national identity. On the other hand, insisting on Serbian national actors’ input and agency did not entirely negate the policy/discourse transfer mechanisms used in what I see as ‘postpostcommunist’ (Djerasimovic, 2015) approaches, such as those taken by Silova or Steiner-Khamsi, and noted earlier. Policymaking in late modernity need not be seen as either a wholesale transfer of policies, whether through top-down channels or transnational networks of governance, which implies national policymakers’ powerlessness, or a pick-and-mix approach, which allows for national agency, but confines it to the use of buzzwords for 58

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

political and financial gain. There may be a way of conceptualising national agency through a more in-depth engagement with the channels of influence and inspiration and through looking at individuals’ and groups’ social and discursive capital. In this way, transformations and recontextualisations of what appear as ‘global educational discourses’ can be examined at the level of policy formation, and it is here where we should perhaps be turning our attention, with a wide array of ever-sharpening conceptual and methodological tools. Notes [1] Elsewhere I have used Levitsky and Way’s (2005) notion of ‘competitive authoritarianism’ to conceptualise the regime in which opposition exists and is very active, but oppressed, and in which elections are regularly held, but the opposition is, through various degrees of fraud, never allowed victory (Djerasimovic, 2015). [2] It should be noted that Phillips and Kaser’s (1992) volume does mention Yugoslavia – however, only in the context of historicising the post-communist space, and once as an example of the country whose future path was marked by absolute uncertainty, unsurprising considering the then ongoing civil wars. [3] In this text, I pass over the debate on the assumptions of formal education as the (main) site of citizenship, and the success or failure of civic education to impart democratic skills and values – the emphasis is on the normative content of policy. [4] ‘Discourse’ is historically developed, providing a modality of existence that enables a certain subjectivity to the subject, with ‘power’ seen as a fluid and productive force – productive in that it produces us as objects, but also as subjects as we self-govern through a historically produced system of ‘normality’, internalised through discourses that we live, that construct us even as we construct and perpetuate them (Foucault, 2002). [5] Interviewees reported, for example, the fear and courage with which their NGO-based programmes were rejected or accepted, respectively, by school staff, or the constant apprehension of having the NGOs shut down overnight.

References Advisory Group on Citizenship (1998) Education for Citizenship and Teaching of Democracy in Schools (The Crick Report). London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Anweiler, O. (1992) Some Historical Aspects of Educational Change in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in D. Phillips & M. Kaser (Eds) Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, pp. 29-39. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42 https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42

59

Sanja Djerasimovic Bacchi, C. (2012) Why Study Problematizations? Making Politics Visible, Open Journal of Political Science, 2(1), 1-8. Ball, S.J. (1993) What is Policy? Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 13(2), 10-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630930130203 Beresford-Hill, P. (Ed.) (1997) Education and Privatisation in Eastern Europe and the Baltic Republics. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.10 Bîrzea, C. (1994) Educational Policies of the Countries in Transition. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press. Bîrzea, C. (2004) All-European Study on Education for Democratic Citizenship Policies. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. Coulby, D. (2000) Education in Times of Transition: Eastern Europe with particular reference to the Baltic States, in D. Coulby, R. Cowen & C. Jones (Eds) Education in Times of Transition, pp. 8-21. London: Kogan Page. Djerasimovic, S. (2015) Formation of the Civic Education Policy as a Discursive Project in post-2000 Serbia. Unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge. Featherstone, M. (1994) Jean Monnet and the ‘Democratic Deficit’, Europe Journal of Common Market Studies, 32(1), 149-170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.1994.tb00491.x Finkel, S. (2002) Civic Education and the Mobilization of Political Participation in Developing Democracies, Journal of Politics, 64(4), 994-102. Forrester, K. (2003) Leaving the Academic Towers: the Council of Europe and the Education for Democratic Citizenship Project, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 22(3), 221-234. https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370304840 Foucault, M. (2002) The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984, ed. Paul Rabinow. Vol. 3: Power. London: Penguin. Hahn, C. (1998) Becoming Political: comparative perspectives on citizenship education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Janmaat, J.G. & Piattoeva, N. (2007) Citizenship Education in Ukraine and Russia: reconciling nation-building and active citizenship, Comparative Education, 43(4), 527-552. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060701611920 Jović, D. (2011) Problems of Early Post-communist Transition Theory: from transition from to transition to, Croatian Political Science Review, 47(5), 44-68. Kahne, J., Chi, B. & Middaugh, E. (2006) Building Social Capital for Civic and Political Engagement: the potential of high-school civics courses, Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation, 29(2), Democracy and Education/La démocracie et l’éducation, 387-409. Karsten, S. & Majoor, D. (Eds) (1994) Education in East/Central Europe: educational changes after the fall of communism. Munster: Waxmann. Kisby, B. & Sloam, J. (2011) Citizenship, Democracy and Education in the UK: towards a common framework for citizenship lessons in the four home nations, Parliamentary Affairs, 1-22.

60

CONSTRUCTING THE EUROPEAN CITIZEN

Levitsky, S. & Way, L. (2005) International Linkage and Democratization, Journal of Democracy, 16(3), 20-34. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2005.0048 Lynch, J. (1998) The International Transfer of Dysfunctional Paradigms, in D. Johnson, B. Smith & M. Crossley (Eds) Learning and Teaching in an International Context: research, theory and practice, pp. 7-34. Bristol Papers in Education. Comparative and International Studies 6. Bristol: Centre for International Studies. McLeish, E.A. (1998) Introduction: processes of educational transition in countries moving from authoritarian rule to democratic government, in E.A. McLeish & D. Phillips (Eds) (1998) Processes of Transition in Educational Systems. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.34 Meyer, J.W. & Ramirez, F.O. (2000) The World Institutionalization of Education, in J. Schriewer (Ed.) Discourse Formation in Comparative Education, pp. 111-132. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2006) Democratization without Decommunisation in the Balkans, Orbis, 50(4), 641-655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2006.07.005 Offe, C. (1991) Capitalism by Democratic Design? Facing Triple Transition in East Central Europe, Social Research, 58(4), 866-892. Phillips, D. & Kaser, M. (Eds) (1992) Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42 Polyzoi, E., Fullan, M. & Anchan, J.P. (Eds) (2003) Change Forces in Post-communist Eastern Europe. London: RoutledgeFalmer. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203426500 Radó, P. (2001) Transition in Education. Budapest: Open Society Institution. Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education and Sport (2002a) Democratisation of Education and Education for Democratic Citizenship. Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport Republic of Serbia. Republic of Serbia Ministry of Education and Sport (2002b) Quality Education for All. Belgrade. Belgrade: Ministry of Education and Sport Republic of Serbia. Sayer, J. (Ed.) with Kazelleova, J., Martin, D., Niemczynski, A. & Vanderhoeven, J. (1995) Developing Schools for Democracy in Europe: an example of trans-European co-operation in education. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.48 Schmidt, S.J. (2008) Practicing Critical Democracy: a perspective from students, Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 2(1), 38-56. Schriewer, J. (2003) Globalisation in Education: process and discourse, Policy Futures in Education, 1(2), 271-283. https://doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2003.1.2.6 Silova, I. (Ed.) (2010) Post-socialism is Not Dead: (re)reading the global in comparative education. International Perspectives on Education and Society, vol. 14. Bingley: Emerald Books. Silova, I. & Brehm, W.C. (2015) From Myths to Models: the (re)production of world culture in comparative education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 13(1), 8-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2014.967483

61

Sanja Djerasimovic Silova, I. & Rappleye, J. (2015) Beyond the World Culture Debate in Comparative Education: critiques, alternatives and a noisy conversation, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 13(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2014.967482 Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2004a) Blazing a Trail for Policy Theory and Practice, in G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.) The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, pp. 201-220. New York: Teachers College Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2014) Cross-national Policy Borrowing: understanding reception and translation, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(2), 153-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2013.875649 Steiner-Khamsi, G., Torney-Purta, J. & Schwille, J. (2002a) Introduction: issues and insights in cross-national analysis of qualitative studies, in G. Steiner-Khamsi, J. Torney-Purta & J. Schwille (Eds) New Paradigms and Recurring Paradoxes in Education for Citizenship: an international comparison. International Perspectives on Education and Society, vol. 5, pp. 1-36. Oxford: Elsevier Science. Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Oswald, H. & Schultz, W. (2001) Citizenship and Education in Twenty-eight Countries: civic knowledge and engagement at the age of fourteen. Amsterdam. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Turnbull, J. (2002) Values in Educating for Citizenship: sources, influences and assessment, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 10(1), 123-134. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681360200200135 UNESCO (2014) Global Citizenship Education: preparing learners for the challenges of the 21st century. Paris: UNESCO. van Dijk, T. (1997) Discourse as Interaction in Society, in T. van Dijk (Ed.) Discourse Studies: a multidisciplinary introduction, vol. 2, pp. 1-37. London: SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446221884.n1

62

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations

CHAPTER 3

Introduction of the Per Capita Funding Model of Finance in the Post-Soviet Countries: the cases of Latvia and Georgia[1] SIMON JANASHIA

ABSTRACT This chapter provides a gateway to understanding some rationales and policy adoption strategies of policy actors in the post-Soviet space. Georgia and Latvia have introduced a similar approach of calculating general education finances on a per capita basis. However, nuanced examination of this development shows that as the policy problems differed in these countries, so did the implementation of policy solutions. In Georgia, per capita funding was an integral part of the large-scale education reform package that promised an increase in the transparency, effectiveness and fair distribution of funds through introduction of a market-based school funding system. In Latvia, the introduction of the per capita funding system served more a ceremonial purpose to secure international donor funding during a time of crisis. Both countries used the strategies of externalisation of the arguments, drawing upon success stories from abroad. However, both countries also constructed internal arguments drawing upon the negative conception of the Soviet legacy in education.

