54304 An African Exploration of the East Asian EducatIon Experience Edited by BirgerFREDRIKSEN and TAN Jee Peng · THE WORLD BANK An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience ; An African Exploration of the East Asian . Education Experience Edited by Birger FREDRIKSEN and TAN Jee Peng THE WORLD BANK Washington, D.C. vi · Contents CHAPTER 6. EDUCATION IN THAILAND: IMPROVING SECONDARY EDUCATION 218 Luis BENVENISTE CHAPTER 7. EDUCATION IN IRELAND: EVOLUTION OF ECONOMIC AND EDUCATION POLICIES SINCE THE EARLY 19905 287 Daniel O'HARE References 350 Index 359 Foreword elson Mandela, one of Africa's foremost elder statesmen, once remarked N that education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. This belief in the power of education is widely shared by ordinary African parents who, like parents everywhere, make extraordinary sacrifices to secure an education for their children in the hope of equipping them for a suc cessful future. The sentiment was resonated in the 2006 decision by the Heads of State and Government of the African Union to launch the Second Decade of Edu cation for Africa and to motivate many African governments to invest substantial shares of their national resources in education. The concerted effort of Africans and their governments and development part ners has produced good progress in recent years, particularly in ensuring that all African children are given the chance to complete a full cycle of primary school ing. But Africa is impatient for faster and broader progress-not just in primary education but across the whole education sector, including higher level technical and vocational education and training. Underlying this impatience is the wide spread recognition that a good and strong education system has the potential to foster sodal cohesiveness as well as deliver the skills required by individuals and nations to succeed in today's global economy. In their quest for educational development, African leaders are keen to examine the experience of other countries for possible adaptation to their own contexts. The story ofEast Asian countries holds special appeal in this regard. Four or five decades ago many of these countries started from conditions quite similar to those of African countries, and since have managed to tum their colonial-era systems into highly effective instruments for national development. They have grappled with and overcome many of the difficulties faced by most African countries today: seemingly impossible trade-offs in the allocation of scarce public budgets; severe shortages of teachers and large shares of underqualified staff; overcrowded and inadequate school facilities; overburdened and irrelevant curricula; scarcity of good vii viii · Foreword learning materials; misalignment between the education and training system and the job market; poor articulation between different parts of the system; and huge losses from wasteful patterns of student repetition, dropout, and poor learning out comes. For Africa's policy practitioners, there is therefore a special interest in the approach adopted by their East Asian counterparts to address these problems. Responding to this interest, the World Bank sponsored an education study tour to Singapore and Vietnam in June 2006. Among the participants were senior edu cation policy makers from six African countries-Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mozambique-accompanied by World Bank staff work ing on these countries along with staff from partner organizations. The program included site visits and presentations on Singapore and Vietnam as well as pre sentations on Korea, China, Hong Kong (China), and Thailand. Importantly, it also created throughout the two-week period of the study tour ample opportuni ties for formal and informal exchanges, both between the study tour participants and their Asian counterparts and among the African policy makers themselves. Out of this rich dialogue and joint-learning process emerged several important lessons about East Asia's development practice in education. Perhaps the most striking is the indispensable role assigned to the education and training system as a driver of sustained economic growth and social development. Investing to pre pare the next generation for good jobs in tomorrow's economy should be treated as a long-term national priority. So clear is this vision that it motivates active and sustained leadership at all levels of government and encourages close coordina tion of effort in policy and program implementation across sectors and ministries. Ihe focus is two-fold: ensuring a well-functioning system of schools and institu tions that delivers student learning and skills development; and fostering appro priate mechanisms to link what is taught in institutions to what employers seek and value in their workers. These insights from the study tour and their operational implications are elab orated in this book and in the companion volume copublished by the Singapore National Institute of Education and the World Bank and which focuses on the development ofeducation in Singapore. Taken together, the two books capture information that should interest a wide range of readers regarding East Asian countries' experience in developing and positioning the education and training system as a source of economic strength and social progress. The hope is that les sons from this part of the world over the past four or five decades will both inspire and inform African countries' efforts to shape their own path for educational development in the coming years. Yaw Ansu Director, Human Development Department Africa Region The World Bank Acknowledgments his book was made possible by contributions from a large number of indi T viduals and institutions associated with the June 2006 education study tour to Singapore and Vietnam. The tour was jointly organized by the Government of Singapore and the Human Development Department of the World Bank's Africa Region, in cooperation with the Government of Vietnam and the Human Development Department of the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Region. The coeditors of this volume-a byproduct of the study tour-wish to acknowledge with thanks the special role of several groups of people. First, the chapter authors, whose work has helped to consolidate the knowl edge gained from the study tour for wider dissemination: Chong Jae Lee for the chapter on Korea, Goh Chor Boon and S. Gopinathan on Singapore, Luis Benveniste on Thailand, Nguyen Quang Kinh and Nguyen Quoc Chi on Vietnam, Daniel O'Hare on Ireland (a case study added for reasons explained in chapter 1), and Mamadou Ndoye on education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, the study tour organizers: on the Singapore side, special thanks are owed to a number of institutions and persons who worked tirelessly to make the tour a success. They include Anna Ng, Alan Ng, Wai Yin Ho, and G. Jayakrishnan of International Enterprise Singapore (IESingapore); Professors Sing Kong Lee and Leo Tan and their colleagues at the National Ins!itute of Education; Dr. Song Seng Law and his colleagues at the Institute ofTechnical Education; Mr. Cheng Ton Lin and his colleagues at the Nanyang Polytechic; and Professor Tommy Koh, Tin Fook Koh, Teng Hoe Chua, and Emilyn Poh at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In Vietnam, the design of the tour benefited from guidance from Christopher Thomas, Christopher Shaw, Jeffrey Waite, and Sinh Thanh Vu, whose deep knowl edge and contacts greatly facilitated the consultations with counterpart officials in the Vietnamese Ministry of Education where special thanks are owed to Hung Ngoc Nguyen of the International Cooperation Department. The generous host ing of the tour by the Ministry and by the staff of the institutions visited in Hanoi ix x · Acknowledgments and Ho Chi Minh City added to its success. Help with event management came from Julieta Watlington, Mavis Ku, Linh Van Nguyen, and Nguyet Minh Nguyen, whose collective efforts made the whole program of the study tour run like clockwork Third, the tour participants from the six African countries-Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mozambique-as well as the World Bank staff and those of other partner agencies working on these countries: their active engagement prior to the tour and in the formal and informal discussions during the tour have enriched the study tour program. Their valuable contribu tions, particularly in the summary session in which each country delegation pre sented their insights from the tour, have benefited the preparation of the overview chapter of this volume. While these participants are too many to name individu ally here, they are listed in annex 2 at the end of chapter 1. Fourth, our friends who helped improve the book and facilitated its publica tion: sincere thanks are owed to Christopher Shaw, for his collaboration with the two authors on the chapter on Vietnam to finalize the English version after trans lation from the original in Vietnamese; to William Saint, who reviewed in detail the whole manuscript and made many incisive suggestions for improvement; and to Richard Crabbe, Valentina Kalk, Abdia Mohamed, and Dana Vorisek for guid ing us through the publications process. Finally, the coeditors wish to acknowledge with gratitude the management support of Yaw Ansu for the study tour, as well as the financial support received from the Government of Singapore through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of Norway through the Norwegian Education Trust Fund, and the donor partners of the Education for All Fast Track Initiative through the Education Program Development Fund. About the Authors Luis BENVENISTE is country sector coordinator in the East Asia and Pacific Region's Human Development Department of the World Bank. Birger FREDRIKSEN is an international consultant on the development of education policies and programs in developing countries, following 20 years of experience at the World Bank. GOH Chor Boon is an associate professor and associate dean of the External Programs Office at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore. S. GOPINATHAN is a professor at the National Institute of Education (NIB), Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, and vice dean (policy) at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice at the NIB. Chong Jae LEE is professor of educational policy and administration in the Department of Education, Seoul National University. Mamadou NDOYE is executive secretary of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa. NGUYEN Quang Kinh has served in several capacities in Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training, most recently as General Director of the Ministerial Bureau. NGUYEN Quoc Chi is a member of Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Train ing Mid-Decade Assessment Unit on Education for All. Daniel O'HARE is a nonexecutive director ofCalor Teoranta and Framework Solu tions and a member of the board of Ireland's Commission on Electronic Voting. TAN Jee Peng is regional education advisor in the Africa Region of the World Bank. xi Abbreviations ADB Asian Development Bank A-NET Advanced National Educational Test BK21 Brain Korea 21 BMR Bangkok Metropolitan Region CDIS Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore CHIU Conference of Heads of Irish Universities CYS Children and Youth Survey DGE Department of General Education DTI Dublin Institute of Technology EBS Educational Broadcasting Station ECCE Early Childhood Care and Education ECGD Export Credits Guarantee Department EEC European Economic Community EFA Education for All EGFSN Expert Group on Future Skills Needs ESA Education Service Areas EU European Union EXIM Export Import Bank of the United States FDI foreign direct investment FErAC Further Education Training and Awards Council GAR gross admission rate GCE General Certificate in Education GDP gross domestic product GER gross enrollment ratio GNI gross national income GNP gross national product xiii xiv · Abbreviations GPP gross provincial product HEA Higher Education Authority HEP High School Equalization Policy HRD human resource development IBEC Irish Business and Employers Confederation IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ICL Income Contingent Loan leT information and communication technology IDA International Development Association (chapter 5) IDA Industrial Development Authority (chapter 7) lEA International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement IES International Enterprise Singapore IFSC International Financial Services Centre ITE Institute of Technical Education IUA Irish Universities Association KBE knowledge-based economy KDI Korean Development Institute KEDI Korean Educational Development Institute KERIS Korean Educational Research Information Service KFfA Korea Federation of Teachers Associations KICE Korean Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation KIST Korean Institute of Science and Technology KOTMC Korean Occupational Training Management Corporation KRIVET Korean Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training LCAP Leaving Certificate Applied Programme LCVP Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme LGO local government organization LLECE Latin American Laboratory for the Assessment of Quality in Education MNC multinational corporation MOE Ministry of Education MOET Ministry of Education and Training MOl Ministry of Interior MOLISA Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs MUA Ministry of University Affairs Abbreviations · xv NCCA National Council for Curriculum and Assessment NCEA National Council for Educational Awards NEA National Education Act NEC National Education Convention NEDS National Education Development Scheme NElS National Educational Information System NER net enrollment rate NES New Education System NFE Non-Formal Education NFQ National Framework of Qualifications NGO nongovernmental organization NIE National Institute of Education NIETS National Institute of Education Testing Services NIHE National Institutes for Higher Education NSO National Statistics Office NURI New University for Regional Innovation OBEC Office of Basic Education Commission OEC Office of Education Council OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECF Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund ONEC Office of National Education Commission ONESQA Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment O-NET Ordinary National Educational Test ONPEC Office of National Primary Education Commission PASEC Programme d'analyse des systemes educatifs de la CONFEMEN PCER Presidential Committee for Educational Reform PIRLS Progress in International Reading Literacy Study PISA Programme for International Student Achievement PLC Post-Leaving Certificate PROGRESA Programa Nacional De Educaci6n, Saludy Alimentaci6n PRTLI Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions PSLE Primary School Leaving Examination R&D research and development RSEs research scientists and engineers RTC regional technical college RTG Royal Thai Government xvi · Abbreviations S$ Singapore dollar SACMEQ Southern and Eastern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality SAT Scholastic Achievement Test SCL Skill Certification Law SDF Skills Development Fund SES [Household] Socio-Economic Survey SFADCo Shannon Free Airport Development Company SFI Science Foundation Ireland SIF Strategic Innovation Fund SMI Strategic Management Initiative SPR school participation rates SSA Sub-Saharan Africa TIMSS Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study TSLN Thinking Schools, Learning Nation NET technical and vocational education and training lVEfPL Technical and Vocational Education and Training Promotion Law 1VHS Technical-Vocational High Schools UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund UNKRA United Nations Korea Reconstruction Agency VITB Vocational and Industrial Training Board VSIP Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park ; Ii CHAPTER East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights Birger FREDRIKSEN and TAN Jee Peng INTRODUCTION The study tour to Singapore and Vietnam began as an idea at a workshop on text books organized by the World Bank in May 2005. The workshop was designed for African countries to discuss the problem of textbook scarcity and options for over coming it. At that workshop, a delegation from Singapore presented their coun try's 40-year experience with textbook provision, an experience that encompassed the transformation of a modest Ministry of Education unit struggling with its mandate to prepare and distribute high-quality textbooks with relevant content, into what is today an internationally competitive private sector publisher of mul timedia learning materials. Several participants requested that a study tour to Singapore be organized to enable participates to examine the experience. 