Why is the work and influence of New Zealand educationalist CE Beeby back in the international spotlight 50 years on? Sarah Boyd explains. Sarah Boyd
Communications Director, New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER)
Fifty years ago this year, CE Beeby published a book called in developing countries all over the world. He worked with Beeby The Quality of education in developing countries. The at-times in the 1970s in Indonesia, tooling round Java to look at education emotional reception to a panel discussion on Beeby’s influence projects with local education administrators. The way he tells it, at an international conference earlier this year shows he still has Beeby would hardly get through the official welcomes before he the power to move and inspire. was off, heading to talk to the children and poking around to ‘I feel like he’s the lost father I never knew,’ Joshua Muskin, see what they were actually up to in the classroom. of Washington’s Brookings Institution said, after attending the ‘Of the people I was interacting with [in Indonesia] he was session at the Comparative and International Education Society by the far the oldest and the most thoughtful and innovative in conference in Vancouver. ‘What I latched on to so strongly was his thinking.’ that he is always bringing it back to the classroom.’ The older New Zealander became a powerful mentor. Muskin says that’s unusual. After Rereading the book last year, years in the field of education in He wrote eloquently about Ward was blown away by its clarity developing countries, he’s frustrated and relevance. Now with time on at how policy makers and scholars still many of his educational his hands, he was determined to feel it’s enough to come up with a good introduce it to a new generation idea to assume it will be good practice ideas and experiences, of educators, particularly those in the classroom. ‘I feel like a voice in and certainly in New Zealand working in developing countries. the wilderness: what about teachers? So he organised the panel at the What about putting this into practice? education circles his legacy Vancouver conference. What gives you confidence that what If you’re Ward Heneveld (and a you are talking about will end up in is still recognised, even sizeable international fan club), The better learning, better outcomes?’ Quality of education in developing revered. Dr Beeby was the first director of the countries is a classic that has more New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) and than stood the test of time. By then, 1965, the economists were then from 1940 to 1960, Director General of Education in New beginning to hold sway. Beeby was among the first to tackle the Zealand. He went on to work for UNESCO and was for a time question of maintaining high educational standards at a time New Zealand’s ambassador to France. At the time The Quality of when most people were obsessed with quantity – getting more education in developing countries was published he was a Research schools built and more teachers and students into them. Associate and Lecturer in Education at the Graduate School of Ward and his wife Cheryl are in Vancouver largely to Education at Harvard. proselytise on the book’s behalf. He has little interest in the rest of He wrote eloquently about many of his educational ideas and the proceedings (“all that gobbledegook”) but he’s pulled together experiences, and certainly in New Zealand education circles his a panel of international speakers into rereading (or in the case legacy is still recognised, even revered. At NZCER’s Wellington of two of them) reading for the first time and responding to it offices there is a room with his name on the door, and NZCER from a modern-day perspective. and UNESCo jointly run the $30,000 Beeby fellowship to turn The book is a slim 131 pages and surprisingly readable. In a innovative research into resources. nutshell, Beeby argues that making changes in education takes a However, Beeby’s foray into education in developing countries decade or more and can’t happen unless the system has teachers is less well known. This is where Ward Heneveld and the who are well educated and well trained. He puts forward a Vancouver conference comes in. Now a retiree from Vermont, for framework of stages that education systems need to go through years Ward was a consultant helping to build education systems and, rather than letting the economists hold sway, he argues for
educationalists and economists to work together in educational planning. Fifty years on, his thinking remains relevant to the current discussion about the demands on teachers in the 21st century. He spends a chapter considering the conservatism of education systems. ‘The teacher is afraid of any other questions in the classroom but those he himself asks, for they are the only ones to which he can be sure of knowing the answers. This fact alone throws his teaching methods back into the last century. If the pupils cannot be encouraged to ask their own awkward questions, most of the techniques of the good modern classroom become impossible.’ At times his tone is one of incredulity. Here he is on the mysteries of the Samoan education system of the 1960s. ‘Teaching methods were formal in the extreme, and the connection between symbols and their most elementary meanings were sometimes lost entirely. Tables and strings of words, whose meaning might remain a mystery, were frequently chanted in unison and learned by heart in the hope that their meaning would some day be revealed by repetition. Arithmetical skills such as those involved in papering a rectangular room (the lovely Samoan houses, incidentally, were elliptical and had no walls!) were learned by rote.’ Shelton Schaeffer is an international education consultant and a former chief of UNICEF’s Global Education Programme and Director of UNESCO’s Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for