Introduction After the fall of the USSR the newly emerged states began establishing their national education systems through reform of the inherited structures of school administration, governance, education finance and pedagogy. Pledging to break away from the Soviet system and simultaneously seeking legitimacy for newly forming policies, the decision-makers of the new nations have turned to examples and models in the West.

63

Simon Janashia

Even if the newly forming education systems were expected to borrow what worked best in the West, the new schools were to serve as forges of nation-building projects. National interests varied. The Baltic States have integrated into European and transatlantic political and economic alliances. Some of the Central Asian States have become rich energy suppliers. States in the Caucasus have been plagued by internal and external military conflicts. Some of the post-Soviet states have succeeded in building relatively successful democratic institutions. Others have transferred their power to lifetime leaders, centralising all branches of the governments in their hands (Hale, 2005; Klein & Schröder, 2016). However, despite contrasting political and social agendas, the newly formed states adopted strikingly similar education policies. During the last twenty-five years, approximately half of the former Soviet states have introduced school funding models based on per capita calculations of fiscal allocations (Bray & Borevskaya, 2001; Godfrey, 2004; President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2010; Alonso & Sánchez, 2011; Grivins, 2012; Tabatadze & Gorgadze, 2014). Countries in the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia that chose different paths in their economic, political and social development have embraced similar models of school funding that were justified through intricately designed strategies of legitimacy seeking. This study attempts to understand how former Soviet countries with significantly different policy problems introduced similar education financing models. The study is comparative as it explores the strategies that Georgian and Latvian policy actors employed to give their education reforms legitimacy or to undermine it. The education finance model, along with questions about the effectiveness of various technical arrangements, is not the prime focus of this research. It serves mainly as an aperture through which to glance at the complexity of interactions between agenda, actors and strategies that enabled the transformation of education systems in the post-Soviet space. This study demonstrates the importance of analysing the rationales of local policy makers in countries adopting global policy solutions. The analysis provides insight into the relationship between global and local policy actors and instruments in education. Even though Georgia and Latvia have introduced a seemingly identical policy of using per capita calculations, they have divergently transformed the imported systems to achieve specific local goals. These goals do not always relate to the nature or the purpose of the policy instrument. Latvia gained international donor support while pretending to optimise the school network through per capita funding of schools. Georgia has used the per capita funding system for centralising power and fighting corruption.

64

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

Conceptualising Policy Change in Georgia and Latvia To understand the policy changes in the education finance models of the newly independent states, in this study I offer perspectives on the process from three vantage points. The first will provide a brief overview of the education finance models before and after the transformation. The second perspective provides an opportunity to look at the process of policy change. And in the third, I will try to analyse some strategies used by policy actors in order to introduce the new funding system. But first, it may be worthwhile to look at to the theories of policy change employed in the international and comparative education field. There are at least three groups of scholarly work that can help to conceptualise the introduction of education financing policies in Georgia and Latvia. The first looks at the global political, economic and social processes that could influence nations in transforming their education systems. Global actors, such as national governments, transnational businesses or international aid agencies, are studied to understand their effect on policy decisions (Frank, 1966; Escobar, 1995; Wallerstein, 2004; Easterly & Williamson, 2011; Easterly, 2014). According to the scholars of globalisation and world systems, these powerful international players coerce developing countries to transform their education systems according to their political and economic interests (Carnoy, 1974; Carnoy & Rhoten, 2002; Clayton, 2004; Arnove, 2009). It has been well documented that international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank and USAID introduce efficiency measures based on comparison of the indicators that are supposedly uniform and comparable across nations (Steiner-Khamsi, 2003; Kamens & McNeely, 2009; Meyer & Benavot, 2013). Large-scale international assessments, institutionalised through organisations and consortia such as the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) and SACMEQ (Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality), do not only provide data for creating such indicators. These assessments are also used often for justification of donor-driven policies, as they supposedly could help to identify the factors leading countries to outperform education systems elsewhere. Various policy and business entrepreneurs enter the policy-making stage by producing reports based on large-scale data (Coffield, 2012; Takayama, 2012). These reports tend to be quite popular in decision-making circles, as they provide legitimacy to the already chosen policy solutions through the repertoire of ‘best practices’ of the ‘top performing countries’. The second group of studies is focused on the institutional factors that could drive education reforms. Institutionally acknowledged modalities of education policy and the legitimacy-seeking strategies utilised by developing countries lie at the heart of the analysis. According to this line of scholarship, the transfer or diffusion of education policy agendas and instruments is 65

Simon Janashia

aligned to global institutional interests, to the so-called world culture of education, rather than to any particular powerful players (Meyer et al, 1992). The concept of legitimacy of policy instruments and policy actions is one of the central problems in research on policy transfer. From the perspectives of studies of institutional development, nation-states have sought legitimacy through employing institutions such as education systems, in order to be regarded as functional states (Carnoy & Levin, 1985; Meyer et al, 1992). As the ideas of what constitutes a modern state are institutionalised on a global scale, so are the ideas of what education systems should reflect in order to be regarded as modern. There is a convergence of educational systems as they adopt similar arrangements with rationalised division of subjects, teaching time and age-specific groups of students. The third group of scholars tries to understand policy transfer from local and culturally sensitive perspectives. Studies of this group acknowledge the active role of local decision makers in tailoring internationally acquirable education policies for their particular needs (Steiner-Khamsi & Quist, 2000; Silova, 2005; Carney, 2009; Steiner-Khamsi, 2012; Takayama, 2012). This strand views local policy processes as active mythmaking that often uses external arguments and serves the purposes of internal legitimation and partnership seeking (Phillips & Ochs, 2004; Schriewer & Martinez, 2004; Bain, 2010; Waldow, 2012). The local policy actors are neither passive recipients of outside education reform packages, nor are they exclusively interested in acceptance of their decisions by global actors. They have also to compete with native champions of alternative policy solutions. When there are contesting local ideas about education reform, nations may look elsewhere for solutions. In order to reach consensus, they may even portray locally developed solutions as education import from external sources (Steiner-Khamsi & Quist, 2000; Steiner-Khamsi & Stolpe, 2004; Cowen, 2009; Adamson et al, 2017). Foreign models of an education policy may help to justify local decisions and at the same time can help to undermine local, already existing policies (Silova, 2002; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004; Silova & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008; Waldow, 2012). This chapter mostly employs the concepts and frameworks developed through the third group of scholarship, as it helps to understand the role of the newly formed states and their policy actors in transforming their education systems. The scholarship dealing with the nuances of policy transfer, such as mythmaking and other legitimacy-seeking strategies, helps better to understand the discrepancy between borrowed, marketed and implemented policy solutions. However, scholarship focusing on the global perspective would also supplement our analysis where the local lens turns a blind eye. Policy change will be viewed not as solely a product of national interests but as an outcome of the complex interaction between local and global policy agendas, actors and their instruments.

66

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

To produce a description of the vast scholarship dealing with the interaction of local and global policy development would be impossible in this volume. Therefore it should be acknowledged that the one provided in the previous paragraphs is a vast simplification. However, I hope that this short introduction will help to explain the frame used here to explore the education finance reforms in post-Soviet space. The Study This study relies on data collected in two countries, Georgia and Latvia. Interviews with policy actors (52 individuals) in both countries enabled me to gain access to the policy process that resulted in the adoption of new education funding models. Policy documents helped me to understand not only the financial models, but also the legitimation strategies that were employed during the reform process. The interviews were conducted in the years 2014 and 2015 with representatives of various levels of policy making: politicians, bureaucrats and education experts (12 in Georgia and 9 in Latvia) involved in the process of introducing the new education funding models in both Latvia and Georgia. Others, from the non-governmental sector, international organisations and schools (18 in Georgia and 13 in Latvia), have also contributed insights to this study. This study has several limitations. As the study was retrospective, interviews were enquiring about events that took place in the past. This could have influenced the responses. Another limitation concerns my participation in education reform in Georgia in the period when the new funding system was introduced. Although my duties mostly covered issues of curriculum, textbooks and student assessment, I participated in the discussions of the funding model examined in this study. My prior professional experience might have influenced my interpretations of the interview data. At the same time, this experience helped me to gain better access to the data and therefore improved by capacity for more in-depth analysis. Transformation of the Education Funding Models The post-Soviet practice of school financing involved the utilisation of historical data for financial planning and reliance on the administrative discretion of authorities. Allocation of funding based on historic data of costs and expenditures is relatively straightforward. When it came to the administrative discretion of the authorities (Levačić & Downes, 2004; Fazekas, 2012), a school funding or an administration agency, such as the Ministry of Finance, as well as local municipalities and the Ministry of Education were authorised to assign special importance to certain schools or programmes over others without agreed criteria.