1 It soon became clear, however, that a study visit focusing on textbooks alone would be too narrow in scope. Instead, given the key role of education behind what economists have termed the East Asia miracle, it seemed more appropriate to seize the oppor tunity to learn not only about Singapore's approach to education sector develop ment at the strategic and operational levels, but also about the experience of other East Asian countries that have made similarly impressive strides in education and economic development over the past few decades. Accordingly, in June 2006, delegations of African educators from six countries (Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mozambique 2 )-each typically led by the minister of education or other senior policy makers and accompanied by World Bank staff and managers along with representatives of other development partners3-traveled to Singapore and Vietnam. These educa tors participated in a program that included site visits to education institutions in the host countries, attendance at presentations on selected aspects of education 2 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience sector policies in these countries by local experts and policy makers, and partici pations in discussions with invited experts from China (the mainland), Hong Kong (China), the Republic of Korea, and Thailand. 4 As part of their pretour preparations, each country delegation drafted a short note summarizing the key education challenges in their country and their learning expectations for the visit. At the end of the tour, each delegation delivered presentations to the other partic ipants that captured their impressions and lessons learned. OBJECTIVE AND DESIGN OF THE STUDY TOUR The study tour program did not showcase the high standards attained by East Asian countries. s Instead, it focused on the choices and implementation strategies that have allowed these countries to propel their education and economic systems, over a period of 30 to 40 years, from a situation similar to that in many Sub Saharan African countries, to their present standing among the more industrial countries of the world. 6 To make the best use of the limited time available during the tour, the agenda addressed four broad themes associated with noteworthy features of the East Asian experience over the past few decades: · The education sector's central role in nation building and national development. · Rapid scale up of basic education of good quality for all. · Management of the pressures on postprimary education as progress toward universalizing primary education was made. · Alignment between education and the economy, particularly at the postbasic education levels and in technical and vocational fields where responsiveness to labor market needs are especially important to support economic growth. The last of the themes listed above attracted the most interest, given the success of East Asian countries in fostering dynamic, responsive, and productive links between the education system and the economy. For the past 5 to 10 years, many African countries have achieved sustained economic growth averaging about 5 per cent a year, a clear break from the nearly two decades of economic decline and stag nation that occurred from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s. Yet this growth remains fragile and probably too slow to reduce poverty on a large scale. An emerging con sensus is that getting onto a path of faster and more sustained growth will require a more strategic, proactive, and systemic approach to skills development in Africa than has been adopted to date. In this regard, East Asia's decades-long experience offers an interesting laboratory of successful experimentation with policy design and implementation. The study tour program thus created opportunities for par ticipants to interact with practitioners of technical and vocational training institu tions during site visits to training facilities in Singapore and Vietnam and through discussions with the experts who made formal presentations. East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 3 OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK Because the lessons distilled by the study tour participants are interesting to other African countries, this book collects a set of papers associated with this study tour. This introductory chapter summarizes the insights from the visit and relates them 10 the education challenges faced by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa today. 7 Chap ler 2 contains a detailed discussion of these challenges, including an analysis developed from a presentation offered during the study tour. The three chapters that follow-on Singapore, Vietnam, and the Republic of Korea-were commis sioned as background papers for the study tour. Chapter 6 on Thailand is based in part on the presentation made during the tour and on information from ongoing analytical work by World Bank colleagues. Although the inclusion of Ireland in a volume on Asia may be surprising, it was motivated by the resemblance of the country's spectacular economic development over the past few decades to the experience of its high-performing counterparts in East Asia (which also explains why it has been nicknamed the "Celtic Tiger"). Many of the problems Irelan9 has confronted parallel those experienced in Africa, and its skill development strategy shares additional similarities with Asia. Fortunately, a paper on the Irish experi ence had been commissioned for other World Bank work and was readily avail able for adaptation to suit the purpose of this book. ORGANIZATION OF THIS CHAPTER This chapter draws on other chapters in this book and adds insights from the rich discussions held during the study tour-among the participants themselves, as well as between them and their East Asian counterparts. The formal and informal exchanges and question-and-answer sessions during the tour exemplifY the value of a well-planned program to provide a framework for structured conversations. Many of the approaches summarized below arose out of these conversations. These interventions may not be directly applicable to the specific education chal lenges of African countries, but they do represent a source of practical know-how about education strategy and reform, and thus inspire successful leadership and management of the sector's transformation. The experience of East Asian countries over the past few decades contains useful lessons that are worth exploring as African policy makers seek to reform and improve their education systems. Although East Asian countries fit no single model of success, the policies and strategies they followed in the education sector share a few critical features. Adapt ability is one such feature. These countries invariably customized the reform effort to their initial national conditions and continue to adapt it as conditions inevitably evolve. Pragrrmtism is another important commonality. A pragmatic approach puts flexibility in pursuit of an agreed development objective above national pride or ideological dogmatism. This approach embodies a willingness 4 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience to learn by doing and to improve implementation by closing the feedback loop to capture lessons learned. Attention to building national institutional capacity is a third common factor. The leaders of East Asian countries understood the value of technical expertise as well as the importance of building a national consensus around the policies adopted. 'These countries have systematically built their own national capacity in these dimensions to better develop and implement sound policies and strategies. They also used foreign assistance strategically in the educa tion sector to support their national policies. Within the education and training system, the high priority given in the early years to adult literacy and universal pri mary education is particularly noteworthy. Additionally, the constant attention paid over the last decades to developing a technical and vocational education and training (TVEr) system has enabled these countries to consistently upgrade this system to respond to rapid changes in the skills demanded by the economy. Finally, educa tion success in East Asian countries hardly would have been possible without the support of more general factors such as sound macroeconomic policies and strong, committed political leadership. These common features are an admittedly stylistic and simplified description of the diversity of experiences in the region. Yet they capture well some of the key factors behind these East Asian countries' success in achieving consistently high rates of long-term economic growth and in rapidly raising the quality of their human resources. The interaction between economic and human resources development and the mutually reinforcing nature of their relationship are among the most admirable features of the East Asian story. This complex narrative unfolds as follows. The next section elaborates on the enabling conditions that contextualized education development in East Asia. This discussion is followed by education sector priorities, policies, and strategic choices in East Asian countries, and highlights of key features in their approaches to pol icy implementation. In each of these areas, the region's developmental experience yields interesting insights into the sources of the region's extraordinary progress in education. rThe last section provides a summary of participants' impressions of the study tour as reflected in their final presentations and includes a tentative agenda for follow-up. ENABLING CONDITIONS FOR EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT IN EAST ASIA Foremost among the enabling conditions for education development are the fol lowing: (a) high rates of economic growth; (b) the emphasis on "shared growth" in the countries' overall development policy; (c) rapid demographic transition; and (d) strong public institutions. Success in establishing these (and other) enabling conditions provided the bedrock for successful education policies, which East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 5 in turn nurtured these conditions, thereby creating a virtuous cycle of mutually reinforcing interactions. To be specific, rapid economic growth generated the domestic resources necessary to finance a scaling up of education development, which in turn boosted economic growth by providing the skilled labor required to raise productivity. These enabling conditions did not materialize by chance. Creat ing and sustaining these conditions was the result ofdeliberate and persistent effort l,'1lided by visionary and determined political leadership, an effort that was arguably even more strenuous than that required for success in the education sector. RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH A full explanation of the extraordinary economic success of East Asian countries is not included in this chapter. 8 But clearly, this success facilitated the development of education in a way that is generally absent from the experience of most African countries during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Between 1970 and 1997, per capita gross domestic product (CDP) in East Asia rose by 355 percent (from US$] 57 to US$715 in constant 1987 U.S. dollars), or at a rate of 5.8 percent a year. By contrast, it declined over the same period by 36 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa (from US$525 to US$336 in constant 1987 U.S. dollars) (World Bank 2000a, 8).9 Ihis decline was uneven, however. Per capita CDP had actually been expanding up until the first "oil-shock" in 1973. It then stagnated between 1973 and the second oil-shock in 1980, which was followed by a long decline that lasted until the mid 1990s. Thereafter, and especially since around 2000, growth has picked up in a significant number of African countries. Looking at individual countries, per capita CDP was US$104 in Korea in 1962, US$430 in Singapore (which is a small urban nation state), and US$117 in Thailand, compared with Sub-Saharan Africa's average of US$142 (World Bank 2006c). During the 34-year period between 1965 and 1999, the per capita CDP grew at an average rate of 6.6 percent a year in Korea, 6.3 percent in Singapore,and 5.1 percent in Thailand. Thus, measured in constant prices, at the end of this period, the per capita CDP had multiplied by a factor of7.8 in Korea, 7.0 in Singapore, and 4.4 in Thailand (World Bank 200la, 25-26). Of the 35 Sub-Saharan African countries for which data are available for the same period, 19 experienced a decline in their per capita CDP between 1965 and 1999, including three of the six countries that participated in the study tour, namely, Ethiopia (declining at - 0.3 percent a year), Chana (at - 0.7 percent a year), and Madagascar (at -1.7 percent a year). The other three countries underwent mod est increases: Cameroon (at + 1.1 percent increase a year), Mozambique (at + 1.3 percent a year), and Lesotho (at +2.8 percent a year) {World Bank 2006).10 These dramatic differences in economic performance between countries in East Asia and in Sub-Saharan Africa affected the education sector in a number of ways. 6 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience Below we highlight how they affected the countries' ability to (a) finance educa tion development; (b) implement politically difficult education reforms; and (c) generate employment for schoolleavers and graduates. Impact on Education Financing. Early on, East Asian policy makers demonstrated their strong commitment to education by allocating increasing shares of the GOP for investments in education. African policy makers made a similar choice and, on average, the share of the GOP devoted to education in Sub-Saharan African coun tries has exceeded that in East Asian countries. 11 However, these comparable levels of financial commitment to education translated into different trajectories in terms of the governments' actual ability to pay for education. East Asia's steady increase over time in education's share of GOP, combined with strong economic growth, produced a sustained increase in the absolute size of the education budget. By contrast, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the steady increase in the share of GOP devoted to education was undercut by economic stagnation or decline, which implied slow-growing or even shrinking education budgets in real terms. As will become clear, the differences in economic growth have had a profound impact on the countries' ability to manage classroom conditions (for example, by avoiding excessively high pupil-to-teacher ratios) and, perhaps most important, to finance the wage bill for teachers. In the context of Sub-Saharan Africa's current efforts to reach Education for All (EFA) targets, the impact of economic stagnation on the countries' ability to finance universal primary education is particularly illuminating. Between 1960 and 1980, Sub-Saharan Africa's gross enrollment ratio (GER) grew from 45 per cent to 80 percent, and enrollment rose by 260 percent, a rate of expansion hardly experienced over a 20-year period in any other region at any time. Unfor tunately, the next two decades of economic stagnation and decline severely con strained public budgets,12 which stifled the education supply. This stagnation forced governments to resort to the use of fees to mobilize resources for educa tion, which increased private costs and reduced education demand. The GER declined from 80 percent in 1980 to 72 percent in 1992, and only slowly regained its 1980 level by 2000. The 70 percent expansion in enrollment during the period from 1980 to 2000 was barely sufficient to absorb the increase in the primary-school-age population that occurred during this 20-year period, thus leaving the GER unchanged. The adverse impact of economic stagnation, when combined with rapid growth in the population of school-age children, is reflected in the pattern of pri mary education development in individual countries. In addition to the countries with a sustained GER above 100 percent,l3 at least nine other countries reached a GER exceeding 100 percent sometime during the period 1965-1985. In these nine countries, however, the GER dropped well below 100 percent by the mid-1990s, including three of the countries that participated in the study tour. l4 The East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 7 resumption of economic growth in the late 1990s has facilitated a strong rebound in primary enrollment growth in most Sub-Saharan African countries. Impact on the Political Economy. East Asian countries have been able to estab lish and implement clear national education priorities, even when this has required difficult tradeoffs unfavorable to better-off groups (for example, giving ~,trong budgetary priority to primary rather than higher education). Sub-Saharan African countries generally have been less successful in this regard. Although they have made many attempts, these initiatives have remained largely rhetorical. Various factors explain why some countries are more successful than others in movi ng from political rhetoric to actual policy implementation. One factor that may not be sufficiently recognized in explaining Sub-Saharan Africa's often weak performance in this area is the impact of economic stagnation on these countries' political ability to successfully implement reforms. Most Sub-Saharan African countries are challenged by high unmet social demand for education, fueled by young and fast-growing