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Education. He is a less fervent Beeby-believer than Ward but he too thinks the thinking holds up strongly. ‘So little has changed in many ways. In Indonesia in 40 years of development assistance, a lot of the reforms succeeded as projects as long as they were funded and had attention but once that was gone, they dropped off. They had not been internalised by teachers and they had not been institutionalised by the bureaucracy. That’s exactly what Beeby is talking about. You need a decade or more and ministries don’t have a decade or more and governments don’t last that long.’ Shelton says the beauty of the book is its simple, common sense, clear approach. That is not to be underestimated in education – other sessions at the conference are full of paradigm shifts and complex comparative frameworks. It’s a notoriously jargon filled field. ‘We are talking about how horrified Beeby would be to come to this kind of meeting and read the titles of the paper, let alone attend the sessions. People are going in for more and more obscure and sophisticated sounding titles.’ Don’t get Ward started. He sees Beeby as a master of cutting through jargon. ‘The thing I’m most jealous about with him is his use of the English language. I have plenty of good ideas but I can never write or talk about them like he did. In 131 pages he summarised all the problems that educational planning was facing when it was starting up and he did it in a way that anyone could read it and understand it.’ Ward is on such a roll in Vancouver that he manages to spontaneously organise another small session on Beeby and get it scheduled in a small room at the packed conference. Sixteen or so people attend, from Poland, Mozambique, Chile, Germany and elsewhere, including a man from Cyprus who admitted he’d wandered in by mistake but after listening to the discussion declared: ‘I realise I’m in the right room.’ Eve Coxon from the University of Auckland notes that Beeby was a household name when she was growing up, though she recalls her parents didn’t approve of everything he did. Now working closely with countries in the Pacific, Beeby’s work was one of her starting points. Not that she or anyone at the session is buying everything he said. Apparently the stages of development he posed in the book are considered dated, theories of change being the thing now. Still there’s a general clamour and interest in the ideas and in particular, showing how they apply today. One of the panelists, Beatrice Avalos from the University of Chile is excited at the way Beeby puts teachers at the centre. ‘The voice of educators is weak. The decisions makers do not necessarily take account of the capacity of teachers to enact change, or to accept change.’ The ball has been passed to the UNESCO organisation Institute of Education Planning, which Beeby was instrumental in setting up, to progress the idea of getting the book republished. Director Sue Grant Lewis asks the room if anyone can name a contemporary book that pulls this sort of punch. No-one can.
NZPF Legal Advice and Support Scheme Patrick Purcell
The role of a principal is an unpredictable one. Some principals may have a long and successful career without ever encountering any major speedbumps along the way. Others may not be so fortunate. This is why the New Zealand Principals’ Federation strongly recommends principals sign up for the NZPF legal advice and support scheme. The scheme, which has been in operation for more than 20 years and is run by Principals’ Advice and Support Ltd (PASL), is designed to give employment related legal advice to principals who have subscribed to the service through Crombie Lockwood (NZ) Limited. Fiona McMillan and Barry Dorking of Anderson Lloyd Lawyers are the scheme’s primary legal advisers and spoke to NZPF recently. They talked about how participation in the scheme has risen in recent years and now has over 1,000 principals subscribed. Even principals who have never encountered a serious issue before, simply cannot predict the future. ‘All it takes is one
“trigger” event, and then things can begin to snowball very quickly,’ explains Fiona. Although there is no insurance element to the scheme, the legal advice and employment law experience that Fiona, Barry and their colleagues provide can be pivotal in resolving serious employment issues. Members of the scheme who are wary of an issue that could potentially escalate into a serious matter should call the legal hotline immediately. This service provides up to an hour of legal advice on any one issue with no additional charge on top of the scheme’s subscription fee. The scheme is specifically for matters that affect principals personally in their capacity as a principal, and not matters regarding their school. Those kinds of issues are for the school board to resolve. However, if you are unsure whether or not an issue is suitable for PASL, it is recommended that you call the hotline as soon as possible so that Barry or Fiona can clarify whether or not they can help you. The hotline is especially useful as principals are entitled to a reasonable
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It can be difficult to maintain a positive relationship with your board, especially with new members being elected. Your ‘winning formula’ as a principal may suddenly become useless if your new board disagree with your methods. This also applies to principals who take on a new challenge at a different school. Unfortunately, a common issue that Barry and Fiona encounter is people standing for school boards with a personal agenda, such as being determined to remove a principal from their position. ‘Sometimes they won’t be following the policies and rules that they should, and that’s what can really blindside a principal,’ explains Barry. Despite this, try not to panic. Ask for help early, before the real damage is done. Barry and Fiona are occasionally available to present their seminar; ‘Tales from the dark side,’ to principals' associations. Their presentation discusses some of the wide range of issues that Barry and Fiona have dealt with through their work with principals as well as advice on how to minimise the risk of such an event happening. Please contact Barry and Fiona at lawyers@andersonlloyd.co.nz if you would like them to present to your principals’ association.
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