67

Simon Janashia

Local governments were mostly responsible for the disbursement of their local educational funds. Where needed, fiscal transfers from the central government would complement local budgets (Levačić & Downes, 2004; Alonso & Sánchez, 2011). Schools would often receive funds based on the personal contacts of their leadership with decision makers. Lobbying for the increase of funding for a particular school could involve arguments based on the established legal status of a special school, but also on proving special needs to the local or central authorities on an ad hoc basis. Starting from the last decade of the twentieth century various international aid projects started their activities in the post-Soviet space. Projects funded by the IMF, the World Bank, the European Union (EU), USAID and others began to be involved in the provision of consultancy services and financial incentives for transforming education funding models in both Georgia and Latvia (World Bank, 1999, 2001). The following sections will describe these transformations. Transforming the Georgian System of Education Funding In Georgia two important international projects influenced the introduction of a per capita funding model. Starting at the end of the 1990s, the Open Society Foundation (OSF) began to introduce school-based management models, including school boards (OSF, 2002). At approximately the same time, the government of Georgia started its education reform project, funded by the World Bank (World Bank, 2001). The OSF education reform project, known as the Education Mega Project among locals, was concerned more with introducing a managerial perspective on education, reducing corruption in schools and involving stakeholders in decision making at the school level (OSF, 2002; Matiashvili, 2008). Corruption was widespread in the public sector (Transparency International, 2002), including education. School principals and teachers did not have to look far to gain legitimacy for asking for informal payments from parents when schools were severely underfunded (Melikidze, 2002). The World Bank–funded project introduced the concept of per capita funding of schools. The technical consultancy employed during the feasibility study, preceding the beginning of the project, produced reports criticising the Georgian education system for lack of efficiency in public spending (Orivel, 1998; Perkins, 1998). In 2005 Georgia moved to a system of directly funding all schools from the central government. The funds covered the salaries, operation and maintenance costs and any other expenses that the school administration, elected school board, school principal and pedagogic council would approve (Simonia, 2007). Schools started to receive funds according to the number of students. The formula for calculation of the per capita sums only considered the number of children and the location of a school (Simonia, 2007; Tabatadze 68

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

& Gorgadze, 2014). The differences in the per capita allocations by location were not dramatic, but they reflected the effort to acknowledge higher per capita costs of educating in schools with low student population. During the introduction of the new funding model, the government of Georgia voiced five main arguments. First, the existing system was not fair, as it allowed schools to be funded on the basis of lobbying, rather than using clear-cut criteria. One of the popular illustrations of unfair treatment of students was the statistics that demonstrated that even in neighbouring schools, a walking distance apart, the funding per child could differ dramatically. Analysis produced by international consultants demonstrated that as schools were dependent on local revenues, there were some rural schools which were receiving up to three times less funding than urban schools (Herczyñski, 2002). Another aspect of the fairness arguments tried to prove that it was unjustified that students in private schools did not receive any financial support from the public budget. They, so the argument went, had to be accommodated by the state, as their parents were also paying taxes. Based on this argument, plans for the introduction of a per capita funding system should include private schools in the funding equation as well (Parliament of Georgia, 2005). This was the first time, that Georgia decided to fund private education using public funds. The second argument was not as well supported with evidence as the first, but was highly plausible to its adherents owing to popular knowledge about the state of affairs in the country. School funding was based on favouritism. However, the favours that the privileged schools received from the authorities came with strings attached. The school administration would pledge to influence the teachers to vote for particular politicians and their political parties in elections. As one principal explained: I remember the system of finance before 2005. When there was a need, the school principal would have to present the request to the municipal authorities. These were salaries, running or maintenance costs, et cetera. I worked there for 20 years. I do not remember that the municipality had ever financed any request. But if anything was financed, it was financed for the school principal who was making some illegal deals with the municipality. (Interview, 31 March 2015) Local governors could coerce schools into political support by cutting or delaying funds for schools in the case of any defiance. The new system, since it excluded any intermediaries between the funder and the school, promised to eliminate unduly political influences on the education system. The third argument for the introduction of a so-called voucher system of school funding was that it introduced incentives for schools to compete to attract students. More students meant more income for school budgets. The logic of the new system was based on the assumption that schools would 69

Simon Janashia

increase their quality of teaching and student welfare in order to attract parents. In combination with school autonomy measures, such as the right to hire and fire personnel and to introduce electives to enhance the mandatory curriculum, schools were now eligible to use the funds that they would receive not only for the basic needs of running a school, but for their development as well. This argument resonated with the concept of the power of the educational market to improve education systems. The idea, resting on the theory of Milton Freedman regarding school choice and education vouchers, was popular in the post-Soviet space at the time (Chankseliani, 2014a,b). The fourth argument promised that the new system would increase the efficiency of use of school resources. Schools would become responsible for paying their utility bills and therefore would lessen resource wastage. At the same time, according to the logic, schools would also reduce the number of teachers, to ensure that there would be more full-time teachers with higher salaries rather than part-time teachers, receiving a fraction of the possible remuneration. This line of argument was strongly supported by the World Bank and other international donors who claimed that the Georgian education system was not efficiently organised. Reports produced by the international consultants claimed that Georgia had an excessive number of teachers per student (Orivel, 1998, p. 14; Perkins, 1998, p. 23). This required efforts from the government to remunerate, train and promote more teachers than were needed in the system. As an indicator of inefficiency, experts from the World Bank used the average student–teacher ratio in OECD countries. Reaching this average (16:1) was set as one of the targets for the WB loan intended for education reform in Georgia (World Bank, 2001). It was argued by the experts that the existing system of school funding, where the local government funded schools on the basis of reported expenditure, created incentives for hiring more individuals than were needed (interview, 27 March 2015). According to the reports, there were schools where the number of teachers was the same as the number of students. A special term, ‘dead souls’, was used for those employees who existed on paper, but did not work in reality. Per capita funding promised to eliminate this method of appropriation of public funds by the education administration, and to stop incentives for schools to provide jobs to the friends and relatives of those in power (Simonia, 2007). As a response, in combination with the introduction of a per capita system, the government decided to close down as many small public schools as possible, and to concentrate students in larger classes, with fewer teachers and administrators employed in the country. ‘Consolidation of the school network’, as they termed the process, would help in addition to reduce the costs of renovating dilapidated school buildings (MoES Georgia, 2007a). Scarce public funds would be concentrated on fewer schools, allowing for the

70

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

renovation of the whole system in a shorter time frame and with higher allocations per school. The fifth important argument that circulated during the school funding reform was that the new system would ensure more transparency in fundraising. Parents complained about their inability to pay the fees that were being charged at their schools by the administration and in some cases even by the teachers, as well as about their inability to control utilisation of the funds collected in this way. Some studies showed that up to 80% of parents were reporting paying some kind of informal fees to the schools (Melikidze, 2002). In the period before the funding reform, the government of Georgia even introduced the right to charge for tuition in the post-compulsory grades 10 and 11 (Parliament of Georgia, 1997). The new system of calculating funds on a per capita basis was introduced in combination with other instruments of accountability at the school level. Each school was established as a separate legal institution, with its private bank account. At the same time, school budgets had to be approved by an elected board, consisting of an equal number of parents and teachers and one representative of the student body. These measures promised to increase the transparency of utilisation of both public and private funds available to schools through involving the stakeholders in budgeting and decision-making. Introduction of a per capita funding system in Georgia happened at a fast pace. This proved to be unexpected for the WB, the main donor of the education reform project. Technical experts advised the government first to pilot the new funding system in a small sample of schools (Simonia, 2007). However, the Georgian government was eager to adopt the system as soon as possible. In 2005 a per capita system of school funding became part of the new law on general education and became a system of funding of all public and private schools in Georgia (Parliament of Georgia, 2005). This reform eliminated the role of the local government in funding schools in Georgia. Through the new system, schools began receiving funds directly from the central budget (Simonia, 2007). The move was portrayed as a decentralisation of education, intended to empower schools, to introduce market-based competition among them and to eliminate inefficiencies and corruption. Per capita education funding was introduced in Georgia during a time of large-scale reforms following the Rose Revolution in 2003 (Fairbanks, 2004). Changes in the education system were dramatic, as they encompassed all levels, including schools, universities and vocational education institutions. Numerous new goals, such as fighting corruption or increasing the efficiency of utilisation of funds, were complemented with new policy instruments. The national curriculum, a new funding system for schools, election of school principals, dismissal and election of all professors and all presidents of public higher education institutions, new entrance criteria and examinations for higher education, accreditation of universities, and a new 71