populations, and slow-growing, largely rural-based economies. These economies do not generate the tax revenues necessary to achieve universal primary education and also provide publicly financed secondary and higher education in response to social demand. Nor do they generate the modem sector jobs that graduates seek. In fact, many countries are trapped in a vicious cir cle in which a low skill base constrains economic growth and, in tum, low growth severely limits their fiscal potential to improve skill levels and create the political space necessary to introduce difficult education reforms. East Asian countries managed early on to avoid this vicious circle by setting clear priorities for their public education spending and managing their cost structures (for example, teacher salaries, class size, and use of double-shift teaching) to ensure the early universalization of primary education. Three examples will illustrate the difficult political economy of education reforms in slow-growing, low-income Sub-Saharan African countries. First, in the absence of growth, increased public expenditures to reach EFA often require redis tribution of the benefits generated by the present use of public budgets, away from postprimary education-which favors the better-off population groups-and in favor of those who are not entering primary schools, that is, largely the rural poor who have a weak political voice. Such redistribution of a shrinking pie is difficult politically, especially when the children of those in charge of implementing the change would be the principal losers. Second, contrary to many Asian countries in the early stage of their development, Sub-Saharan African teachers generally have strong unions, and the success of education reforms depends on their support. This is difficult to obtain when teacher salaries are falling, as will be discussed. Third, to successfully participate in the knowledge-based global economy, Sub Saharan African countries must revitalize their higher education subsector. For most countries, this means limiting access to the many traditional academic 8 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience programs that respond poorly to current job opportunities and prioritizing qual ity improvement and the labor market relevance of all programs. Again, to develop and implement such reforms requires strong political commitment and an ability to provide alternatives to deal with student opposition. In short, many of the nonimplemented education reforms long advocated by African politicians become controversial and politically risky in the absence of economic growth. Not to pursue reforms, however, also has a serious cost. This cost takes the form of slower economic growth, low job generation for a rapidly growing population of youth, a high degree of inequity in access to education, and a risk to social stability. The East Asian countries have demonstrated ways to over come such obstacles to reforms, generally through a combination of factors such as good technical preparation, development of political commitment, strong advocacy in relation to the public, and consensus building with key stakeholders. Thus, the resumption of economic growth in Sub-Saharan African countries may remove one of the major obstacles to success in education reforms. Impact on Job Creation for Graduates. Complaints about the weak capacity of the education system to produce graduates who are "employable" is a common topic of education policy discussions throughout the world and, especially, in Africa. As will be discussed, East Asian countries have a particularly good track record in adapting their education programs to their rapidly changing labor mar ket demands. But this effort would have had little impact on employment if they had not also generated high economic growth and created the flexible labor mar kets needed to translate this growth into effective demand for skilled labor. Korea's development illustrates well the workings of this virtuous circle origi nating from strong economic growth, well-functioning labor markets, and an education system responsive to labor market demands. In the early 1960s, Korea was saddled with an excess supply oflow productivity, low skilled labor. By 1967, a shortage of skilled labor had begun to be felt as a result of accelerating growth, and by the late 1970s, the labor market was tight for most categories of workers. As these pressures increased, they created incentives to improve the quality of both labor and employment. Consequently, an increasing number of Koreans found work in professionat technical, and clerical jobs, and fewer found work in manual jobs. This led real wages to grow by 6.7 percent a year on average between 1960 and 1985, which means that real wages over a 25-year period were multi plied by a factor of four. During the 1980s, the differences in earnings between lower- and higher-paid workers narrowed, caused partly by the rapid increase in the supply of skilled workers (World Bank 1987). In short, as summarized in chapter 5, "Korean education owes much of its rapid expansion to economic growth, which provided the financial resources and job opportunities for recent university graduates. " East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key InSights · 9 EMPHASIS ON SHARED GROWTH Shared growth is an important principle of the strategies followed by East Asian countries to reach national consensus on the policies required to achieve high economic growth. "To establish their legitimacy and win the support of the soci ety at large, East Asian leaders introduced the principle of shared growth early on, .. " (World Bank 1993, 13). Explicit policies and mechanisms were established to implement this principle. Some ofthese policies will be highlighted in the discussion of institutional factors. Although these policies varied by country, and extended well beyond the educa tion sector,15 rapid development of education was a common-and arguably the most important-instrument to achieve the objective of shared growth. Thus, in addItion to investing in education to develop the human capital required to sus tain the economy, the configuration of these investments also reflected a desire to ensure that the benefits from growth were shared among all population groups (see chapters 3-7 for examples of such policies). Rapid attainment of universal adult literacy and primary education was particularly important in this regard. Early universalization of primary education ensured that the gender gap in educa tion was closed more rapidly in East Asia than in other developing countries. In tum, this enhanced the "equalizing effect" of growth by improving women's access to gainful employment. It also allowed women, families, and society to take adv.mtage of the universally accepted benefits associated with the education of girls and women. As a region, Sub-Saharan Africa has perhaps the world's highest income inequality.16 In addition, the region's stagnant economies have not provided much growth to share. Furthermore, Sub-Saharan African countries have not been as propoor as East Asian countries in the pattern of their public expenditures on education. Sub-Saharan African countries put less emphasis on universalizing adult literacy and primary education, and they do not rely as heavily as East Asian countries on private financing for tertiary education. For example, in 1965, primary education received 58 percent of the education budget in Singapore, 66 percent in Thailand, and 66 percent in Korea. The corresponding share for Sub-Saharan African countries averaged 49 percent in 1970, and it fell to 44 percent in 1975 and 1980 (World Bank 1988).17 This difference in policy emphasis has major implications for the distribution of public education expenditures across population groups. For example, late 1990's data for eight Sub-Saharan African countries show that the 20 percent of the population with the highest income received 34 percent of public education expenditures, whereas the poorest 20 percent received only 12 percent. For coun tries such as Malaysia, the distribution is the reverse: about 28 percent is allocated for the poorest 20 quintile of the population, and 11 percent for the richest. 10 · An African Exploration ofthe East Asian Education Experience As the demographic transItIon in East Asia got under way, the primary school-age population fell while that of older cohorts of youth rose, and the rela tive distribution of education budgets shifted as well. As a result, by 1995, the share of the education budget devoted to primary education had decreased to 26 percent in Singapore, 45 percent in Korea, and 50 percent in Thailand. RAPID DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION East Asian countries' rapid transition from high to low fertility rates helped to accelerate both education and economic development in these countries. In tum, rapid development of the education system and the economy are major factors in determining the onset and speed of fertility decline. The resulting decreases in family size and in the overall magnitude of the primary-school-age popUlation made it possible for families and governments to spend more per primary school student and gradually shift their resources to postprimary education. The impact of the demographic transition on the size of the primary-school age population began to be felt at different points in the four East Asian countries covered in chapters 3-6. In Singapore, this population expanded at 0.4 percent a year between 1965 and 1970, and then decreased by 1.8 percent a year during 1970-85. 18 In Korea, it also increased between 1965 and 1970-in this case, by 2.5 percent a year-and then declined during 1970s and into 1985, at a rate of 0.6 percent a year. Thailand's school-age population increased sharply between 1965 and 1975, at an average of rate of 2.9 percent a year, and continued to grow between 1975 and 1980. But the rate of increase was already tapering off at 0.8 percent a year. In the early to mid-1980s, the growth rate was negative (Lockheed and Verspoor 1990, 166-67). In Vietnam, the decline in the primary-school-age population started in the 1990s and is projected to fall by 20 percent between 2000 and 2012. Clearly, this decline facilitates Vietnam's ongoing efforts to reduce class size and increase spending per student in primary education, as well as to attain its goal of universal lower-secondary education by 2010. Several attempts have been made to estimate the benefits that East Asian coun tries accrue as a result of their rapid demographic transition. One such estimate compares the share of GDP actually allocated to primary education in Korea, Singapore, and Thailand with what would have been required if the school-age populations in these countries grew as rapidly as those in Kenya (at that time, probably the fastest-growing population in Sub-Saharan Africa) (World Bank 1993, 195),19 The estimates suggest that Korea would have had to allocate 5.6 per cent of its GNP to primary education rather than the 2.8 percent it actually allocated, that is, twice as much. The corresponding estimate is 4.2 percent for Singapore compared with the actual allocation of 2 percent, and 3.9 percent for Thailand, compared with the actual allocation of 2.6 percent. East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 11 Because of several factors, including the scarcity of quality family planning services and low contraceptive prevalence levels, the benefits of an early and rapid demographic transition have not been available to Sub-Saharan African education systems. Thus, in most countries, this transition is only in its early stages. On aver age, the region's primary-school-age populations expanded by about 95 percent between 1960 and 1980 (an average rate of 3.4 percent a year) and by about 70 percent between 1980 and 2000 (an average rate of 2.7 percent a year). Even though the school-age population is now growing less rapidly in this region than before, the demographic momentum of past high fertility and the slow transition to lower fertility imply that Africa's primary-school-age population will continue to grow for some time to come. Sub-Saharan Africa's school-age population is thus projected to grow by 24 percent between 2000 and 2015 (that is, at an average rate of 1.4 percent a year), compared with a decrease of 13 percent in East Asia over the same period. STRONG PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS InstItutional strength is the last enabling factor that we identify as a key factor behmd East Asia's success in education. Building effective public institutions is a complex task and the insights from this study offer only a glimpse into how dif ferent institutions were created, how they evolved, and what role they played in facilitating education development in each setting. Furthermore, this glimpse is limited by the fact that it comes mostly from the visit to Singapore, and develop ment e.,xperience clearly shows that, in this area as in others, one size does not fit all. Notwithstanding the above reservations, the study tour generated some useful perspectives that may be of particular interest to African countries, particularly given their ongoing struggle to build and retain institutional capacity, including in the education sector. These insights are presented below under three related rubrics: (a) political will and visionary leadership; (b) quality of the civil service; and (c) consultative and consensus-building mechanisms. Political Will and Visionary Leadership. The crucial importance to education development of strong political will at the highest political level is underlined in all the presentations as well as in the overview papers, including the one for Ireland. For example, Ng states that "[tJhe economic and education success of Singapore did not happen by accident. Strategic planning, a strong political will, and stable government are key factors in charting the success of Singapore" (2008,39). As underlined elsewhere in this chapter, strong political will manifests itself in many ways: (a) in the governments' overall policies, including the volume of resources devoted to the education sector; (b) willingness to implement politically sensitive education reforms; (c) concerted and sustained effort to build consensus 12 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience and support for these reforms beyond the education sector; and (d) attention to ensuring that the education system responds explicitly and demonstrably to the country's national development agenda. Furthermore, as discussed below, East Asian countries were effective in ensuring that national policy decisions were given the follow-up attention needed for implementation at the sector level. Reputable and Reliable Civil Service. To achieve and sustain growth-be it in the economy or in the education sector-a country needs solid institutional capacity to formulate effective policies and implement them. In analyzing the good per formance of East Asian countries in this area, the importance of cultural factors such as Confucianism (which places a high value on education) has often been invoked. But even if cultural factors have played a role, it is important to note that East Asian countries have labored tenaciously to develop a technically competent civil service as well as an overall institutional environment in which professional ism, performance, and integrity are required and rewarded. Specific measures to implement such policies included merit-based and highly competitive recruit ment and promotion, and a level of total compensation, including pay, perks, and status, which are generally competitive with the private sector (for further discus sion, see World Bank 1993, 174-75). Finally, a job in the civil service is associated with prestige, and civil servants generally enjoy considerable insulation from undue outside interference. 2o Aspects related specifically to developing the insti tutional capacity of the education sector will be discussed below. Consultative and Consensus-Building Mechanisms. East Asian countries empha sized the principle of "shared growth" and chose among their policy options accordingly. This approach- raised complex coordination problems. First, leaders had to convince eco nomic elites to support pro-growth policies. Then they had to persuade the elites to share the benefits of growth with the middle class and the poor. Finally, to win the cooperation of the middle class and the poor, the lead ers had to show them that they would indeed benefit from growth (World Bank 1993, 13). To create and maintain a viable social compact, countries developed institutions and mechanisms dedicated to promoting overall economic development (such as the Economic Development Board in Singapore, and the Korea Development Institute in Korea); attracting private investments; and very important, minimizing debilitating conflicts in the labor market. 