Stories from the Classroom

Teachers’ stories may not provide a comprehensive map of educational reform, but they can reveal the passions and the frustrations of the battle for reform. [Also in Russian] by George Bethell 9 November 2005 Learning to Change: The Experience of Transforming Education in South-East Europe, edited by Terrice Bassler, published by Central European University Press, Budapest and New York, 2005.

The rise of Solidarity in Poland, the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Ceausescu regime in Romania, the toppling of Enver Hoxha’s statue in Tirana, and the break-up of Yugoslavia are amongst the iconic events that symbolize the dramatic shift in the European order which took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Such events raised fears and spawned wars, but they also generated new aspirations. There was undoubtedly a degree of turmoil as newly independent nations and radically different political systems emerged, but the chaos served as an ideal arena for competing ideas. Internally, political parties, special-interest groups and individuals argued about two key issues: how to bring about social and political reform and how to generate economic growth. They were joined from the outside by multinational agencies and numerous NGOs – each keen to promote its own philosophy, economic model and recipe for social change.

Almost immediately, every player recognized that education held the key in both areas. In a global market, a country needs to raise the knowledge and skills of all its young people, not just a small elite, if it is to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment. And an open society has far more chance of being sustained where students are given the knowledge, skills, and confidence necessary to question orthodoxies and to propose alternatives. In South-East Europe, those who wanted to bring about significant reforms recognized that they had to transform not only the content of the curriculum, but also the way it was delivered in the classroom. On the other hand, those who championed the status quo saw that they had to retain control of both curricula and teaching materials.

In many countries, the reformers have had some success and remarkable progress has been made. In others, however, the process of change is slow, has stalled or, in some cases, is in reverse.

REFORM AND ITS ECHOES

For those of us who have been involved in designing and implementing educational reform projects in South-East Europe over the past fifteen or so years, identifying common themes and isolating the factors leading to success or failure has become an important, but largely academic exercise. Projects are subjected to more or less rigorous evaluation, research is carried out, and numerous articles are written for worthy journals. These, one hopes, contribute to our understanding of what has happened in the past and shape strategies for the future.

However, such analysis almost inevitably loses the human dimension – the personal experiences of those who are in the middle of the activities that policymakers, planners and consultants set in motion and then, as a rule, observe from a safe distance. Learning to Change: The Experience of Transforming Education in South-East Europe attempts to fill this gap by presenting a series of short chapters written by some of those who were intimately involved in reform initiatives. The strength of the book – and, in some respects, its weakness – is that it neither interprets nor evaluates. It simply records personal perspectives in line with the belief of the authors and the editor that, “the voices should speak for themselves.”

The collection is, not surprisingly, varied both in terms of content and quality. It covers reform programs in nine education systems – each summarized in helpful annexes of statistical data and detailed chronologies. The subjects touched upon range from the impact of ‘debate clubs’ in Croatia to the plight of Roma students in Bulgaria and Serbia. Some stories focus on national strategies for system reform whilst others are concerned with what happens in the classroom to individual students. The style of writing is also varied, revealing the deliberately light touch of the editor. Some is prosaic, but Refika Mustafic’s contribution from Serbia – “From Cocek to Brahms and Back” – stands out for its beautiful prose. The result is a patchwork that is difficult to review in general terms so here I have focused on those stories that resonate most strongly with my experiences as an advisor on education reform.

I first met Alexandru Crisan, the author of the chapter “To Change or Not to Change,” when I visited Romania in the early 1990s. As he tried to explain the parlous state of the education system, he told me that ordinary Romanians had, for many years, been “outside history.” It was a long time before I even started to understand what he meant. His chapter gives the reader a glimpse of what it was like to be a young teacher with original thoughts under a repressive and intellectually sterile regime. It also describes the initial explosion of optimistic activity following the fall of Ceausescu and the subsequent frustration when exciting initiatives all but ground to a halt. In this case, it took commitment on the part of a new education minister, Dr Andrei Marga, to break the deadlock and to get reforms moving again. There was significant progress at the system level, including the introduction of new curricula and new ways of assessing students through fairer examinations. Unfortunately, as Crisan makes clear, a reform is only truly a reform when children in the remotest of classrooms enjoy improved teaching and a better environment for learning.

In “Rights of Passage: Reforming the Matura Examination,” Ivan Lorencic describes the introduction of the external examination system in Slovenia. The matura exam, first implemented in 1995, serves both to certify students’ achievement at the end of secondary school and as means of selecting university applicants. Its development was, notwithstanding one or two hiccups, highly successful and it is a model which is envied and, with more or less success, now being imitated in several countries.