Simon Janashia

funding system for universities and for research institutes were all introduced within the short period 2004-2007 (Lomaia, 2006; Machabeli et al, 2008; Chankseliani, 2013). Latvian Developments Plans to move to a per capita funding system in Latvia began to emerge as early as the 1990s. The concept was first introduced as an instrument for using public funds for private schools (Parliament of Latvia, 1998, sec. 59.52). However, similar to the Georgian case, the new model gained support among local decision makers through internationally funded projects. In the late 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s the World Bank began to fund projects that one of the former bureaucrats referred to as introducing ‘western ways of education planning and administration’ in Latvia (interview, 12 May 2015). The documents produced by the international consultancy efforts of the World Bank projects stressed the importance of rationalising the education system to eliminate redundancies in the system. As in the Georgian case, the student–teacher ratio was used as a main indicator of inefficiency in the Latvian education system (Vandycke, 2001, p. 13). It took the government a decade to introduce the new funding model. The local policy makers produced various counterarguments to stagger the introduction of the new funding system. In some instances they argued that Latvia had to eliminate existing inequities in the public schools first, before the new model could be introduced (MoES Latvia, 2007). Latvian policy makers also proposed to introduce the new model of administrative division of the country first and only then decide which funding functions would be devolved to the newly formed local governance structures. Despite the portrayal of the education system as inefficient, since the period between 1998 and 2008 was marked by economic growth in Latvia, the government did not see any urgency to change the school financing system. Delaying the introduction of the new system had its benefits as well. According to a civil society representative in Latvia, the new system could reveal problems of corruption, thus leading to the need for a more serious response than merely changing the funding model: Why were they against it? Because unfortunately we have corruption and there are anecdotes that when they build the new kindergarten or schools, in the city council there was a Mr. 20% who is getting kickbacks. Maybe this is how it works. We cannot talk about it because until proven – not guilty. Therefore we used to say that in the new model everything would be transparent. You would know how many kids were born, how to plan for the next five years et cetera. (Interview, 11 May 2015)

72

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

A key policy maker confirmed that the introduction of the revised model meant that the budgets of municipalities would be scrutinised, and ‘one could reveal some quite interesting peculiarities’ (interview, 15 May 2015). However, the policy environment changed following the 2008 financial crisis. The government asked international donor organisations for a bailout. The proposed plan by the IMF directly set the condition of cutting public expenditure and increasing efficiency in the education system (IMF, 2009). The introduction of a per capita funding model for general education was one of the government tasks, in order to become eligible for a US$10.5 billion relief package. During 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, the Latvian government introduced a system of funding schools based on per capita calculations (Grivins, 2012). The central government used a formula that included several components to calculate funds for transfer to local municipalities. Besides the number of students, the formula also included a coefficient based on the student–teacher ratio (Hazans, 2010). The introduction of standardised student–teacher ratios in calculations created incentives for the municipalities to increase the real student–teacher ratio. This could be achieved either through attracting more students to the municipality, or through dismissal of teachers through optimisation of the school network. The system was designed to introduce competition for students among municipalities. Considering the already institutionalised school-choice policy, it was assumed that local governments would try to attract more students, in order to gain more financial resources from the central budget. It was hoped that municipalities would try to invest in improving local schools. However, as my respondents reflected, attracting students to schools would not always entail creation of better educational opportunities. As some reported, there were cases when local government or schools offered up to 100 euros to those parents who would enrol at a school in a different catchment area. There were other interesting stories, such as the case of having a road connecting with the neighbouring municipality dug up before the school started in order to hinder the commute of school pupils and so to discourage the transfer of children to the school from another area (interviews, 12-15 May 2015). Unlike in Georgia, where per capita funding was used to calculate transfers directly to schools, the Latvian government used the model to calculate the education budgets of the municipalities. As the next step, the municipality was entitled to redistribute the funds to schools, disregarding the formula that was used at the central level (Hazans, 2010). This was justified by the inability of the central government to use a uniform formula to plan for diverse schools with various needs and resources. The local government used this opportunity to avoid the optimisation of the school network through closing down under-enrolled schools, as this move was highly unpopular, especially at a time of financial crisis. 73

Simon Janashia

Interplay between the Global and the Local Evidently, the technical arrangements of how the model was supposed to work differed between Georgia and Latvia. In Georgia, the model was intended to fund schools directly from the central budget. In Latvia, the per capita funding model was intended to help the central government to calculate funds earmarked for local governments. In Georgia, the formula for the calculation of funds was quite simple. It considered only two parameters: the number of children and the geographic weight coefficient (Simonia, 2007). In Latvia, the per capita calculations were one part of the formula, including information about the intended efficiency measures, such as the student–teacher ratio (Hazans, 2010). The transition towards the per capita funding model in both countries was justified using both similar and divergent arguments. In both countries the school system was deemed as inefficient using the measures introduced by the international donor community. The student–teacher ratio was to be improved. In both countries, the average student–teacher ratio of OECD countries was used as a benchmark (Orivel, 1998; Perkins, 1998; Vandycke, 2001). Data from international large-scale assessments were used to justify the closing down of a number of schools in Latvia. Even though the assessments include a very narrow definition of education quality, these data supposedly provided evidence that large schools provide better education than small schools (interview, 12 May 2015). This argument implied a direct causal relationship between school size and learning outcomes and justified the closing of small schools. Based on the international arguments, both countries have pledged to reduce the size of their school networks. However, this plan, termed as ‘school network optimisation’, was realised on a large scale only in Georgia. Here, in the years of the introduction of a per capita system, about 30% of all public schools were closed. A strategic plan developed at approximately the same time promised the closure of another 30% of all public schools by 2011 (Ministry of Education and Science Georgia, 2007). Latvia did not undertake dramatic changes to reduce the number of under-enrolled schools. Compared with Georgia (Figure 1), where approximately 30% of schools were shut down, the development in Latvia (Figure 2) was moderate, with only 11% of schools closed at the time of the introduction of per capita funding. By introducing the new funding system the Latvian government complied with the conditions of the donors, in order to receive bailout funds. However, it found a way to stagger the closure of the small schools by letting local governments redistribute funds channelled to them through the per capita system of calculating education budgets for municipalities. Per capita systems in the two countries were used differently in relation to the policy problem of the inefficiency of schools. In Latvia, local policy makers used the per capita funding system to assure the international donors 74

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

that following the rationale of market competition, the new funding model would result in increasing system efficiency, as under-enrolled schools would go bankrupt. In Georgia, the government did not wait for the market-based funding to result in schools going bankrupt. Georgia introduced ‘school network optimisation’ simultaneously with the changes in the school funding system.

Figure 1. Number of public schools in Georgia. Source: GeoStat, 2015.

Figure 2. Number of schools in Latvia. Source: Central Statistical Bureau Latvia, 2015.

75

Simon Janashia

Interestingly, neither in Georgia nor in Latvia did education systems reach the benchmarks of efficiency set by international actors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The introduction of a per capita system and the school optimisation measures that were undertaken were not able to reverse the trend of having fewer students per teacher (see Table I). Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Georgia 17.4 10.2 15.6 13.9 14.5

7.9 8.0

8.0 7.9 7.8

Latvia 12.0 12.2 12.5 12.3 12.0 11.7 11.3 10.8 10.6 10.3 9.2 9.9 9.3 8.9 9.3 9.2 9.1

Table I. Student–teacher ratio (average by primary, lower- and upper-secondary levels). Source: Calculations by the author based on UNESCO, 2015.

Both countries have borrowed the per capita funding system differently from similar external examples. Georgia introduced the funding system as part of a larger reform package. This package is sometimes described as a neoliberal education reform initiative that introduces market-based ideas into education policy (Robertson & Verger, 2012; Verger, 2012; Altinyelken & Verger, 2013). According to the logic of this package: • • • •

Parents seek the best educational opportunities for their children; Parents should have the option to choose schools; Schools are funded according to the choice of the parents; To help parents to make informed decisions, the government introduced a school information system through school rankings, testing and the so-called EMIS (Education Management Information System); • Schools will respond to the choices and demands of the ‘clients’ and therefore improve their curriculum and teaching. Georgia implemented all classical elements of this package simultaneously with the funding reform. The principle of ‘money follows the student’, the 76

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

election of school boards and principals, the introduction of school rankings, an outcomes-based curriculum, school-leaving examinations and attempts to build the EMIS are well-documented instruments of this package (Hua & Herstein, 2003; Shapiro et al., 2007; Chankseliani, 2014a). Policymakers in Latvia did not seem to be interested in creating market-based competition between schools as much as in Georgia. The divergent paths that these countries took were partly influenced by significant differences in the policy environments. Eliminating political control over schools and fighting corruption were high on the agenda in Georgia but hardly prevalent in Latvia. Public support for the reforms was also much higher in Georgia as the changes were introduced after the popular revolution, replacing the old government. In Latvia, changes were portrayed not as a break from bad governance, but more as inevitable surrender to the demands of the international donor community. External arguments that the analogous funding systems were either successful elsewhere or were advocated by global actors were not always received positively either in Latvia or in Georgia. Respondents in both countries reflected on this issue during interviews. As a school principal from Georgia recalled: There were a lot of problems at the beginning of the reforms. There were many conflicts in schools between teachers. And there were teachers who had a very negative view about reforms that were described as something coming from the devil or from Soros. (Interview, 31 March 2015) Despite differences in political agendas, marketing of the reforms to the local constituents in both countries employed similar tactics. Existing funding models were portrayed as a backward Soviet legacy that had to be abandoned for the sake of modernisation. The reforms in education were depicted as returning to the true path of development that was obstructed by the Soviets for seven decades. According to the rhetoric, Georgia had to return to the forcefully abandoned path of having autonomous schools that had the individual student’s development as the central focus of their mission (Tevzadze, 2003; Lomaia, 2006). In the studied cases, interactions between the local and external arguments are mutually reinforcing. In both Georgia and Latvia, local arguments, such as the breaking away from the legacy of the USSR, are simultaneously viewed as a process of gaining proximity with the best practices of the West. Delegitimising the public education system by arguments of inefficiency, inability to develop and corruption prepared the ground for the introduction of market values and instruments of competition.