21 Korea and Singapore established for mal deliberative councils that included such members as government officials, journalists, labor representatives, and academics. This type of arrangement facili tated coordination between government agencies and firms, and generally improved the flow of information. These councils may have strengthened the East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 13 commitment to shared growth among the general public and contributed to a reduction in rent-seeking behaviors (World Bank 1993, 352-53). EDUCATION PRIORITIES, POLICIES, AND STRATEGIES The policy decisions taken outside the education sector by East Asian govern ments were essential, but not sufficient, to sustain success in education. Equally critical were the forward-looking policies and strategies within the education sector itself and the strong follow-through in policy implementation. Accordingly, the study tour program focused on the evolution of the education priorities chosen, the policy tradeoffs made, and the strategies adopted. This section summarizes insights with regard to the (a) exercise of visionary leadership in the education sec tor; (b) adoption of an "integrated" approach to policy development; (c) valida tion of the importance of1VET; (d) mobilization of resources for education; and (e) use of external resources catalytically to advance national goals in education. EXERCISING VISIONARY LEADERSHIP East Asian leaders at the highest levels of political office have been strong and effective advocates of education as a foundational asset for and driver of their development agendas. Typically, the Ministry of Education itself is led by one of the stronger ministers in the cabinet. This visionary political leadership has been a key ingredient in ensuring that the country's education system has (a) shaped future citizens by teaching moral values, (b) fostered national cohesion among groups with diverse backgrounds, (c) helped build a national identity, and (d) equipped students with the skills required for individual as well as national progress. Understanding how to align the education sector with the national develop ment agenda has been a central topic of debate in most developing countries over the past half century. To this end, weighty statements have been adopted at both national and international conferences about ways to achieve this alignment. However, political leaders in East Asian countries have often done better than their counterparts in most other countries at translating this rhetoric into explicit poli cies and substantive implementation. This leadership is exemplified by actions such as follows: · The sustained priority given early on to enrolling all children in primary school and, as progress toward this challenge was made, to universalize 8 to 10 years of basic education. In Korea, this meant concentrating education subsidies in rural areas and tolerating, for a time, huge class sizes (in some cases, more than 90 pupils per class). In Vietnam, it meant bringing all schools up to a minimum 14 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience standard of quality for inputs (under the so-called Fundamental School Qual ity Level program). In Singapore, it meant spreading resources evenly across schools and operating all schools on double shifts for most of the 40 years after independence. The priority of universalizing primary education so clearly stated by Mrican leaders just after independence could not be maintained when the economic stagnation started in the early 1980s.22 · The priority given soon after independence from colonial rule to revamping the school curriculum and gearing it to serve the country's own goals for nation building and economic development. 23 This orientation, which is shared by Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam, stands in sharp contrast to the situation in many Mrican countries, wbere today, some 40 to 50 years after independence, many political leaders still complain that their education system is burdened by a colonial heritage that responds poorly to their national conditions (this aspect is discussed further in chapter 2). · The priority given to ensuring that education programs respond to labor market needs is strongly underlined in the chapters on Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. As dis cussed further below, this priority manifested itself particularly in the attention paid to ensuring consistency between education policies and wider national development goals, and in the priority accorded to 1VET. ADOPTING AN INTEGRATED APPROACH East Asian countries deal with education in an integrated manner, thus avoiding the error of treating subsectors as separate, special-interest silos with tangential links to the rest of society. It is tempting to leave educators alone to their task of teaching and learning, but East Asian policy makers have side-stepped this pitfall by explic itly recognizing the mutually dependent and reinforcing interaction between edu cation (at all levels ), economic performance, and national development. To achieve the desired result in practice, policy makers use institutional arrange ments to reduce potential inconsistencies in the relationship between national and sector goals. In Singapore, the minister of education at the time of the study tour held a concurrent position as the second minister of finance. His job is thus not only to make claims on the state budget, but also to keep these claims in balance with other national priorities in light of the contribution of education to national development. Moreover, all large expenditures in education (as in other sectors) must be approved by a three-party committee made up of a representative each from the Ministry of Education (as the sponsoring ministry), the Ministry of Finance, and a third ministry with no direct stake in the matter-an arrangement made to ensure that sectoral interests are evaluated within a broader context. Recently, the Singapore government has even broached the idea of cluster min istries, which would further emphasize the cross-cutting nature of policy choices. _ · ...... ,*,,,,,,_,,,,,_,_* _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _....._ _ _ _._,___._""""'._. _ _ _ _ _ _ ____ _)t.~~_~_~·t . . "'. "' .~ East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 15 In Vietnam, the top leadership is likewise fully engaged in guiding the devel opment of education in an integrated manner. The minister of education at the time of the study tour was also the deputy prime minister and was thus very well versed on the country's education strategy and maintained continuous discussion at the highest level of government by chairing monthly meetings to discuss edu cation and training issues. Such practices not only put education at the center of the development agenda, but also ensure that it stays on track in implementation. At the institutional level, particularly in Singapore's vocational and technical train ing institutions, this integrated approach is evident in the composition of their gov erning boards. Typically, these boards include a large number of industry leaders who give direction to the design of course curricula to maintain a tight link to the professional world. Interestingly, the chapters on Korea, Thailand, and Ireland all show that simi lar concerns arose in these countries regarding the need to ensure close links between education and economic development. And they have responded with approaches that resemble those used in Singapore and Vietnam. VALIDATING THE IMPORTANCE OF TVET For most participants, the discussions on TVET and the visits to lVET institutions in Singapore and Vietnam were perhaps the single-most interesting aspect of the study tour. There are many reasons for this, including the following: (a) the key role TVET has played in the rapid industrialization and economic growth of Korea and Singapore, and now also Vietnam; (b) the urgency of revitalizing lVET insti tutions in Sub-Saharan African countries-outdated and dilapidated after decades of economic stagnation; (c) the growing problem of creating employment for Africa's rapidly growing youth population;24 and (d) the urgency of adapting to the competitive realities of globalization. Successful cultivation ofTVET capacities is perhaps the most complex of all the education and training challenges facing industrial and developing countries alike. Over the past few decades, countries have struggled with such issues as the role of vocational subjects in general secondary education, the level in secondary educa tion at which to introduce vocational and technical specializations, the balance between general and specialized TVET streams, and the role of industry and the public sector in providing vocational training. In addition, as the experience of East Asian countries demonstrates so well, in high growth economies, the 'IVET system needs to be dynamic so that it can adapt and evolve constantly to rapid changes in the labor market and in the demand for skilled workers. The study tour offered good opportunities to explore these and other ques tions. East Asian countries consider skilled and technically competent workers indispensable ingredients to transform their economies from being driven by 16 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience factor endowments, to being driven by knowledge and innovation. Therefore, these countries have developed training systems to support this change process. In Singapore, study tour participants learned about the remarkable changes to most aspects oflVET programs and the delivery mechanisms that have restructured the traditional vocational workshops and training centers created in the early years. These original programs have been integrated into today's full-fledged system with multiple ladders and built-in opportunities for students to move from lVET streams to the polytechnics and universities. 25 In Vietnam, participants saw a sys tem that appeared to be headed in the same direction. The openness of Singapore's current system fosters connectedness across courses in terms of curricular content and objectives. The current system offers options to young people who shift interests and develop capabilities at different stages of their lives. The site visits revealed other attractive aspects of the Singapore system. For example, the teaching equipment at all the lVET institutions typically was current by industry standards; students routinely worked on projects com missioned by private industry as part of their final-year studies; and graduates enjoyed high rates of employment. By creating a strong demand from employers, the "poor image" problem traditionally associated with lVET institutions has been kept at bay. In Vietnam, the emphasis on lVET was equally palpable. Study tour partici pants were especially struck by how strongly the Vietnamese felt that they needed highly skilled technical workers to compete successfully with their neighbors. They are working hard to attract foreign direct investments (FDls), and provisions for skilled worker training are a vital part of the packages they negotiate. One such example is the Vietnam-Singapore Training Center in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), which the tour participants visited. The center trains workers for firms in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP), as well as those in the vicinity, and it is funded by the two governments and VSIP. The skilled workers trained at this center are viewed as assets that the government can use to attract additional FDI. Study tour participants also visited HCMC Industrial University where the same emphasis was placed on skilled workers. The hosts for the visit explained that foreign companies may take perhaps 10 years to scale up their operations, using a phased approach that buys them time to assess whether Vietnam can indeed supply the skills required. More generally, this approach enables foreign companies to determine whether cultural and other business climate factors are sufficiently favorable to justify a major scaling up of investment. The hosts under lined the need for Vietnam to compete with other East Asian countries to attract FDI and the associated high-end jobs. To attract cutting-edge firms was considered crucial to realize Vietnam's goal of becoming an industrialized country by 2020. In Korea, the importance of lVET has been stressed since the creation of the Republic in 1948 (see chapter 5 for a summary and the data). But in the early days, East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 17 lVET graduates found it hard to obtain good jobs, which naturally dampened demand for this course of study. In the early 1960s, the government reformed the 1VEf system to sharpen its capacity to train the type of skilled workers required by the country's labor-intensive light manufacturing industries. As a result, by 1970, WET accounted for 47 percent of all high school students. During the 1970s, the focus of the training shifted to align with the goal of developing the country's heavy-chemical industries. WETs share of high school enrollment stayed above 40 percent through most of the 1970s and 1980s, and made a marked contribu tion to Korea's rapid economic growth during this period. 26 In the 1980s, when Korea's economy was making the transition toward technology-intensive industries, the demand for technically trained workers shifted from the secondary to the tertiary leveL Despite the government's efforts during the 1990s to maintain a high share of high school enrollment in 1VEf and indeed even to increase it to 50 percent-the share actually dropped steadily, from 42 percent in 1995 to 36 percent in 2000 to 29 percent in 2005. The trend reflects the increasing demand for workers with technical training at the tertiary rather than secondary level (see chapter 5 for details on the ongoing ?ebate in Korea regarding the future role of the 1VEf high schools). In Thailand, policy makers were concerned about the balance between the aca demic and vocational tracks of secondary education, as chapter 6 indicates. A recent external evaluation suggests that low-quality equipment and a shortage of qualified teachers are compromising the quality of instruction. Thus, Thailand appears to be facing similar issues as those faced by Korea and Singapore at an ear lier stage of their development. In 2004, 12 percent of Thailand's secondary stu dents were enrolled in lVET programs, but the share was higher at 29 percent in upper-secondary education. Chapter 7 on Ireland tells a similar story to that of Korea and Singapore regarding the second-class label attached to lVET institutions in the early years, and discusses how these institutions were upgraded to become indispensable sources of the technical skills required to support the Irish "economic miracle." The study tour offered multiple opportunities to explore how successful economies have addressed some of the most vexing issues oflVET development. Given the complexity of these issues, Africa's urgent needs in this area, and the wealth of experience in East Asia, this is one of the most promising areas for follow-up cooperation between East Asian and African countries. MOBILIZING PUBLIC AND PRIVATE RESOURCES East Asian governments have acted on their belief that skills, beginning with liter acy and numeracy, are fundamental drivers ofgrowth. This belief has sustained for decades a policy of allocating a significant share ofthe public budget to education. '8 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience Sub-Saharan African countries have allocated comparable shares of their GDP to education. But while East Asia's faster economic growth and effective population management have enabled this policy to generate rapidly growing education budgets, the combination of economic stagnation and continued rapid popula tion growth has produced severe budget constraints in Sub-Saharan Africa. Public education spending in East Asian countries is supplemented by signifi cant financial contributions from families. One calculation for Korea puts family inputs at 50 percent of the national total, and the estimate for Vietnam appears to be of a similar order of magnitude. African families also contribute in a major way to education financing-at a level that has increased during the economic crisis of the 1980s and 1990s-through payment of fees at public schools and financing of teacher salaries at community schools (established largely in rural areas with no public school). In contrast to the Sub-Saharan African approach, however, public financing in East Asia has favored basic education and relied more heavily on private financing for higher education. For example, in 1989, Korean households paid only 2 percent of total expenditures for primary educa tion, but paid 42 percent for junior secondary education, 73 percent for senior secondary education, and 72 percent for colleges and universities (Yoon 2001, 18). Most Sub-Saharan African countries, especially francophone countries, tradi tionally have spent a high share of public education budgets on providing tuition free higher education with generous scholarships,27 while parents contributed to the financing of primary education. For example, a study of 12 francophone countries in 2002 found that on average almost one-third of all primary school teachers were paid by parents rather than by the government (Mingat 2004).28 A similar survey for Cameroon in 2001 concluded that parents' education expenses corresponded to 44 percent of total expenditures in primary education (World Bank and Pole de Dakar 2003).29 USING EXTERNAL RESOURCES CATALYTICALLY Foreign aid played a positive role in the development of education during its early stages in Korea and Singapore. When expressed in terms of its share of the educa tion budget, however, that share was lower than currently prevails in Africa, and because it focused on strengthening technical and vocational skills and science research capacity, the aid was different in nature. Early on, aid made an important financial contribution to education reconstruction in Korea, first through the United Nations Korea Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA) and U.S. donations, and later through loans from different development banks, the two largest of which were the World Bank (59 percent of all loans) and the Japanese Overseas Eco nomic Cooperation Fund (24 percent). Over the period 1969-99, the World Bank financed 11 projects in Korea focusing on upper-secondary vocational schools and East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 19 junior technical colleges. About 80 percent of these loans were used to equip labs and training facilities. In addition to external financial support and technical advice, East Asian coun tries have used a number of mechanisms to actively strengthen their technical and scientific skill base and to acquire foreign technology and experience, for example, through licenses, capital good imports, foreign training, use of foreign technical expertise, FOI, and country visits to acquire knowledge. 