After the first examination was over, the first director of the National Examinations Centre, Sergij Gabrscek, and I wrote an account of the reform from the inside. Lorencic omits almost all our analysis of that period, but adds a different and important perspective – that of the person ‘at the sharp end.’ As director of the National Education Institute, he was caught between the policymakers and the schools who would have to put the examination reforms into practice. He describes the concerns of principals, teachers and students, but he also shows that with political commitment – and money – a government can overcome resistance to change and can push through exciting reforms.

The weakest part of Lorencic’s chapter is the ‘Postmortem’ in which the negative effects of high-stake examinations on learning are alluded to. The author cites the case of a journalist who says that “one of his friends left school half a year before the matura and is now a taxi driver.” Surely, the young members of The Lasses debating group described by Tomislav Reskovac in his chapter on Croatia, “Debate Was The Question Mark; School Was The Full Stop,” would have been horrified at such a blatant case of arguing from the particular to the general. To add to this, when research is cited, no reference is given and so the reader cannot go back to the source to judge the validity of the conclusions. Of course, this book is not supposed to be a professional journal, but readers wishing to go deeper are likely to be frustrated by the absence of references and bibliographies.

To all intents and purposes, Slovenia and Romania were success stories and I am proud to have been associated with them, both as an advisor to governments and as a partner in the implementation process. Each saw through significant reforms in their curricula and in the ways they assess their students. In each case, it was the personal vision and commitment to change of the education minister that drove reforms forward. In Slovenia, Slavko Gaber occupied the post for more than six years, a period in which the new matura examinations were designed, developed, and implemented. Such continuity is a luxury that other countries can only dream of. And in Romania, Andrei Marga was strong enough to break the log-jam that was preventing change.

But my personal track record is not unblemished as Petya Kabakchieva’s contribution “No need to hurry up?” testifies. This describes Bulgaria’s repeated failure, over a 12-year period to reform its examination system in step with its neighbors. In fact, Michael Martin and I prepared the first design for a national examination and assessment centre in 1993. This was, as far as I am aware, the first time that a World Bank project had formally proposed the establishment of an organization that would be responsible for conducting both public examinations and sample-based national assessments. It is a blueprint that has been, or is being, applied in several countries, including Romania. The idea was accepted in Bulgaria, but all that has been achieved has been several false starts, which have been painful to the excellent professionals involved, and the elevation of the ‘new matriculation examinations’ to the status of a national joke. Kabakchieva suggests, and she is probably right, that there was never true political commitment to this, or other key elements of Bulgaria’s reform program: “Still, because we could not ignore Western countries, a bogus reform effort was launched, while in actual fact the status quo was being preserved. Part of this imitation exercise, we came to understand, was the ‘on/off’ game with the matriculation examinations.”

I last visited Sofia in 2002 to work on the development of national standards of education – another aborted element of the Modernization of Education Project. Whilst there, a professor told me that our original report on examinations was still considered “an important document.” Then, as if to prove it, he took a battered, yellowing copy from his briefcase. I still don’t know whether he was being serious or whether this was his way of telling the national examinations joke.

FINDING OPTIMISM IN HARSH REALITIES

In the absence of any analysis, the reader has to work hard to find coherent messages within Learning to Change. However, one theme emerges strongly: Whilst it may be possible to change the structure of an education system, it is far harder to improve significantly the quality of education offered to students. A healthy system is dynamic, open to new ideas, and supportive to both learners and teachers. Unfortunately, real education systems are, more often than not, conservative and closed. Inertia is greatest where there is no political consensus or commitment, where adequate funding is either unavailable or withheld, and where teachers and other practitioners are not given sufficient support. If these issues are not addressed, then even the best-prepared reform program will fail.

But one should not despair. All the stories in this book reveal that there are many individuals working for change with energy, passion and commitment. Where these reformers are lucky enough to find an enlightened government which gives them space to work, and where they are supported, perhaps by a non-governmental organization or a generous benefactor, they can make an important contribution to improving the lives of young people.

For their part, reformers have had to undergo a process of self-awareness over the past 15 or so years, a process that Bozena Jelusic encapsulates in her chapter from Montenegro. “I learned,” she writes, “… that the reform was in the hands of the few people willing to take the initiative. Their advantage was that they were ready to admit their mistakes. They were ready to admit that they did not know all the correct answers. They searched for ways to overcome their ignorance. I do not delude myself that there are many of these, but I know they are not few, either.”