77

Simon Janashia

Conclusions International actors, the major donors of the education reform initiatives, have actively contributed to the introduction of a per capita funding system through building arguments around efficiency in Latvia and Georgia. Consultants from the World Bank, OSF and IMF have diffused measures such as teacher–student ratio or data from large-scale assessments either to influence the country into adopting the new funding system as a method of optimisation of school systems (in the Georgian case), or to coerce it into doing so (in the case of Latvia). Even though the existing education systems were delegitimised by international actors, local actors have actively transformed the global education funding package to suit their local needs. Georgia has introduced the neoliberal paradigm of school governance more ardently than any global player expected. Latvia, on the other hand, has simulated the adoption of market-based principles of education development. Both countries have transformed education funding to suit their local needs and political agendas. Georgia has used the funding reform to centralise decision-making power and to address corruption. Latvia used the new funding model to access the bailout funds from the international donor community. To gain legitimacy for borrowed educational solutions, policy makers in Georgia and Latvia have actively constructed myths about the past, present and future of their systems. In both cases, the Soviet past was actively constructed as a reference society to be left behind. In Georgia, myths about the future where competition among schools would improve the quality of education also prevailed. In contrast, the Latvian policy makers held more reserved hopes for the educational marketplace. Acknowledging the differences in the development of education systems in Georgia and Latvia, discussed in this chapter, invites educational researchers to carefully consider labelling these systems as post-Soviet and to see beyond the common legacies that these systems have acquired. Societal and political developments of the former Soviet states demonstrate striking differences. So do their policy problems. Some countries are plagued with corruption and authoritarian rule, while others enjoy relatively transparent democratic governance. There are post-Soviet countries that are more integrated into the international political system. Others adhere to more isolationist politics. Some accommodate ethnic diversity, while others are relatively homogeneous. Some countries operate in the context of emergencies, while others enjoy political stability. Certain states rely heavily on donor funds. Others fund international projects themselves. Considering the local circumstances, examining the transformation of education systems in the region requires in-depth investigation. Such an approach would recognise not only the influence of global actors, but also the active role of national actors in morphing global educational packages into local solutions.

78

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

Note [1] Research for this chapter was supported in part by the Doctoral Fellowship Program, funded and administered by the Open Society Institute (OSI). The opinions expressed herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily express the views of OSI.

References Adamson, B., Forestier, K., Morris, P. & Han, C. (2017) PISA, Policymaking and Political Pantomime: education policy referencing between England and Hong Kong, Comparative Education, 53(2), 192-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2017.1294666 Alonso, J.D. & Sánchez, A. (Eds) (2011) Reforming Education Finance in Transition Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-8783-2 Altinyelken, H.K. & Verger, A. (2013) The Recontextualisation of Global Education Reforms: insights from the case studies, in Global Managerial Education Reforms and Teachers, p. 141). Brussels: Education International. Arnove, R.F. (2009) World-systems Analysis and Comparative Education in the Age of Globalization, International Handbook of Comparative Education, 101-119. Bain, O. (2010) Education After the Fall of the Berlin Wall: the end of history or the beginning of histories? In I. Silova (Ed.) Post-socialism is Not Dead: (re)reading the global in comparative education, vol. 14, pp. 27-57. Bingley: Emerald Group. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000014005 Bray, M. & Borevskaya, N. (2001) Financing Education in Transitional Societies: lessons from Russia and China, Comparative Education, 37(3), 345-365. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060120067820 Carney, S. (2009) Negotiating Policy in an Age of Globalization: exploring educational ‘policyscapes’ in Denmark, Nepal, and China, Comparative Education Review, 53, 63-88. https://doi.org/10.1086/593152 Carnoy, M. (1974) Education as Cultural Imperialism. New York: David McKay. Carnoy, M. & Levin, H.M. (1985) Schooling and Work in the Democratic State. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Carnoy, M. & Rhoten, D. (2002) What Does Globalization Mean for Educational Change? A Comparative Approach, Comparative Education Review, 46(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1086/324053 Central Statistical Bureau Latvia (2015) Population and Social Processes: education – key indicators. www.csb.gov.lv Chankseliani, M. (2013) Rural Disadvantage in Georgian Higher Education Admissions: a mixed-methods study, Comparative Education Review, 57(3), 424-456. https://doi.org/10.1086/670739 Chankseliani, M. (2014a) Are We Using Friedman’s Roadmap? A Comparative Analysis of Stimuli of Private School Enrolments in Post-Soviet Countries, International Journal of Educational Development, 38, 13-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2014.05.005

79

Simon Janashia Chankseliani, M. (2014b) Georgia: marketization and education post-1991, in Education in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, pp. 362-391. London: Bloomsbury. Clayton, T. (2004) ‘Competing Conceptions of Globalization’ Revisited: relocating the tension between world-systems analysis and globalization analysis, Comparative Education Review, 48(3), 274-294. https://doi.org/10.1086/421180 Coffield, F. (2012) Why the McKinsey Reports Will Not Improve School Systems, Journal of Education Policy, 27(1), 131-149. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2011.623243 Cowen, R. (2009) The Transfer, Translation and Transformation of Educational Processes: and their shape-shifting? Comparative Education, 45, 315-327. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060903184916 Easterly, W. (2014) The Tyranny of Experts: how the fight against global poverty suppressed individual rights. New York: Basic Books. Easterly, W. & Williamson, C.R. (2011) Rhetoric versus Reality: the best and worst of aid agency practices, World Development, 39(11), 1930-1949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2011.07.027 Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: the making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fairbanks, C.H. (2004) Georgia’s Rose Revolution, Journal of Democracy, 15, 110-124. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2004.0025 Fazekas, M. (2012) School Funding Formulas. OECD Working Paper. Paris: OECD. Frank, A.G. (1966) The Development of Underdevelopment. Boston, MA: New England Free Press. GeoStat (2015) Education, Science, and Culture in Georgia. Tbilisi, Georgia: National Statistics Office of Georgia. www.geostat.ge Godfrey, M. (2004) Russian Federation: per capita financing of education: experience and issues. Russia Country Office Policy Note, 29943. Grivins, M. (2012) Implementation of Per Capita Education Funding in the Baltic States, Baltic Journal of European Studies, 2(12), 87-108. Hale, H.E. (2005) Regime Cycles: democracy, autocracy, and revolution in postSoviet Eurasia, World Politics, 58(1), 133-165. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2006.0019 Hazans, M. (2010) Teacher Pay, Class Size and Local Governments: evidence from the Latvian reform. http://ftp.iza.org/dp5291.pdf Herczyñski, J. (2002) Financing of Georgian Education. Warsaw, Poland: CASE. Hua, H. & Herstein, J. (2003) Education Management Information System (EMIS): integrated data and information systems and their implications in educational management. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Comparative and International Education Society. International Monetary Fund (IMF) (2009) Republic of Latvia: request for stand-by arrangement. Washington, DC: IMF. Kamens, D.H. & McNeely, C.L. (2009) Globalization and the Growth of International Educational Testing and National Assessment, Comparative Education Review, 54(1), 5-25. https://doi.org/10.1086/648471

80

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

Klein, M. & Schröder, H.H. (2016) Presidents, Oligarchs and Bureaucrats: forms of rule in the post-Soviet space. London: Routledge. Levačić, R. & Downes, P. (2004) Formula Funding of Schools, Decentralization and Corruption: a comparative analysis. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), UNESCO. Lomaia, A. (2006) Educational Reforms in Georgia: a case study, in J. Kohler & J. Huber (Eds.) Higher Education Governance between Democratic Culture, Academic Aspirations and Market Forces. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. Machabeli, G., Apkhazava, R. & Bregvadze, T. (2008) Evaluation of Decentralization Reform. Tbilisi, Georgia: EPPM. Matiashvili, A. (2008) On Being First: the meaning of education decentralization reform in Georgia, in I. Silova & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds) How NGOs React: globalization and education reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Mongolia. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press. Melikidze, V. (2002) Role of Formal Decision Making in the Emerging of the ‘New Corruption’ in a School Education in Transitional Societies (Case of Georgia). Budapest, Hungary: Open Society Institute. Meyer, H.D. & Benavot, A. (Eds) (2013) PISA, Power, and Policy: the emergence of global educational governance. Oxford: Symposium Books. https://doi.org/10.15730/books.85 Meyer, J.W., Ramirez, F.O. & Soysal, Y.N. (1992) World Expansion of Mass Education, 1870-1980, Sociology of Education, 128-149. https://doi.org/10.2307/2112679 Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) [Georgia] (2007) Consolidated Education Strategy and Education Plan (2007-2011). Tbilisi, Georgia: MoES. Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) [Latvia] (2007) Informative Report: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for technical assistance 11June 22, 2007, the mission provided by the characterization of the situation in the education sector and a detailed analysis of the possibilities to implement the recommendations of the mission. Riga, Latvia. Open Society Foundation (OSF) (2002) Review Report of the Georgian Education Development Project: education support program. Budapest, Hungary: OSF. Orivel, F. (1998) Cost and Finance of Education in Georgia. Unpublished report. Irédu/CNRS, Université de Bourgogne. Parliament of Georgia (1997) Law on Education. Tbilisi, Georgia. Parliament of Georgia (2005) Law on General Education. Tbilisi, Georgia. Parliament of Latvia (1998) Law on Education. Riga, Latvia. Perkins, G. (1998) The Georgian Education System: issues for reform management. Unpublished report. Washington, DC. Phillips, D. & Ochs, K. (2004) Researching Policy Borrowing: some methodological challenges in comparative education, British Educational Research Journal, 30(6), 773-784. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141192042000279495 President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2010) State Program of Education Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2011-2020. Astana, Kazakhstan.