3o The region's approach has been-and continues to be-characterized by pragmatism and a willingness to test new ideas, adopt what has been found to work, and drop or change what does not work Singapore is an excellent example of this approach. Since gaining self governance in 1959, the government has consistently sought cooperation with industrialized countries and foreign firms to upgrade the technical skills of its labor force. It started by the government requesting the United Nations Develop ment Programme (UNDP) to send a team of experts "from smail, developed countries so that Singapore could learn the lessons of development from their experience" (Chan 2002, 5). The resulting report convinced the political leaders that continued dependence on entrepot industries would not ensure economic survival and that Singapore urgently needed to train the technicians and engineers needed for industrial takeoff. 31 This training started a process that continually upgraded the country's capacity to develop the various skills required to support its evolving technologically based economy. Although the instruments used have changed over time, the process continues. It includes the creation of specialized training centers with aid from UNDP (by 1968, six centers had been created) and three apprenticeship training centers in cooperation with leading external firms (Tata in 1972, Rolld in 1973, and Philips in 1975). These and other facilities later merged into the Institute of Technical Education, created in 1992, which since has evolved into a world-class postsecondary institution focused on developing vocational and technical skills. 32 Similarly, three institutes were established to provide high-level technology train ing in cooperation with, respectively, Japan (1979), Germany (1982), and France (1983).33 In 1993, these three institutes became core elements of the Nanyang Polytechnic. Today, world-class foreign institutions such as the Wharton School of Business are establishing campuses in Singapore, thus providing the country with new opportunities to acquire the necessary skills to undergird an increasingly global and skills-based economy. The presentations and site visits in Vietnam demonstrated that a similar delib erate and pragmatic process is under way there to develop a TVET system that responds to rapidly evolving labor market demands. In HCMC, study tour partic ipants visited the Royal Melbourne Institute ofTechnology-Vietnam, a 100 percent foreign-owned private tertiary-level institution (tuition fees are US$6,OOO a year), 20 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience which started with 2,700 students in 1998 and is projected to enroll 10,000 stu dents within the next five years. 34 Rather than see this private enterprise as a threat to the country's socialist ideology, our hosts noted that it adds value by accom plishing what the government cannot do on its own-that is, provide a petform ance benchmark for the rest of the system, thereby stimulating competition and creating market pressures for improvement, particularly in terms of the alignment of course offerings with labor market conditions and student expectations for the quality of services. Also noteworthy is Vietnam's view on external aid, which now finances almost lO percent of the country's investment in education. The Vietnamese government has made it clear that it expects all external aid to fund what the country has deter mined are its own national priorities. In other words, if an external donor were to come with tied resources that fail this test, the government was quite prepared to forgo the money rather than be side-tracked from its plans. This does not mean that external partnerships are merely tolerated. On the contrary, the deputy prime minister stressed during his meeting with the heads of the study tour delegations that these relationships were indeed highly valued as channels of expert technical assistance, sources of knowledge, and benchmarks for external validation of Vietnam's education petformance. IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATION POLICIES Good policies and strategies will not produce results without determined imple mentation and follow-up. What seems to characterize implementation in both Singapore and Vietnam is a consistent ability to choose pragmatism over ideology through a deliberate and pragmatic process of testing new ideas, adopting what has been found to work, and dropping or changing what does not work One member of a country delegation commented that he now saw what Deng Xiaoping meant when he said, "it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." The discussion below highlights a few areas for which deliberate actions have been particularly important in explaining the progress achieved: (a) sequencing of reforms; (b) benchmarking for excellence; (c) retaining high-quality staff; (d) ensuring availability of high -quality yet low-cost training materials for all stu dents; and (e) pricing policies in education. SEQUENCING REFORMS Over the past 40 years, many Asian countries have built education systems char acterized by a strong foundation of quality universal basic education, diversified options for postbasic education, and multiple (but not haphazard) routes to East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 21 acquire skills before entry to the labor market, as well as an emphasis on science and mathematics. In Singapore, a skills development fund, financed by employer contributions, has been established to upgrade skills or retrain those already in the labor market, creating a system that practices the concept oflifeIong learning. Sim ilarly, in Korea, a number of initiatives have been taken-by the government and the private sector-to promote lifelong competency building. Vietnam has also developed proactive policies designed to reach this goal. Asian countries are begin ning to reap significant benefits from their sustained investment in science and technology capabilities, as seen by a pattern of economic development that increasingly draws its strength from skills, technology, knowledge, and innovation. Against this backdrop, tour participants were keen to understand how Asian coun tries have sequenced their reforms to achieve the remarkable transformation of their education systems. At risk of oversimplification and without implying a strict sequencing of inter ventions, the pattern, particularly in basic education, has generally been as follows: · First, expand quantity to ensure access while tolerating "low quality" in terms of inputs such as less qualified teachers, large class size, and multiple shifts (the "low-cost approach" described in chapter 5) · Next, upgrade the worst-off schools to meet minimum standards of inputs · Finally, upgrade the quality of inputs and tighten management of the inputs, especially teachers, to meet standards for performance as measured by learning outcomes These steps make up a continuous series of overlapping interventions intended to move the system forward and position it to perform even better in the next phase. ThIS attitude ofseeking progressive and continuous improvement is applied to the whole system, not just basic education. In other words, while emphasizing basic education as a first priority, Asian countries simultaneously grow and reform the rest of the system and expect these other parts to perform to ever higher standards as well. For the latter, indicators of results include the employment status of grad uates, employer satisfaction with their job performance, and the graduates' aggre gate contribution to moving the economy up the technological and economic value chain. In Singapore, the approach to sequencing was accomplished in three phases: a survival-driven phase (1965-78), an efficiency-driven phase (1978-97), and a knowledge- and ability-driven phase (1997 -present) (the content of each phase is described in chapter 3). The focus in the early years had been to put together the building blocks to align the education system with the national development agenda, an effort that involved Ca) rationalizing the curriculum and addressing 22 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience language-of-instruction issues to create a unitary system; (b) developing textbooks to go with the curriculum; (c) reforming the examination system and certification framework; (d) standardizing procedures and processes in schools to lay the groundwork for school-based management; and (e) investing in staff develop ment programs for school heads and teachers to professionalize and strengthen the teaching service and its managers. As the institutional structure took shape, the shift toward the efficiency- and knowledge-driven phases meant intervening to make the system more efficient and ever more responsive to the economic agenda. In vocational and technical education, the system is now sufficiently mature that institutions routinely use tracer surveys of graduates to evaluate the effectiveness and relevance of course offerings. Korea also placed clear priority on universalization of primary education. To achieve this goal at a time when the infrastructure was largely destroyed because of the Korean War, during which time the primary-school-age population was still growing and the education budget was severely constrained, the government gave clear priority to quantitative expansion through the "low-cost approach" described above. This policy choice was a temporary measure, followed by measures to address quality issues when the quantitative objective of universal primary educa tion had been reached in the late 1950s. It is interesting to note that a similar "low-cost approach" was followed to universalize lower-secondary education dur ing the 1970s and 1980s and to achieve the rapid expansion of higher education during the 1980s. For example, average class size in lower-secondary education stayed above 60 during the period 1955-85 and reached a peak of 65.7 in 1979. Average class size was brought down through a combination of fewer students and more teachers, reaching 35 in 2005. Similarly, in upper-secondary education, aver age class size remained around 60 until about 1985, and then started to decline, reaching 34 in 2005. Once enrollment targets were attained, efforts were redirected toward education quality enhancement. In Vietnam, a similar sequencing of interventions is under way. The country has completed the early stages of reform and is now implementing quality stan dards and outcome-based management of the education system. It is entering the equivalent of the efficiency phase experienced in Singapore, but the country is simultaneously attempting to leapfrog toward the knowledge-driven phase (and perhaps also the ability-driven phase). The desire to strengthen and expand lVET is strong, and some of the arrangements that worked in Singapore (for example, governance structures that engaged industry leaders in determining the course curricula) are being scaled up in Vietnam. Thailand likewise gave strong priority to achieving universal primary educa tion, reaching a GER of about 83 percent in 1970 and 96 percent in 1980. The strong priority on universalizing primary education-targeting the enrollment of children from poor families-was maintained until the early 1990s when East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 23 Thailand started a drive to rapidly develop secondary education35 as well (the GER at that level increased from 31 percent in 1990 to 82 percent in 2000). Ireland, like all western European countries; gave high priority to achieving universal primary education, using ulow-cost" approaches to provide education in rural areas close to the families. Even in year 2000, more than a quarter of all classrooms were multigrade, combining two grades (or age-groups), and 16 per cent had more than two grades. But in the twenty-first century, the emphasis has shifted to tertiary education, where one-third of the workforce now holds a university degree. BENCHMARKING FOR EDUCATION EXCELLENCE The drive for excellence was particularly evident in Singapore, but it was interest ing to note how strongly the Vietnamese also embraced it. In fact, the value placed on education achievement goes back a long, long way as we learned in Hanoi. There study tour participants visited the Temple of Literature, the l,OOO-year-old site of Vietnam's first university; where the most successful candidates sitting for imperial examinations were honored by having their names carved permanently onto large stone tablets. East Asian countries have an ancient tradition of merit-based professional mobility based on exams. Korea provides an excellent example of this system, which created a "virtuous circle u of quality. Formal academic credentials-the principle criterion for merit-were achieved through highly competitive exams, the results ofwhich formed the basis for selection into jobs in both the private and public sectors. Rules of examinations were the same for everybody, and the con tent was confined to what was covered in textbooks. Absence of corruption in the examination and selection process encouraged students and parents to do their best and to accept the outcomes. 36 As described in chapter 5, however, competitive examinations also presented disadvantages, including an emphasis on memorization, high examination pres sure on students, and extensive reliance on private tutoring, which poor families could ill afford. Therefore, in 1968, the government abolished entrance exams in lower-secondary education and introduced a lottery system for student placement in high schools, designed to provide equal opportunity of access to the most pres tigious schools. In 1974, the government also adopted the High School Equaliza tion Policy, intended to equalize such school inputs as operating expenditures, class size, and education facilities. As a result, no discernable quality difference can be found across public schools or between public and private institutions. In short, the examination system has accompanied education progress, as Korea uni versalized first lower, then higher, secondary education, and expanded tertiary education to almost two-thirds of the relevant age-group. 