81

Simon Janashia Robertson, S.L. & Verger, A. (2012) Governing Education through Public Private Partnerships. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9780857930699 Schriewer, J. & Martinez, C. (2004) Constructions of Internationality in Education, in G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.) The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, pp. 29-53. New York: Teachers College Press. Shapiro, M., Nakata, S., Chakhaia, L., Zhvania, E., Babunashvili, G., Pruidze, N. & Tskhomelidze, M. (2007) Evaluation of the Ilia Chavchavadze Program in Reforming and Strengthening Georgia’s Schools. Tbilisi, Georgia: Padeco. Silova, I. (2002) Returning to Europe, in A. Novoa & M. Lawn (Eds) Fabricating Europe, pp. 87-107. New York: Springer. Silova, I. (2005) Traveling Policies: hijacked in Central Asia, European Educational Research Journal, 4, 50-59. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2005.4.1.5 Silova, I. & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2008) Introduction: unwrapping the post-socialist educational reform package, in I. Silova & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds) How NGOs React: globalization and education reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia, pp. 1-42. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press. Simonia, Z. (2007) School Funding System in Georgia. Unpublished Report. Tbilisi, Georgia. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2003) The Politics of League Tables, JSSE – Journal of Social Science Education, 2(1). http://www.jsse.org/jsse/index.php/jsse/article/download/470/386 Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2004) Blazing a Trail for Policy Theory and Practice, in The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, pp. 201-220. New York: Teachers College Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2012) Understanding Policy Borrowing and Lending, in G. Steiner-Khamsi & F. Waldow (Eds) World Yearbook of Education 2012: policy borrowing and lending in education, pp. 3-17. New York: Routledge. Steiner-Khamsi, G. & Quist, H.O. (2000) The Politics of Educational Borrowing: reopening the case of Achimota in British Ghana, Comparative Education Review, 44(3), 272-299. https://doi.org/10.1086/447615 Steiner-Khamsi, G. & Stolpe, I. (2004) Decentralization and Recentralization Reform in Mongolia: tracing the swing of the pendulum, Comparative Education, 40(1), 29-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305006042000184872 Tabatadze, S. & Gorgadze, N. (2014) School Funding System and Equity in Georgia: Tbilisi, Georgia: CCIIR. Takayama, K. (2012) Bringing a Political ‘Bite’ to Educational Transfer Studies: cultural politics of PISA and the OECD in Japanese education reform, in G. Steiner-Khamsi & F. Waldow (Eds) World Yearbook of Education, pp. 148-166. New York: Routledge. Tevzadze, G. (2003) Education Systems and System. Tbilisi, Georgia: OSF. Transparency International (2002) Corruption Perceptions Index 2002. http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/cpi_2002 UNESCO (2015) Institute for Statistics: education. http://data.uis.unesco.org

82

INTRODUCTION OF THE PER CAPITA FUNDING MODEL OF FINANCE

Vandycke, N. (2001) Latvia: public expenditures review. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Verger, A. (2012) Framing and Selling Global Education Policy: the promotion of public–private partnerships for education in low-income contexts, Journal of Education Policy, 27(1), 109-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2011.623242 Waldow, F. (2012) Standardisation and Legitimacy: two central concepts in research on educational borrowing and lending, in World Yearbook of Education: policy borrowing and lending in education, pp. 411-427. New York: Routledge. Wallerstein, I.M. (2004) World-systems Analysis: an introduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. World Bank (1999) Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US $31.1 Million Equivalent to the Republic of Latvia for an Education Improvement Project. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. World Bank (2001) Project Appraisal Document: education system realignment and strengthening program. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.

83

Simon Janashia

84

Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations

CHAPTER 4

Post-socialist Transformations, Everyday School Life and Country Performance in PISA: analysis of curriculum education reform in Latvia and Estonia TATIANA KHAVENSON

ABSTRACT Using a natural experiment situation, this chapter describes the process of curriculum reform in Russian-medium schools in Latvia and Estonia. The research question focuses on whether those curriculum reforms were successful from the perspective of schools’ interiorisation of new curriculum and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) performance improvement. Using the three-layered curriculum approach (intended, implemented and attained curriculum), this chapter analyses how the intentions of the laws and other reform-related documents were implemented in everyday school practice and are reflected in attained educational results. To address this issue, a series of in-depth interviews in Russian-medium schools, in conjunction with the PISA 2003-2012 trends analysis, were conducted. The results showed that intended and attained curricula have grown closer in both countries. Schools actively implement proposed reforms in teaching, and PISA performance has been constantly improving, showing that the attained curriculum is approaching what was intended, though this process is different in the two countries.

Introduction The post-Soviet countries undoubtedly experienced significant transformations in every sphere of life after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The process of establishing new education institutions was not smooth. For the former Soviet republics, integration of their ethnic Russian populations 85

Tatiana Khavenson

was one of the main challenges in national development. First, the status of being Russian changed dramatically in the early 1990s; from being at the top of the socio-economic ladder in each of the 15 Soviet republics, Russians became an ethnic minority, losing their linguistic, occupational and other privileges (Rannut, 1991; Raun, 2009; Vihalemm & Hogan-Brun, 2013). Second, several former Soviet countries had been ethnically homogeneous before becoming part of the Soviet Union and thus had little experience of bilingualism or other strategies of dealing with large populations of ethnic minorities (Pullerits, 1937). In the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – language and ethnic integration has been viewed as one of the major issues facing educational policymaking (OECD, 2001b; Silova, 2002b; Khavenson & Carnoy, 2016). Estonia and Latvia inherited a dual school system from the Soviet era, with schools operating in the state language (Estonian and Latvian, respectively) as well as in Russian. Currently, both countries have a de jure unified education system, where some schools deliver education in Russian and the national languages, Estonian or Latvian. De facto, they usually refer to two types of schools – those with instruction in Estonian or Latvian and those with instruction in Russian (Brands-Kehris & Landes, 2007; Siiner, 2014). In both countries, educational reforms directed at Russian-medium schools started much later than those targeting the educational system based on the titular language, Latvian or Estonian. For ethnic majority schools, some changes were introduced at the end of the 1980s, followed by many more transformations during the 1990s, while Russian-medium schools remained in the shadow, mostly continuing instruction in the old style with less attention or accountability from ministries of education in Estonia and Latvia. The active phase of the Russian-medium school reform began only in the early 2000s in Latvia and in the mid-2000s in Estonia. By that time, schools using the state language as the medium of instruction in both countries had generally developed new educational values systems, using a constructivist approach and child-oriented learning, and were ready to disseminate these approaches to the entire education system. From this perspective, the integration of Russian minorities into the national education system was the aim of the reform of Russian language schools in general and of curriculum interventions in particular. An equal curriculum, meaning that every student in the country is given approximately the same sum of skills and knowledge in a similar teaching environment, is a crucial element of such integration (Livingstone et al, 1986; Heyneman, 1998; Heyneman et al, 2001; Njeng’ere, 2014). There is a common view that a curriculum has three layers: the intended curriculum – ‘what society would like to see taught’; the implemented curriculum – what is actually taught in the classroom and how teachers bring all the curriculum’s elements into play; and the attained curriculum – what students have learned (Livingstone et al, 1986; Martin, 86

CURRICULUM EDUCATION REFORM IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

1996; Bempechat et al, 2002). Hence, in the case of the Baltic countries, curriculum interventions constituted a message as to what Estonian and Latvian education officials wanted Russian students to know. Following this three-layered curriculum approach, it can be assumed that integration has more or less been achieved when what society would like to be taught (the intended curriculum) approximately equals what is actually taught in the classroom (the implemented curriculum) and what students have learnt (the attained curriculum). The research question of our study is whether integration has been more or less achieved or at least whether the gap between the three levels of curriculum has been narrowing since the Russian-medium schools reform began. Investigating this puzzle requires (1) tracing the process of new curriculum implementation as an aspect of Russian-medium schools’ integration in Latvia and Estonia; (2) relating this process to what is happening in schools (i.e. how the intended curriculum is internalised by Russian schools); and (3) measuring academic performance during the reform period as an indicator of the attained curriculum. The three-layered curriculum is used in this study as a lens to examine the process of new curriculum implementation as a core aspect of Russianmedium schools’ integration in the national school system in Latvia and Estonia. The intended curriculum was explored through an analysis of the changes in national curricula described in various documents on Russianmedium school reform in Estonia and Latvia. Both implemented and attained curricula have formed in the context of these reforms. To investigate the implemented curricula, we examined Russian-medium schools using qualitative research. Interviews were used to assess whether teachers and principals implemented the intended curriculum and what their attitudes were. As teachers and school principals are ‘gatekeepers’ of the curriculum and key implementers of any education reform initiative, little can be expected to change if they do not accept and internalise the proposed reform (Livingstone et al, 1986, p. 7; Spreen, 2004; Erss et al, 2014). Teachers’ lack of preparedness for the liberal reforms, for instance, was cited as one reason for the crisis in education reforms in Russia in the mid-1990s (Borisenkov, 2007). Finally, to measure academic performance during the reform period as an indicator of the attained curriculum, the study looked at the trends in educational performance in Latvia and Estonia using the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) data for the period from 2006 to 2012.[1] PISA is an international large-scale assessment of 15-year-old pupils in reading, mathematics and science. To be able to measure the extent to which the intended curriculum was implemented in schools and was attained by students in Latvia and Estonia, the study used the natural experiment that occurred after the break-up of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet period, considerable effort was directed towards the unification of the educational systems in the 15 constituent republics. By the end of the 1980s, this had generally been accomplished. Education systems were quite similar over all parts of the USSR (Mitter, 87