24 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience The tradition in East Asian countries to measure their learning against high standards continues today with an interesting twist-by measuring themselves against world standards and taking deliberate action to reach those standards. For school education, the benchmarks include the international assessments of stu dent learning, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), in which several Asian countries have participated for many years now. In the 2003 survey, the top five countries for eighth-grade performance in mathe matics were all from East Asia, with Singapore on the top,37 followed by the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China), Chinese Taipei, and Japan. Singapore was on top of the 2003 survey for eighth-grade science, with Chinese Taipei second, the Republic of Korea third, Hong Kong (China) fourth, and Japan fifth.38 In Africa, only three countries-Botswana, Ghana, and South Africa-participated in TIMSS 2003, although many of these countries do take part in regional assessments (for example, Francophone countries in PASEC [Programme d'analyse des syst{~mes educatifs de la CONFEMEN, or Conference des ministres de l'education des pays ayant Ie fran<;ais en partage] and Anglophone countries in SACMEQ [Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality]). Singapore continues to rely on the British system of "0-" and "A-level" exami nations, for the simple reason that these examinations offer an external validation of the quality of instruction and open doors for students to pursue studies over seas. Both Singapore and Vietnam send their best and brightest students to com pete in international academic Olympiads (mathematics and the sciences) in which the young competitors test their mettle against other bright students, and get a chance to mingle with and be inspired by the Nobel Laureates who fre quently attend these events (eight of them will participate in this year's Physics Olympiad in Singapore). Winning is clearly only part of the story: The goal is to provide role models for the country's budding talent and through them to inspire the rest of their cohort. Finally, the trend toward establishment of branches of renowned foreign uni versities in East Asian countries (such as Singapore and Vietnam) is another important way for these countries to benchmark the standards in their higher education institutions against the best in the world. ATIRACTING AND RETAINING HIGH-QUALITY STAFF Attracting and retaining high-quality staff is relevant at the systemic level, at which the concern is about the connection between education and goals of nation build ing and social and economic development, and the individual school and institu tional level, at which the concern is about schooling outcomes. In each case, effective management is vital for efficient resource use as well as for the choice and implementation of cost-effective learning strategies. Effective management ....... .'Ill""._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. . . . ._ _ _ _ _ _ J r_._'. . . . _ ... ... ,_"'w_ij~_.""~1_\tJjI;_ .....__ o~ ..... ~~~,. +,~e," East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 25 depends not only on the skills of school managers and administrators but also on the management capacity of teachers who, in addition to their main pedagogical duties, are given important management functions with respect to how they man age classroom instruction and how they use school resources. With respect to teachers, East Asian countries recognized that devoted and quality teachers at all levels of education are fundamental to achieving quality education. These countries have used a combination of financial and nonfinancial incentives to achieve this quality. Salary level is not the only factor affecting the attractiveness of the teaching profession, but it is an important factor. In the initial stages of their economic takeoff, East Asian countries did not pay their teachers high salaries. Even in the 1990s, data for a sample of countries indicate that the average pay was about 2.5 times the per capita GDP. Similar to other salaried workers, however, teachers benefited from the rapid increase in average national income. This pay increase is quite different from the situation in most Sub-Saharan African countries. These countries suffered sharp declines both in GDP per capita (by 36 percent on average between 1970 and 1997) and in primary school teacher salaries expressed in per capita terms (from 8.6 times GDP per capita in 1975 to 6 times GDP in 1992 to 4.4 times GDP in 2000) (Mingat 2004).39 The combina tion of these two factors eroded the salaries of Sub-Saharan African teachers (like those of most other civil servants) during the last two decades of the twenti eth century, especially in Francophone countries. The loss of income, and the absence of explicit validation of their role in society, further undercut the profes sional morale of educators. Apart from affecting salary levels, the decline severely constrained the overall education budget, thus limiting teacher recruitment, increasing class size, and causing extreme shonages of other pedagogical inputs. 4o Following the recent resumption of growth, many countries are trying to address this problem. The tradeoffs in the use of these increased public budgets among competing needs-such as higher salaries, better trained teachers, smaller classes, more training materials, or abolition of school fees-are extremely difficult in a situation of continued high population growth and strong demand pressure on postprimary education. Ibis contrasts with the situation in East Asia, where economic growth has made it possible to raise the pay of teachers over time. In Singapore, teacher pay is now highly competitive. It is comparable to that of recent law school graduates, for example, which explains the surplus of candidates over available openings in teacher-training programs. In Korea, the entry level salary in 1995 for a primary school teacher was already slightly above the average in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (see chapter 5). In Vietnam between 1999 and 2001, the pay of teachers rose at all levels of education, but especially in primary education where a fourfold increase occurred (albeit from 26 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience a very low base, see chapter 4). Incentives are in place to attract teachers to less pop ular rural postings. Notably, the study tour presentations for Vietnam and Thailand underlined the strong financial incentives reserved for teachers who accept and remain in rural posts. Apart from these financial incentives, Asian countries are also using nonfinan cial rewards to attract and retain good teachers. In Singapore, for example, better rewards and recognition combined with comprehensive in-service professional development has improved the image of the profession and attracted higher quality teaching talent. Singapore motivates teachers by recognizing that teachers mold the nation's future; they offer teachers meaningful career tracks leading to positions as master teachers, school principals, and senior administrators or specialists. This policy is backed up by a pay structure that keeps the incentives for the various tracks in balance. At the same time, they encourage continuous professional upgrading by allowing teachers to earn credits from in-service training that accumulate toward formal certification (for example, master's and doctoral degrees). Vietnam has likewise launched efforts to raise the status of the teaching pro fession, beginning with the pay increase mentioned above, as well as through a ff stock-taking exercise to establish a baseline of teacher qualifications (or flprofiles ) to inform the design of a strategy to strengthen pre-service and in-service training. Parallel efforts are under way to improve the effectiveness of teacher deployment, organization, and utilization, as well as to address the skill development needs of teachers and managers in areas such as computer competence and mastery of for eign languages (primarily English). More generally, while the high social status of teachers is well-established and requires little development in the Confucian influenced societies of East Asia, the political leadership nonetheless relies on social marketing as well as pecuniary and nonpecuniary rewards to reinforce and affirm their status, including regular opportunities for staff development. Over the last three decades or so, East Asian countries-similar to the experi ence of most European countries in the 1950s and 1960s-have been upgrading the training of their primary school teachers from secondary-level programs to postsecondary degree programs. In Korea until the 1960s, primary school teachers were trained at secondary-level teacher-training colleges. In 1962, these colleges were upgraded into junior teacher-training colleges at the postsecondary level and again in 1982 to colleges offering four years of postsecondary training leading to a degree. The four-year programs were introduced after enrollment levels had peaked as a result of the decline in fertility rates. This gradual upgrading increased the attraction of the teaching profession and positioned the education sector to compete successfully for qualified staff during a period of rapid economic growth. In Vietnam, the upgrading of teacher-training programs-from lower-secondary education plus three years of teacher training to programs of upper-secondary .. '~"',_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _---~""..-~ - '_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _"" ,. .l... ( -I if8]· · ~;>c East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 27 education plus one year of teacher training-is ongoing. To be considered quali 1/ fied," primary school teachers must hold an upper-secondary pedagogical diploma. In school year 2004-05, 82 percent of teachers met this requirement, while 10 percent held college or university degrees. Many African countries are seeking to provide primary school teachers with opportunities to pursue postsecondary degree programs. But because of continued rapid growth in the primary-school-age population, countries find it difficult to cope financially with the impact this has on the teacher salary budget. Before recruitment of teachers holding postsecondary degrees becomes affordable, many Sub-Saharan African countries are implementing intermediate measures (similar to those adapted earlier in Singapore and Korea, and now in Vietnam) to im prove teacher qualifications by increasing the entry requirements to primary school teacher-training programs from completion of lower-secondary education to com pletion of upper-secondary education, followed by one or two years of pedagogical training. African countries can also learn from the approach of East Asian countries, which extends systematic in-service training and other support to existing teachers. Regarding education mangers, Singapore has done a lot to validate the role of managers at all levels and to empower them to lead. The debate about what kind of manager should be put in charge of education institutions-professional busi ness managers or educators-appears to have been resolved by combining both qualifications. To this end, educators who seek to become school heads are selected carefully and given specific training as managers, ensuring that they not only can handle their institution's day-to-day operations but also can make strate gic choices informed by their personal knowledge of the teaching and learning process. Vietnam is also upgrading the management expertise, computer skills, and professionalism of its education managers. Seniority plays almost no role in a competency-based system. Rigorous screen ing and recruitment of potential principals and leaders in education is as impor tant as the training provided to this small pool of candidates. Within the technical institutions, managers are often either technical specialists with managerial train ing or former industry leaders who naturally would be keenly aware of the skills required to run a competitive business. For all managers, the performance expec tations are dear-that is, achieve global standards for learning outcomes and economic impact. PROVIDING HIGH-QUALITY LOW-COST TRAINING MATERIALS FOR ALL In addition to qualified and committed teachers, no other education input is likely to be more important to the quality of the learning process than the avail ability to all students of high-quality written learning materials. This is espe cially true in countries where many teachers have little training, classes are large, 28 · An African Exploration ofthe East Asian Education Experience duration of the effective school year is comparatively short, and homes are lack ing in alternative reading materials. The two countries visited, as well as Korea, did exceptionally well in ensuring early on that their drive to universalize pri mary education included universal access to quality textbooks. Again, this expe rience is relevant to Sub-Saharan African countries where schools generally suf fer from a severe shortage of textbooks and where book prices often are much higher than in East Asian countries. After attaining self-governance in 1959, the government of Singapore chose as an urgent national priority to inculcate students with shared civic values and responsibilities to achieve social and racial harmony.41 The textbooks available at that time were produced by private publishers only in English with content largely not relevant to the issues faced by the new state. The Ministry of Education set up a Civic Training Subject Committee (1966-73) to develop a syllabus and produce civics textbooks, which first were developed in Chinese. More textbooks were developed by seconded textbook writers working under a University of Singapore editorial board. To ensure low cost, the Ministry established the Education Pub lishing BUreau (EPB) in 1967, tasked with producing affordable textbooks that promoted national objectives such as social cohesion and nation building. As a government agency, EPB was able to make textbooks available in the three main languages by cross-subsidizing development of textbooks for the two smaller groups (Malay and Tamil) with income from the sales of textbooks for the largest group (in Mandarin for the Chinese). A textbook-to-student ratio of 1:1 in key subjects was reached at an early stage. Over time, the Singapore government implemented various mechanisms to ensure that syllabuses and textbook materials evolved in a way that reflected suc cessive changes in education policies made to respond to changing national eco nomic and social priorities. For example, after the introduction in 1979 of a major education reform (the New Education System, NES) to support the restructuring of its economic strategy, the government set up the Curriculum Institute of Singapore (CDIS). The CDIS changed the syllabuses and textbooks so that they were consistent with NES objectives. Following successful implementation of the NES, the CDIS was closed down in 1996 and its staff transferred to the Ministry of Education to serve other functions. At that time, the responsibility for textbook publishing returned to the private sector, based on syllabuses and specifications defined by the Ministry. In the process, the EPB was privatized. Schools now choose among various Ministry-approved textbooks. In short, over a 30-year period, Singapore went full circle in textbook publish ing. It began with commercially produced textbooks mostly unsuitable for Singapore schools; transitioned to textbooks developed by education ministry agencies to be consistent with education reforms and complement the shortage of well-trained teachers, but printed by private printers; and then shifted back to commercially produced textbooks reflecting syllabuses approved by the Ministry. East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 29 This evolution reflects the maturation of the Singapore education system and economy. The quality of Singaporean textbooks is now recognized internationally, and Singaporean publishers export textbooks and other training materials and help developing countries establish national publishing capacities. Vietnam has also had a positive experience with respect to textbooks, and learning about this experience was an important part of the study tour program. In particular, the role played by the Education Publishing House in managing the different stages of the IItextbook chain" is interesting and highly relevant to Mrican countries-for example, the way textbook manuscripts are developed and tested; the printing and distribution of the books (based on outsourcing through competitive bidding); and the way foreign technical assistance (for example, from Singapore) has supported this process. The way textbooks are financed is also noteworthy (about 80 percent of children have to pay for their textbooks, while 20 percent of children living in poor areas get them free). The financial contribution by parents is facilitated by the fact that Vietnam has managed to develop excellent-quality textbooks at a price (covering all costs) that ranges from the equivalent of one-third to about two-thirds of a U.S. dollar. This compares favorably with the US$2 to US$4 textbook price in most Sub-Saharan Mrican countries. The way textbooks are distributed to areas that are difficult to access and how teachers are trained in their use are other valuable techniques. The importance given to textbooks in Vietnam's education policy is well illustrated by the following statement in chapter 4 of this book: "The replacement of textbooks at all schools-the most important task in the third education reform and com pleted in 1996-brought consistency to general education across the nation." Wide access to textbooks also formed a key component of Korea's education development strategy. During the reconstruction period after the Korean War, UNKRA helped Korea publish textbooks for primary education. Later on, Korea developed a system that relied both on textbooks developed by the Ministry of Education and on textbooks developed by individual authors. Each type of text book reflected the curriculum developed by the Ministry, and each needed Min istry approval before schools could use them. Up to 1980, textbooks developed by the Ministry accounted for the largest share of the textbooks used. Since then, this share has declined, and the role of the Ministry is increasingly limited to review and approval of manuscripts. Commercial publishers also produce a variety of reference materials and workbooks. PRICING POLICIES IN EDUCATION Some of the tour participants were surprised to discover that charging fees for pub lic education is standard practice in East Asia. To protect disadvantaged groups, the fee policy is invariably coupled with provisions to identify and exempt children from these groups rather than to provide blanket subsidies to all. This seems to be 30 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience a common attitude among Asian policy makers. Such realism is reflected again in chapter 4 of this book: "the people, however, thought that their children's educa tion, even vocational or higher education, should have been subsidized .... The people's expectations of state subsidies were inappropriate in a poor and develop ing country like Vietnam, especially in the context of a postwar period and · ·· It economIC CflSIS. . . . In East Asia the cost to parents rises with level of education (primary education is now tuition free in most cases). Families are typically expected to pay for text· books, even at the primary level, on the argument that when families pay for them, children take better care of the books. Compared with the situation in Africa, it is important to note that this policy of charging for textbooks at the primary level is made more affordable to parents by the following factors: Ca) the comparatively low costs of textbooks (see above reference to Singapore and Vietnam); (b) the low number of children per family; (c) well-developed systems for targeting sub sidies to poor families; and (d) rapid economic growth that has produced much lower poverty levels, including in Vietnam. In Korea, although primary education was compUlsory, parents initially had to buy textbooks and pay supplementary fees to operate the schools. Later, a special scheme was set up to eliminate fees and provide free textbooks to poor families. The abolition of fees for primary education started in rural areas before the benefit was spread to urban schools. The 1968 decision to abolish entrance examinations to lower-secondary schools set the stage for extending the duration of compulsory education to include lower-secondary education as well. As part of this policy, the government again implemented a financial support policy that included the abo lition of tuition fees and payment for textbooks for lower-secondary education, starting with remote rural and fishing communities and for low-income families. China has reportedly sent officials to Korea to study this approach and is learning from the experience to inform its own efforts to promote economic development and reduce poverty in rural areas. The Thai and Vietnamese governments have adopted similar approaches to promote schooling in rural areas (for example, free tuition and textbooks, scholarships, secondary boarding schools for ethnic minori ties, and so on). PARTICIPANT IMPRESSIONS AND FOLLOW-UP PLANS This final section summarizes the impressions formed and reinforced during the study tour among the participants, and considers a tentative agenda for follow-up. PARTICIPANT IMPRESSIONS On the last day of the study tour, a structured discussion was organized to allow participants to share the key lessons they drew from the event, particularly East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 31 regarding teachers, textbooks, school facilities, education finance, management of the education system, development of postprimaIY education, and leadership in education. Each national team made a formal presentation based on their team discussion and outlined a plan for post-tour action. Each team's action plan was unique, but a careful review suggests two themes are common in the plans of all six countries: · Strengthening the link between education and the economy through a variety of mechanisms, among them the diversification of options beyond primary education, focusing on skill development and lifelong learning, and the insti tutionalization of engagement with key stakeholders from industry; particularly employers, in this effort. · Promoting excellence in schools by paying dose attention to teacher training and school management issues, developing curriculum and textbooks, and benchmarking through the use of continuous student assessments. On the link between education and the economy, all of the six African countries face serious concerns about the development trajectories of both general secondary education and 1VET. The demand for secondary education is growing as these countries advance toward the EFA goal, and these countries are grappling with issues42 that most Asian countries have successfully addressed-that is, universaliz ing 10wer-secondaI}' education in a fiscally viable manner; managing the inevitable need for selective admission to publicly funded upper-secondary and tertiary edu cation; striking a balance in the curriculum between vocational and general sub jects; and so on. With regard to IVET, the depth of concern is evident from the interventions of the country delegations during the tour. Developing appropriate national policies for 1VET is perhaps the single-most difficult education and training challenge facing African countries today. This is due to the following reasons: · The economic stagnation in Africa during the 1980s and 19908 has stifled the development ofIVET. The systems that exist today in most countries are gener ally obsolete in terms of equipment and management, and they are poorly positioned to assist with a resumption and acceleration of economic growth. · There is no obvious correct model, the way forward is filled with blind alleys, and the scope for costly mistakes is large. · African countries have limited access to high-quality international expertise in this area to help them evaluate options in IVET and make good policy choices. · The modern sector is nascent in most African countries, making it difficult to match investments in IVET with current and projected labor market demand. · Policy makers sometimes hold a misguided perception that secondary and tertiary graduates cannot find jobs because they lack the "right" technical skills. This line of reasoning suggests that the employment problem can be "solved" 32 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience simply by investing in 1VET in an attempt to supply the missing skills. Yet focusing on the supply side alone is unlikely to work To succeed, supply side action must match the skill requirements implied by the country's development strategy, as well as by the specific worker characteristics desired by prospective employers. East Asian countries, particularly Singapore, have applied the supply-chain logic to plan their investments in 1VET, taking their cue from industry and employers to work out the skills and training implications; and they have been particularly adept at finding effective insti tutional arrangements to connect the supply and demand sides of the edu cation equation. On promoting excellence in schools, it is striking that the main ingredients for excel lence are standard features in practically all World Bank-financed education operations in the Africa Region, including teachers, curriculum, textbooks, man agement, and student assessments. In budget support operations, these ingredi ents may remain in the background, but they play an important part in the story, in the sense that such operations transfer resources that eventually fund operating expenditures in education through the sector's claim on the govern ment budget. The Asia study tour highlighted just how important good management is as a quality-enhancing complement to the more traditional inputs of teachers, books, and classrooms. The plentiful supply of books at affordable cost in Asia was a dis tressing discovery for tour participants, because the reality in Africa after decades of donor support for textbooks is that school books are limited in choke, expen sive, and often unavailable for countless African children. The need for good text books and other written pedagogical materials, along with the in-service teacher training to go with them, is clear. But many African countries will need to make a decision on what is perhaps a more fundamental issue-that of language of instruction. As long as this issue remains unsettled, it would seem difficult to make significant headway with curriculum reform and textbook development (for further discussion see chapter 2). The challenges in the above two priority areas identified by the participants are huge. Tackling them will require much stronger national leadership than typically has been observed in Africa in the past. But it will also need catalytic support from Africa's development partners. To offer such support, it is important in each set ting to reflect on such fundamental questions as the following: Do we have suffi cient knowledge to articulate a time-bound roadmap for tying the education and training system more tightly to the economy and for fostering excellence in edu cation? Are the basic building blocks for reform in place? Is the implementation plan realistic and well-sequenced? Do we have a good sense ofwhere countries are currently located in the reform agenda? Are we helping countries develop systems East Asia Education Study Tour: An Overview of Key Insights · 33 with interconnecting parts, or are we reinforcing silo mentalities? Have we paid sufficient attention to promoting national leadership throughout the system (for example, fostering a culture of learning by doing and being responsive to feed back)? Are we finding ways to help mobilize sustained support for education from the country's top leadership? Are we helping counterparts in the education sector establish an appropriate communications strategy to reach key audiences with information that will engage them and gamer their support for education? These are just some of the issues to keep in mind as development partners consider ways of providing more effective assistance. AN AGENDA FOR FOLLOW-UP In the best of circumstances, study tours may generate some impact on the devel opment of education in the participating countries, thanks to follow-up actions taken by committed individuals among the tour participants. More often, how ever, study tours tend to end up as isolated events with questionable impact in the absence of structured and systematic post-tour action. To avoid this outcome and to take advantage of the ideas stimulated by the tour, various follow-up options were discussed. Interest centered on the following possibilities: · Support to the participating countries to implement their action plans as devel oped and presented during the study tour. This includes facilitating direct inter action between the six African countries and countries in East Asia. · A conference to report on progress made in carrying out the national-level action plans and to share related experiences. · Broader dissemination of insights from the study tour. As of this writing, some progress has been made on each of these ideas, as outlined briefly below. On the post-tour support to the participating countries, the World Bank education task team leader for each country will manage this work as part of their normal responsibilities, drawing on support where needed and feasible from the broader development community. Several countries on the tour have expressed a desire to develop institutional ties with Asian countries, particularly Singapore, to facilitate continued knowledge exchange and to benefit from support for implementation of their action plans. Accordingly, the Africa Region of the World Bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in December 2006 with the government of Singapore as a framework for continued collaboration following the study tour. Under the terms of the MoU, the Singapore government will host a second work shop in January 2008, this time targeting a larger number of participants from a smaller number ofcountries, to form a critical mass of policy makers with a shared 34 · An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience exposure to Asia's story in the education sector. The specific purpose of the work shop is to achieve the following: · Better understand the nature and scope of the visionary and strategic leadership required to align the education and training sector to the economy. · Acquire practical ideas to facilitate reforms in the NET sector now being pre pared or implemented in the participating countries that will result in the development of a high-performance skills development system. · Gain practical know-how to foster leadership for excellence in schools. To translate ideas into action and tangible results, the workshop will enable the participants to achieve the following: · Prepare an action plan that crystallizes specific ideas from the workshop for implementation as part of the ongoing education sector programs in their own countries. · Establish contacts with specific institutions in Singapore for potential postwork. shop collaboration. On the follow-up conference to report on progress with the national action plans, an idea was mentioned in the closing remarks of the study tour. The purpose of such a conference would be to create a forum for the national teams to share their expe riences with implementation of their action plans and to learn from each other, thereby keeping up the momentum for progress. Given its purpose, the event should be timed to occur after a suitable time lag, to allow a sufficient interval for plans to mature and to be implemented. As a first step toward such a conference, a session on the study tour and the follow-up workshop will be included in the program of the Biennale of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), currently scheduled to take place in Mozambique in May 2008. On the broader dissemination of insights from the study tour, the outcomes of the study tour were presented to World Bank staff and others at the Bank's Human Development Forum (October 30 to November 1, 2006), with the participation of resource persons, particularly those from Singapore. More important, in addition to this publication, another publication is in the pipeline and a video of the visits to Singapore and Vietnam (with an abbreviated and a full-length version) has been completed. The video was shown at the World Bank conference on Sec ondary Education in Africa (April 1-4, 20m), which was attended by 28 ministers of education and some 300 participants from 36 African countries. As part of the continuing dissemination effort, the video will also be made available to partici pants at the 2008 ADEA Biennale. Further learning from Asia's experience in education is both attractive and fea sible. The attraction lies in the fact that many East Asian countries started off in ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _....._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.... _ , , ...._,_ _....... ...,."""",_ _'IjjiI>""ltiii4_'...._ _ _ _ _ _ n"';" :':,::~5i~ :r:·t:Ii·;.··::';.·······::·:·······:··············':··.. :::·. :.::;:.:.::.::,.·.· ···i:i::·:.:ilj;:;;:;...·: :::.~~:~!t:. · :~ 9:00 9:10 0:10 Introdudory Remarks Ms. Tan Jee Peng, World Bank Mr. Dzingai Mutumbuka, World Bank 9:10 9:20 0:10 Opening Remarks by World Bank Mr. Yaw Ansu, World Bank 9:20 9:30 0:10 Address by Guest of Honor Mr. Lee Vi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade & Industry 9:30 9:45 0:15 Group Photo 9:45 10:05 0:20 Coffee Break 10:05 11:05 1:00 Education Challenges in Africa: Overview and Six African education ministers & Mr. Dzingai Mutumbuka, Country Perspedives Mr. Mamadou Ndoye, World Bank Exec. Sec., ADEA 11:05 11:50 0:45 Development of Education in Singapore since Prof. Lee Sing Kong and Independence Prof. S. Gopinathan, NIE 11:50 12:35 0:45 Discussion 12:35 14:05 1:30 Welcome Lunch Hosted by Mr. Lee Chiong Giam, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs 14:05 14:50 0:45 Strategic Management of Education Development Dr. David Ng, NIE Prof. Lee Sing Kong, NIE in Singapore 14:50 15:35 0:45 Discussion 15:35 15:55 0:20 Coffee Break 15:55 16:55 1:00 Panel Discussion: Singapore's Experience in Drs. P.Y. Huang, Wee Heng Prof. Lee Sing Kong, NIE Education over 40 years TIn, Mr. Gerald Pillay 16:55 17:55 1:00 Discussion 19:00 Welcome Dinner Hosted by Mr. Alphonsus Chia, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, International Enterprise Singapore Tuesday, June 20, 2006 Theme: Successful Teaching and Learning 8:45 9:30 0:45 Singapore Teachers' Pre-Service Training Prof. Lee Sing Kong, NIE Mourad Ezzine, World Bank and Professional Development ----- 9:30 10:15 0:45 Discussion 10:15 10:35 0:20 Coffee Break 10:35 11:20 0:45 Curriculum Development & Textbooks in Singapore Dr. Ang Wai Hoong, former MOE Don Taylor, DFID Education Head of Curriculum Dev. Dept. Advisor, Ghana 11:20 12:00 0:40 Discussion 12:00 13:30 1:30 lunch Hosted by National Institute of Education (NIE) ------- ------- 13:30 14:15 0:45 ICT Masterplanning for Education: Dr. Koh Thiam Seng, Director, Ed. Dzingai Mutumbuka, Singapore's Experience Technology Division, MOE World Bank 14:15 15:15 1:00 Discussion 15:15 15:35 0:20 Coffee Brea k 15:35 16:20 0:45 ICT Serving Educational Needs in Rural Areas: Prof. Kang Feiyu, Tsinghua I Gary Theisen, World Bank China's Experience University 16:20 0:45 Discussion Free Evening; Own Arranqements for Dinner e :t Wednesday, June 21, 2006 8:45 9:00 0:15 Study Tour Participants' Arrival at the World Education Forum 9:00 9:10 0:10 Welcome Address by International Ms. Euleen Goh, Chairman I WEF organizers Enterprise Singapore IE Singapore 9:10 9:20 0:10 Welcome Address by World Bank Yaw Ansu, World Bank -------- 9:20 9:45 0:25 Opening Address by Guest of Honor Mr. Gan Kim Yong, Min. of State for Education and Manpower 9:45 10:15 0:30 Welcome Reception 10:15 11:00 0:45 Education for Growth: Korea's Experience Prof. Chong Jae lee, Yaw Ansu, World Bank over 40 years Seoul Nat. Univ. ------- 11:00 12:00 1:00 Discussion -------- ---- I- 12:00 13:30 1:30 World Education Forum Networking Lunch - - - - ------ ------- 13:30 16:00 2:30 Site Visit to ITE Balestier Campus ITE Staf 16:00 16:45 0:45 Thailand's Experience in Addressing the Challenges Dr. Khunying Kasama Varavam, Jacob Bregman, World Bank of Secondary Education Development Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Thailand ~:::~ 0:45 Discussion I-n Visit to the Asian Civilizations Museum Thursday, June 22, 2006 (Continued) 8:00 9:00 1:00 Meet in Lobby for Departure to lIE Simei Campus 9:00 9:45 0:45 Tertiary and University Education in Singapore: I Prof. Leo Tan, NIE A 40-Year Perspective 9:45 10:30 0:45 Discussion 10:50 0:20 Coffee Break - t Prof. Lee Sing Kong, NIE 10:50 I 11 :35 0:45 Technical and Vocational Training in Singapore Institute of Technical Education (lTE) 11:35 12:05 0:30 Discussion 12:05 12:50 0:45 Tour of ITE Simei Campus ITE staff - 12:50 14:00 1:10 lunch Hosted by Institute of Education (ITE) 14:00 14:45 0:45 Lessons from Singapore's 40-year Experience Mr. Sim Wee Chee, Director, I Prof. Lee Sing Kong, NIE with Textbooks Educational Publishing, Panpac 15:30 0:45 Discussion ----- 15:30 15:50 0:20 Coffee Break 15:50 16:35 0:45 Post-Primary Education: Implications of the Prof. Cheng Kai Ming, Univ. I Yaw Ansu, World Bank Global Economy of Hong Kong 16:35 I 17:20 0:45 Discussion Evening Free Evening; Own Arrangements for Dinner .j:> <.n ;5; Friday, June 23, 2006 Theme: Skills for Development (Continued) i~.' .... } ~,' ...