Tatiana Khavenson

1992; Herbst & Wojciuk, 2017). Additionally, teachers in all three countries had similar educational backgrounds because a substantial number of Latvian and Estonian teachers in Russian-medium schools were trained in the USSR, at home, or in the Russian SSR. In Latvia, the average working experience of teachers is 22 years, and there is a very low proportion of young teachers in both Baltic countries. In 2016, only 6% and 8% of teachers in lower- and upper-secondary education were aged under 30 in Latvia and Estonia, respectively. Forty-nine per cent of teachers in Latvia and 50% in Estonia were 50 or older (OECD, 2016a,b). Since school curricula and teacher training in all Soviet Republics were characterised by substantial uniformity, it may be assumed that teachers continued to use Soviet curricula and pedagogy before the clear introduction of education reforms. As newly independent states started building their own educational systems in the 1990s, a situation of natural experiment arose, in which initially similar groups began to live in different circumstances and under different transformation processes. While the Russian Federation largely maintained its previous curriculum standards, Latvia and Estonia changed their national curricula quite substantially with an orientation to European integration. The educational transformations of emerging countries are often studied through the policy-borrowing perspective. When the focus is directed at comparison of the existing state with a desired education system, there is a comparison with a destination point. In the case of post-Soviet and Eastern European countries, a destination is Western European education systems. In our case, we compare Estonia and Latvia not with the destination, but with the point of origin. Russia in this comparison plays the role of departure point, where the education system had stayed the same or was very close to the initial, late Soviet, one. We believe that this allows us to answer more precisely the question of how post-socialist transformations can appear, giving examples of such transformation and describing the ways they have been approached. Using Russia as a reference country allows for the attribution of national academic achievement (attained curriculum) with respect to the reform measures (intended curriculum) and to the process of the new curriculum implementation (implemented curriculum). I start by discussing the education reforms in the Baltic countries. This discussion is followed by a description of the methodological approach used. Subsequently, the findings are presented and discussed. Educational System and Reforms in Latvia and Estonia In Latvia and Estonia, the Russian population has constituted the largest minority group since the two countries’ sovereignty was attained in 1991. Most of the Russian population of the Baltic countries migrated there during the Soviet period. In 1934, ethnic Russians made up 8% of the population in Estonia, reaching 30% in 1989 and 26% in 2000 according to the respective 88

CURRICULUM EDUCATION REFORM IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

censuses. The Latvian figures are close to those of Estonia; the Russianspeaking population in Latvia increased from 9% in 1935, to 34% in 1989 and to 30% in 2000 (Eesti arvudes. Estonie en chiffres. Resume retrospectif de 1920-1935, 1937; Soros Foundation – Latvia, 2001; Statistical Office of Estonia, Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia and Statistics Lithuania, 2003; Statistics Estonia, 2016). In Estonia, the Russian population is primarily concentrated in the capital city of Tallinn and in Ida-Viru, the region by the Russian border, with the cities of Narva and Kohtla-Jarve. Ethnic Russians in this area used to work in engineering and public administration during the Soviet period. In Latvia, Russians lived mainly in big cities, including the capital city of Riga and Daugavpils, the second-largest city in Latvia. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all Baltic countries moved rapidly to ‘de-ideologise’ the curriculum and establish the basis for the transition process. Education reforms related to the changes in curricula, textbooks and other teaching materials, and retraining of teachers started in both countries in schools with national languages of instruction (Anweiler, 1992; Mitter, 1992; OECD, 2001b; Silova, 2002a). Estonia pursued active reforms in the education sector in the late 1980s. This was not a fully fledged reform but a preparation for one (OECD, 2001a). In addition, even in the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet Estonia manifested some differences from all the other republics. These exceptions included eleven years of schooling instead of ten, some curriculum differences in science, foreign language, music and art classes, and permission for school specialisation in almost half of the schools. Latvia adopted its first law on education in 1991, followed by a revision of the law in 1998. The new national standard, which was approved in April 1998, focused on the practical orientation of acquired knowledge, problemsolving and active learning. The standard also placed emphasis on Latvian as the medium of instruction in all schools, as the ‘language of national unification’ (Dedze & Catlaks, 2001; OECD, 2001b; Kangro & James, 2008; Carnoy et al, 2015). Independent Estonia’s first Law on Education was passed in 1992, followed by the Law on Basic and Upper Secondary Education in 1998. The new national curriculum was introduced in 1996 and then revised in 2011, emphasising approximately the same approaches as the national curriculum in Latvia. The new national curriculum promoted learning to learn, social competencies and fostering a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship (OECD, 2001a; Kitsing, 2011). In both Latvia and Estonia, curriculum reforms observed in Russianmedium schools diverge from those using the national language. During the 1990s and even the early 2000s, minority schools in Estonia were left to their own devices. They taught mostly in Russian and had no strict guidelines on curriculum. In Latvia, reform of Russian-medium schools was launched in 2000, with bilingual education (BE) from primary school being the main feature of the reform. Curriculum alignment was implemented in parallel 89

Tatiana Khavenson

according to the national standard. Despite the provision of in-service training for teachers and principals and substantial public discussion of the BE reform preceding the implementation of the new curriculum for Russianmedium schools, the reform was burdensome to implement for Russianmedium schools (Dedze & Catlaks, 2001; Silova, 2002b; Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, 2004; Carnoy et al, 2015; Khavenson & Carnoy, 2016). In Estonia, a comprehensive reform of the Russian-school curriculum started even later – in 2006-2007. The focus of the reform was on introducing a more practical approach that involved not only knowledge acquisition but also knowledge application, functional reading and other innovative approaches that had already become widespread in Estonianlanguage schools by that time. Considerable effort was directed at motivating teachers and principals to take an active role in the reform process (OECD, 2001a; Logvina, 2014). Both countries also established national assessments in the 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th grades at the start of the 2000s in Latvia and during the 2000s in Estonia (Bethell & Kaufmane, 2005). According to the above-mentioned curriculum layers, these changes can be regarded as an intended curriculum or as a message of ‘what society would like to see taught’ that was sent to Russian-medium schools in Estonia and Latvia. Methodology Using the lens of the threefold curriculum, this study employed a mixedmethod approach (Figure 1). Following the classification offered by Leech and Onwuegbuzie (2009), a partially mixed concurrent equal status design was used in which quantitative and qualitative parts have their own goals and allow for meta-inferences. The evidence on the intended curriculum was obtained from an analysis of the national curriculum documents for each country. The implemented curriculum was explored through qualitative interviews. Finally, the attained curriculum was measured involving the PISA data. Together, these three sources of qualitative and quantitative data were used to provide a long-term overview of the curriculum reform implementation and therefore afford the possibility of studying trends and the long-term effects of these reforms. The goal of the qualitative part was to study the process of new curriculum implementation and internalisation by Russian-medium schools in Latvia and Estonia. This included in-depth group interviews with school principals and vice-principals and classroom observations. The interview guide included information about the school, teachers, the national curriculum and curriculum changes, teaching practices and their development with the reforms, approaches to assessment and examination, and participation in international studies such as PISA. Interviewees were asked to provide their own explanations for the improvement of their countries in PISA performance. Class observations focused on teaching approaches, elements of new-style teaching practices and the overall 90

CURRICULUM EDUCATION REFORM IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

classroom environment. Ministry of Education officials and those who had participated in developing the reforms were also interviewed.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework of the study and analytical approach (scheme adopted from Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2006).

Our sample consisted of seven schools in Estonia (Tallinn, Narva, KohtlaJarve), six schools in Latvia (Riga), and three schools in Russia (Moscow and the Moscow Region). All schools were selected using the target sample and a snowball method. One interview and one class observation were conducted in each school. Interviews lasted for approximately 90-120 minutes. Fieldwork in the Baltic countries occurred in June and November 2013 and in Russia in May-June 2013 and September 2014. We employed thematic analysis as the analytical framework for our interviews. This implied a search for aggregated themes within the data based on commonalities and relationships across the dataset. Though some ‘a priori’ codes were defined prior to the examination of data, a number of empirical codes were developed through the data examination. These were then combined into code families or sub-codes. In this case, the ‘a priori’ code corresponded to the guide’s topics, though the loose structuring of interviews meant that many new empirical codes were identified. The quantitative part of our study aimed to assess whether the share of attained curriculum in intended curriculum had been growing during the period of active reform introduction. The study examined the academic performance of schools with the state and Russian languages of instruction [2] in Estonia and Latvia and compared these with Russian schools in Russia. Student questionnaires and test results in reading, science and mathematics were analysed using the 2006, 2009 and 2012 PISA data.[3] Estonia and Latvia administer PISA tests in both languages (their state language and

91

Tatiana Khavenson

Russian) and use test booklets and questionnaires from the Russian PISA coordinating centre. Therefore, the Russian versions of instruments are identical in all three countries. This gave us the opportunity to compare not only countries as a whole but also subgroups of pupils based on their language of instruction at school. Table I shows the sample size for the five groups by year. Samples are representative for each country and for language groups within countries. Number of students in the following

2006

2009

2012

Russian-medium schools in Latvia

1515

1034

1064

Latvian-medium schools in Latvia

3177

3457

3230

Russian-medium schools in Estonia

1190

885

989

Estonian-medium schools in Estonia

3675

3837

3768

Schools in Russia

4871

5002

5005

Table I. Sample size for each of the five groups divided by year.