· ;;s:'~f~··t·i~~~ji~~.jl;~~~.;··,:::!(;".··s';;·j1g;l~:~';~ );~~[S:J!t;~,;;., ;~;? 8:00 9:00 1:00 Meet in Lobby for Departure to Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) 9:00 9:45 0:45 Polytechnic Education: Singapore's Experience Mr. Lin Cheng Ton, Principal and CEO, Prof. Lee Sing Kong, NIE Nanyang Polytechnic Nanyang Polytechnic 9:45 10:30 0:45 Discussion 10:30 10:50 0:20 Coffee Break -- 10:50 12:50 2:00 Site Tour of Nanyang Polytechnic & NYP staff Departure for IES 12:50 14:20 1:30 Buffet Lunch at International Enterprise Singapore 14:20 16:20 2:00 Group Work by African Delegations to Consolidate N/A N/A Lessons and Prepare Country Reports 16:20 16:40 0:20 Depart for Suntec 16:40 18:10 1:30 Singapore Heritage Tour .-_. Evening Free Evening; Own Arrangements for Dinner t I I Saturday. June 24. 2006 Evening Check Out of Hotel and Settle All Personal Bills ::!::i &; Sunday, June 25, 2006 Transit to Vietnam and Cultural Activities 6:45 10:00 3:15 Check Out of Hotel and Leave for Airport - ~ ---~ 10:00 12:30 2:30 Fligh Hanoi ~~--------------------~ 12:30 13:30 1:00 Arrival in Hanoi and Transfer to 13:30 I 15:00 1:30 luncheon (Own Arrangement) 15:00 18:00 3:00 City Tour Followed by Theater I ! Free Evening; Own Arrangements for Dinner I I t Monday, June 26, 2006 Theme: Vietnam-Overview of Education 8:15 9:00 0:45 Audience with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister. African Heads of Delegation; Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hung, He Pham Gia Khiem Yaw Ansu, Dzingai Mutumbuka, Deputy Director of Jee-Peng Tan; Jeffrey Waite Intemational Relations Dept. 8:15 0:45 Registration 9:00 0:30 Welcome by Vietnamese Hosts Deputy PM & outgoing Minister Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hung, of Education and Training Deputy Director of International (He Nguyen Minh Hien) Relations Dept. I ~ 9:30 0:15 Welcorne by World Bank Mr. Yaw Ansu, World Bank 9:45 10:15 0:30 ! Challenges of Educational Development in Africa Mr. Marnadou Ndoye, Exec. Sec. ADEA I I ~ 10:35 0:20 Coffee Break 10:35 .. 11 :20 I 0:45 I Overview of Education in Vietnam Dr. Nguyen Quang Kinh Hon. Mohlabi Kenneth Tsekoa, Lesotho . 11:20 12:05 0:45 Discussion 12:05 13:35 1:30 Welcome Lunch Hosted by the World Bank 13:35 14:35 1:00 Vietnam's EFA Strategy: Successes and Challenges Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chi, Mr. Dang Tu An, I Ms. Josiane Rabetokotany, (FSQL, Disadvatanged Groups, Targeting Support) Mr. Truong Thanh Hai, and Madagascar Mr. Bui Hong Quang 14:35 15:20 0:45 Discussion 15:20 15:35 0:15 Coffee Break 15:35 17:05 1:30 Panel Discussion: Vietnam's Experience and Its African Ministers, Mamadou Ndoye I Mr. Yaw Ansu, World Bank Relevance to Africa and Bridget Crornpton, DFID Evening Official Reception Hosted by Vietnamese Ministry of Education and "'" \0 V1 o Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Theme: Vietnam-School Education 9:00 9:30 0:30 Teacher Development-Professional Competencies Dr. Nguyen Tri Hon. Mme. Ana Paulo Samo Gudo Chichava, Mozambique 9:30 10:00 0:30 Panel Discussion by Vietnamese Teachers Alumni teachers of the assessment program --------------...+1- ~---- 10:30 10:30 10:45 10:45 11 :15 luis Benveniste, World Bank Hon. Mme. Hamana Adama, Cameroon I 14:30 15:15 0:45 Vietnam's Textbook Program (Publication, Mr. Nguyen Dang Quang, EPH Hon. Mme. Baiden I 15:15 16:00 0:45 Distribution, Financing, etc.) Discussion Amissah, Ghana I 16:00 Evening 2:00 Visits to Textbook Publication Facilities 2 parallel groups Free Evening; Own Arrangements for Dinner; Ghana-Brazil Soccer on Large Screen in Hotel (10:00 PM) I Settle Hotel Bills & Early Check-Out Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Theme: Secondary Education & System Financing 8:00 Luggage Ready for Pick-Up by Hotel Bell Boys 8:30 9:00 0:30 Development of Lower and Upper Mr. Le Quan Tan Hon. Mr. Fuad Ibrahim Secondary Education Oumar, Ethiopia 9:00 9:30 0:30 Discussion 9:30 9:45 Break 9:45 10:45 1:00 Panel Discussion: Education System Overview: Mr. Nguyen Van Ngu, MoET; Ms. Binh Thanh Vu, Financing in Vietnam External Financing: Mrs. Nguyen World Bank Hong Yen, MoF; Sector budget implementation: Mr. Truong Thanh Hai, MoET 10:45 11:45 1:00 I Discussion 11:45 12:15 Preparation for Departure 12:15 13:15 Bus Departs for Airport-Box Lunch Provided on Bus 13:15 15:15 2:00 Airport Check-In 15:15 17:15 2:00 Flight to HCMC --/- 17:15 Hotel Check-In Free Evening; Own Arrangements for Dinner ::;! V1 N Thursday, June 29, 2006 Theme: Visits in HCMC-Technical and Vocational Skill Development 7:30 11:45 4:15 Parallel Visits to TVET Institutions: (a) Singapore-Vietnam MOET officials Technical Training Centre 9:00 11:45 2:45 Parallel Visits to TVET Institutions: (b) HCMC Industrial MOET officials Univ.; (c) HCMC Nat. Univ. (IT Campus); or (d) RMIT-Vietnam 11:45 13:15 1:30 Lunch Hosted by Each Institution ~----------------~~--------------- 2:30 3:30 1:00 Debriefing of Site Visits to the TVET Institutions Rapporteurs for each group Mr. Dzingai Mutumbuka, World Bank 3:30 3:45 0:15 Coffee Break -~-- 3:45 5:45 2:00 Country Delegations Prepare Their Reports for the Presentations Evening Free Arrangements for I 1 Friday, June 30, 2006 8:00 8:10 0 8:15 8:15 9:15 1:00 Discussion Country delegates and other study tour participants 9:15 9:30 0:15 Coffee Break 9:30 9:35 0:05 Key Ideas from the Study Tour: Session B J I Yaw Ansu, 9:35 10:35 1:00 Discussion I Country delegates and other study tour participants 10:35 11 :35 1:00 Country Presentations (10 Minutes for each Country) I Representative from each Birger Fredriksen, country delegation World Bank 11:35 1:00 Discussion & Comment on Country Presentations Study tour participants 0:10 Wrap Up & Evaluation 12:45 12:55 0:10 ClOSing Remarks by Sponsors One representative each from Singapore and Vietnam 12:55 13:10 0:15 Closing Remarks by World Bank Yaw Ansu, World Bank 13:10 14:10 1:00 14:10 Free lime for Dinner 19:00 End-of-Tour Dinner Hosted by Mayor of HCMC t[l ANNEX 2: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS IN ASIA EDUCATION STUDY VISIT FOR AFRICAN POLICY MAKERS, SINGAPORE AND VIETNAM, JUNE 18-30, 2006 Name Trtle HE Halimatou Kangue Mahonde Minister of Basic Education HAMANADAMA Mrs. Koung BESS IKE Jacqueline Secretary Gen., Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training Mr. Apollinaire TCHAMENI Coordinator for Education Sector Strategy Basic Education Mr. KOMO Walter Paul Inspector of Pedagogy for Science Mr. Pierre TlTTI General Manager Department of State Budget Ministry of Economy and Finance H.E. Dr Sentayehu WOLDEMICHAEL Minister of Education H.E. Mr. Fuad IBRAHIM OMER State Minister of Education in Charge of General Education Mr. Dereje Asfaw JETLL Head, Oromia Regional State Education Kiros Mr. Abrha Kiros KEFEY Head, TIgray Regional State Education Mr. TIlaye Gete AMBAYE Head, Amhara Region Education Bureau HE Angelina BAIDEN-AMISSAH Deputy Minister Prof. Daniel Afedzi AKYEAMPONG Co-Vice-Chairman, National Education Implementaion Review Committee Mr. Victor Kofi MANTE Deputy Director, Teacher Education Division Mr. Asamoah DUODU Director, TechnicalNoc. Education Division Ms. Benedicta Naana BINEY Director of Education, Basic and Second Cycle 55 ASIA EDUCArlON STUDY VISIT FOR AFRICAN POLICY MAKERS (Continued) Name Trtle HE Mohlabi Kenneth TSEKOA Minister HE Ntsebe Idlett KOKOME Principal Secretary Ministry of Education and Training Dr. Mapere Benedict KHOBOLI Chief Inspector, Secondary Inspectorate Ms. Mapaseka KOLOTSANE Inspector, Tertiary Education Mr. Nkopane Paul RAMAPHIRI Director, Technical and Vocational Training Mrs. Mamongoli TSEKOA Secretary-General National Commission for UNESCO HE Haja Nirina RAZAFINJATOVO Minister Mr. Fils LAHATRA-RAZAFINDRAMISA Director of Higher Education Mr. Ernest TSIKELIANKINA Director of Tech. & Vocational Education and Training Mr. Romain Kleber NDRIANJAFY Director. National Institute of Pedagogy Mrs Josiane RABETOKOTANY Coordinator of the Technical Support Unit National Director of Higher Education Mr. Adalberto ALBERTO Director Mr. Abel ASSIS National Institute for EdUcation Development National Director of General Education Cristina TOMO Executive Secretary, Commission Zeferino MARTINS for Reform of TVET 56 Name Title YawANSU Director, Human Development Dept. Jee-Peng TAN Education AdvisormL for Study Tour Dzingai MUTUMBUKA Sector Manager, AFrHD Mourad EZZINE Lead Education Specialist Gary THEISEN Sr. Education Specialist Peter DARVAS Sr. Education Economist Eunice Yaa DAPAAH Education Specialist Patrick Philippe RAMANANTOANINA Sr. Education Economist Xiaoyan LIANG Sr. Education Specialist Aidan MULKEEN Sr. Education Specialist Jacob BREGMAN Lead Education Specialist (SEIA) Birger FREDRIKSEN Tour Director (consultant) Fook Yen CHONG Education Specialist Susiana ISKANDAR Sr. Education Specialist Lynette PEREZ Human Development Specialist Sophie NADEAU Operations Officer/Education Specialist Florence M. CHARLIER Country Economist--Cameroon Julieta WATLINGTON Logistics/Administrative (consultant) 57 ASIA EDUCATION STUDY VISIT FOR AFRICAN POLICY MAKERS (Continued) Name TItle Mamadou NDOYE Executive Secretary, The Association of Development and Education in Africa (ADEA) Donald TAYLOR Education Advisor, U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) Dr. Khunying Kasama VARAVARN Permanent Secretary, MOE, Thailand Prof. Feiyu KANG Professor, Vice Provost The Teaching Evaluation Office Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Prof. CHONG Jae Lee Professor, Seoul National University Kai-ming CHENG Chair Professor, Faculty of Education University of Hong Kong Emilyn POH Assistant Director, Technical Cooperation Directorate Adrian QUEK Technical Cooperation Officer Technical Cooperation Directorate Ho Wai Yin Director, Planning and International Organizations Anna NG Project Manager, International Organizations Division Joe D'CUNHA Project Manager, Events Management Division Mavis KU Project Manager Professor leo TAN Director, National Institute of Education Professor lEE Sing Kong Dean, Graduate Programmes and Research 58 _ _ _ _ _. . . . ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. . . . .,.. ....._~....·_f , '1_·_ii"~ ....., ___...__ ~ ~_j'_' ______ ~I "l".., ........_._ _ _·· Name Title Associate Professor GOH Chor Boon Associate Dean, External Programmes Professor Saravanan GOPINATHAN Vice Dean, Centre for Research and Pedagogy Centre for Research in Policy & Practice Associate Professor David NG Associate Dean, Graduate Programmes and Research Dean, Academic Associate Professor Quek lin lONG Mr. Sim Cheng TEE Divisional Director. Corporate Planning and Development Dean, Foundation Programme Assoc. Professor Cheah Horn MUN Dr. Ang Wai HOONG Mr. WEE Heng Tin Advisor to Ministry of Education Mr. HWANG Peng Yuan (Past Chairman, Economic Dev. Board) Mr. Gerald Francis PILLAY Consultant Director, Educational Technology Dr. Koh Thiam SENG Division Victor DUMONT LO for Mozambique Mohamed Faizal Bin Osman LO for Lesotho Leo Ann Lock LO for Cameroon Hee Peng Liang LO for Ghana Chew Foong Ming LO for Madagascar Pearl Cheng LO for Ethiopia 59 ASIA EDUCATION STUDY VISIT FOR AFRICAN POLICY MAKERS (Continued) Name Title Mr. Nguyen Quang KINH Consultant Mr. Nguyen Quoc CHI Consultant Mr. Nguyen TRI Project Director Mr. Nguyen Dang QUANG Vice General Director Mr. Le Quan TAN Director of Secondary Education, MoET Mr. Nguyen Van NGU Director General of Planning & Finance, MoET Mr. TRUONG Thanh Hai Planning and Finance Department, MoET Mr. DANG Tu An Project Director Ms. NGUYEN Thi Hong Yen External Finance Department Mr. NGUYEN Ngoc Hung Deputy Director General of International Cooperation, MoET Mr. LUU Anh Tuan Expert Mr. NGUYEN Hoai Nam Expert Mr. Jeffrey Waite Senior Education Specialist Ms. Binh Tanh Vu Senior Education Specialist Ms. Linh Van Nguyen Program Assistant Ms. Nguyet Minh Nguyen Team Assistant 60 ...... ...........____..., _ _.__.....____,_,_, ...... ,_~t ,,_... .,,~ , ...______________ ~ '... ,.~_ !Iii ","liiiiOlil.MIil. ~'" AN AFRICAN EXPLORATION OF THE EAST ASIAN EDUCATION EXPERIENCE i PRODUCT I STOCK" PRICE QTY SUBTOTALI An Ahican ExplDratiDn D,the East Asian· EducatlDn Experience i D17371 US$60 . (ISBN 978-0-8213-7371-2) I -.--. · Geographic discounts apply - up to 75% depending on ship-to Subtotal country. Soo http://publications.worldbank.orgldiscounts. Geographic discount* ·· Within the US, charges on prepaid orders are $8.00 per order. Shipping and HandlingH Institutional customers using a purchase order will be charged actual ! shipping costs. Outside of the US, customers have the option to Total SUS choose between non-trackable airmail delivery (US$7 per order plus US$6 per item) and trackable couriered airmail delivery (US$16.50 per order plus US$8 per item). Non-trackable delivery may take 4-6 weeks, trackable delivery takes about 2 weeks. ORDER ONLINE A T www.worldbank.orglpublications Customers in the United States Customers outside the United States Complete this form and mail it to World Bank Contact your local distributor for information on prices in Publications, P.O. 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TO ORDER World Bank Publications www.worldbank.org/publications By phone: +1-703-661-1580 or 800-645-7247· By fax: +1-703-661-1501 · By mail: P.O. Box 960, Herndon, VA 20172-0960, USA Questions? E-mail us at books@worldbank.org AVAILABLE AT BETTER BOOKSTORES THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER ~ ~ WORLD BANK Publications I The reference of choice on development ...................................................................--------------------- "~~~.~ An African Exploration of the East Asian Education Experience takes stock of education development in East Asia over the past five decades, offering case studies on four East Asian countries (Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and one European country (Ireland) and relating them to the educational challenges faced by African countries today. The regional, comparative perspective benefits from the insights gained during a 2006 study tour of Singapore and Vietnam for senior education officials from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mozambique. The book is one of a pair of concurrently~published books presenting materials originally developed for the tour. The second book, Toward a Better Future, provides a comprehensive analysis of education development in Singapore since 1965, giving particular attention to the strategic management that has enabled Singapore to transform its education and training system from one similar to that of many Sub-Saharan Africa countries four decades ago into one of the world's best-performing systems. Together, the two books aim to foster knowledge exchange between Sub Saharan African and East Asian countries on good practices in the design and implementation of education policies and programs. By facilitating the cross-country fertilization of ideas between two regions with relatively limited contact in the past, these books fill a clear gap in the current literature on development practice in education. · THE WORLD BANK