Regression analysis was used to estimate the performance trends of these different groups. Though the main factor was the interaction of the country and the language of instruction in the period from 2006 to 2012, there were other factors to be accounted for, the most important of which was socioeconomic status (SES). Having included SES, the regression model was estimated for PISA 2006, 2009 and 2012. Sij = b0 + b1Sti + b2Cntj + ei

(1)

where Sij is the standardised student’s PISA score (either in mathematics, science or reading); Sti is the student’s SES (mother’s education, number of books at home, and average books at the homes of a student’s classmates); and Cntj is a series of dummies for each country’s*language of instruction group. Results Everyday Processes in School: implemented curriculum Based on interviews and observations, we reconstructed everyday school life, focusing on the teaching practices and curriculum elements that were introduced with the curriculum reforms.[4] Teaching practices and curriculum (Figures 2 and 3). Participants in Estonia and Latvia often mentioned widespread practices and curriculum elements that came with the reform, such as individualisation (‘not to treat everyone equally, but to be appropriate for each individual student’); problem-oriented 92

CURRICULUM EDUCATION REFORM IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

teaching; real life connection; a practical and experimental approach with the common use of out-of-school learning in teaching science; knowledge application and reasoning tasks in all subjects, including mathematics; functional reading in every subject (Estonia);[5] group work (projects, tasks involving working in teams); utilisation of new learning technologies (digital textbooks, smart boards, internet sources, etc.); and the introduction of new assessment instruments containing PISA-style tasks. There was variation in how teachers and principals reacted to these changes. While in Estonian interviews we mostly encountered positive attitudes to the newly implemented teaching practices and curriculum changes, in Latvia the principals and vice-principals usually had mixed attitudes to this ‘new-style’ of learning. They recognise that it has some advantages but complained about time available for learning with these innovative approaches: ‘experimentation should make up no more than 20%, but now it is 60%’. However, at the same time, they always acknowledged that students were keen to try these new approaches.

Figure 2. Teaching practices code and its sub-codes.

In both countries, a very positive attitude was shown regarding individualisation, both for educational trajectories as a whole and for everyday class work in particular. The interviews in both Baltic countries showed that teachers pay considerable attention to individual students’ performance in specific subjects; they are ready to give different tasks to different students and to assess students’ progress individually. ‘The usual thing: divide the class board into three parts for three groups’ or ‘Students have the same test but they are motivated to solve different numbers of items’ were common statements from our interviews. The one-size-fits-all approach was associated with the Soviet era, and teachers and administrators in Russian-medium schools did not promote that approach. Many interviewees in both countries argued that the curriculum changes and the way teachers taught the new curriculum were strongly related to PISA-style learning approaches, meaning that subject curricula were elaborated based on the framework that was close to the PISA test in 93

Tatiana Khavenson

order to teach and assess similar skills. Consequently, this has led to improved PISA performance in every subject, especially in reading and science.

Figure 3. Curriculum code and its sub-codes.

Russian data differed from the data collected in Estonia and Latvia. A large majority of teachers in Russia continued to teach in the traditional way. The first national standard following a new, non-Soviet paradigm was only introduced in 2010 and implemented in 2012 for those in the first grade. However, according to our interviewees in Russia, teaching practice did not change much, even for those teachers who had taken in-service training courses. Moreover, for high school teachers, the new curriculum and the final-year examination send controversial messages; the former was competence-based, while the latter was a knowledge-based test. Individualisation was not successfully implemented in the Russian context. One of our interviewees explained that ‘it is impossible for a teacher to take into account the different performance of students, because this requires much additional work in preparing and grading, and teachers are overloaded’. Teachers usually cater to an average student. As we expected, the Russian curriculum has changed little during the entire post-Soviet period. Professional development. In Estonia and Latvia, considerable attention was paid to in-service training for teachers and school administrators. As an example, participants mentioned courses developing new teaching practices in all subjects, such as individualisation, group work, projects, and links to real life; new approaches to assessment; and the development of functional reading (Estonia). Interviewees found these professional development courses useful and interesting. In both countries, professional development courses not only served to teach new practices or introduce curriculum changes but also acted as a medium for promoting new educational paradigms, values and attitudes. ‘Those courses changed our minds from the 94

CURRICULUM EDUCATION REFORM IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

Soviet to the modern Estonian way of running schools and even way of thinking,’ explained one of the principals. Bilingual education (Figure 4). In Latvia, bilingual education (BE) was probably the most discussed issue with all its pros and cons and its emotional milieu. It is regarded as a main driver of the Russian-medium school reform. Most principals agreed that bilingual education helps Russian students become successful in adult life; at the same time, it had been a rather arduous reform for schools. Interviewees usually expressed a cool perception of BE, especially of the way in which it was implemented. Interview questions about BE generated numerous complaints and revealed that interviewees did not consider BE to be a means of bringing full integration to the Latvian educational system. However, from the perspective of academic performance, bilingual education was frequently offered as an explanation of Russian-medium school success in PISA. School principals argued that studying two languages and switching from one to another during the day or even during one classroom session developed children’s general ability, which in turn was reflected in all other areas of school performance, including PISA. The school principals who were interviewed were pleased with the fact that PISA results improved for students from Russian-medium schools. In 2012, Russian-medium school pupils outperformed students from Latvian-medium schools in reading. This evidence helped convince teachers and principals that bilingual education was effective.

Figure 4. Bilingual education code and its sub-codes.

A number of other initiatives were launched as bilingual education was implemented – for example, teacher training in new styles of student assessment, new teaching practices, and teaching materials. These additional initiatives might have had an effect on developing constructivist approaches to teaching that may have contributed to the improvement of PISA results. In Estonia, bilingual education was initially more a form of integrating Russian-medium school students into society. Participation for primary and middle schools in bilingual education is voluntary. The school principals

95

Tatiana Khavenson

rarely mentioned bilingual education in conjunction with academic performance. However, many principals demonstrated positive attitudes to bilingual education, specifically to language immersion classes; they talked about an increase in parental readiness to send children to such classes. Exams and PISA. Student assessment principles and frameworks often determine the ways teachers choose to teach (OECD, 2005; Erss, Kalmus, & Autio, 2016; Khavenson & Carnoy, 2016). In the Baltic countries, especially Estonia, national assessments occur in the 9th and 12th grades. Some interviewees mentioned that these assessments are rather similar to PISA: ‘the exams do not copy PISA, but they are based on the same principles’. In Russia, the opposite was the case, as the national assessments are entirely knowledge-based rather than competence-based. While in Latvia and Russia schools were not particularly keen on PISA participation, in Estonia, schools were motivated to participate in this international assessment. As PISA is treated more seriously at the state level in Estonia (Khavenson & Carnoy, 2016), the higher level of school involvement may indicate greater integration of Russian-medium schools in Estonia than in Latvia. Teachers’ and principals’ attitudes and beliefs emerged as a relevant aspect of the qualitative component of this study. In Estonia, principals and vice-principals often demonstrated positive or neutral attitudes to the implemented changes. They also revealed a high level of readiness to try something new and considered themselves as active participants in the reforms. The principles of the reform appeared to be more interiorised by interviewees in Estonia. In Latvia, interviewees were usually more restrained in their evaluation of reform measures and did not express much enthusiasm for implementing the changes. Whereas in Estonian interviews, the subject pronoun ‘we’ emerged frequently – as in, ‘we are moving’, ‘we are changing’, and ‘we are trying’ – in Latvia, the subject pronoun used with reference to new policy interventions was ‘they’. Interviews with Ministry of Education officials demonstrated that in Estonia, the government tried to invest a lot of effort into convincing the school administration and teachers that the proposed changes in Russianmedium schools were beneficial in terms of integration as well as improvement of academic achievement. Personal communication by the Ministry of Education with schools played a major role in this process. Russian-medium schools reported that they felt the government had started to pay attention instead of merely imposing new requirements. In summary, interiorisation emerged as an important aspect of the acceptance of the implemented paradigm. The interviews provided strong evidence for the elements of the intended curriculum implemented in schools. Many of these elements had become a part of teaching practices. In this respect, there were numerous indications that the declared aims of the curriculum reform were 96

CURRICULUM EDUCATION REFORM IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

implemented in the classroom. Finally, the study examined whether the intended curriculum had affected the attained curriculum (i.e. educational performance). Pisa Performance Trends: attained curriculum PISA data were analysed to examine the attainment of the intended curriculum. It was assumed that if the PISA framework overlapped with the Baltic countries’ intended curriculum, the increase in PISA performance could be interpreted as curriculum attainment.[6] Trends in attained curriculum are described by comparing PISA scores in mathematics, reading and science in schools with the national and Russian language of instruction in Estonia and Latvia with schools in Russia as a reference group (Table II).

*** p