Credit: Pacific Community (SPC)

By Michelle Belisle
SUVA, Fiji, Feb 17 2022 (IPS)

All over the world, students who attend tertiary education do so with the belief that the investment of their time, money and effort will provide them with returns on that investment that will change their lives and the lives of their families for years to come. As qualified graduates, those students emerge from their tertiary programmes with recognised skills and knowledge making them employable in their chosen fields, moving them forward along a career pathway and in many cases, bringing recognition to the institutions that trained them as they experience success and achievements related to their expertise.

While it is relatively straight forward to see that the graduates of a given program from a specific institution will be recognised and employed in the community and even the country that houses the institution, taking those qualifications to other jurisdictions, either for employment or further education, becomes much more complicated. While the institution that has awarded the qualification stands fully behinds its content and quality, the employers, regulators and institutions in other places don’t have that same depth of knowledge and therefore trust, to give the same level of recognition. This is where accreditation, particularly regional and international accreditation, come into play.

The accreditation of a qualification is a formal confirmation that the qualification is recognised and meets quality assurance and industry standards and requirements. Employers look for accredited qualifications as they know they are quality assured and are deemed “fit for purpose”. The industry’s trust in the qualification will translate to increased employability for the graduates.

National accreditation by a recognized authority provides students with assurance that their qualification will be accepted and paves the way to employment in the country in which it was awarded.

EQAP Director Michelle Belise

In the Pacific, however, a region where remittances from those who have moved to live and work abroad is a significant portion of national revenue, labour and student mobility is critical. Students need to know that their tertiary programmes open doors to employment and further education opportunities beyond their national borders. For graduates, students, and faculty to become more mobile in the region and internationally, regional and international accreditation of qualifications; and development of regional qualifications are necessary.

A qualification accredited internationally is generally widely recognised. Learners can therefore move across borders, in search of qualifications that are recognised internationally, and completion of which will qualify them for employment opportunities in different countries and regions.

By encouraging and supporting institutions of higher education to seek international recognition of programs, there is a strengthening of both the institution in terms of its appeal to prospective students and faculty, and the programs themselves by way of ongoing efforts to meet and maintain internationally agreed standards in program content, delivery and assessment.

A regional qualification is one that is developed and endorsed with input from stakeholders in the region, is accredited regionally, is available for delivery by providers in the region and is owned by the region. The learners enrolled in a regional qualification also have the option of moving from one provider to another to complete a qualification, and similarly, the faculty involved in the delivery of a regional qualification could move from one institution to another almost seamlessly as the learning outcomes and requirements of the qualification remain constant across all institutions delivering the programme.

International accreditation and regional qualifications have a great deal to offer for higher education in the Pacific. However, one of the greatest challenges to increasing the mobility of graduates, students and faculty are fears, at institutional and national levels, of losing individual identity and autonomy. The Tokyo Convention can become the catalyst for increased labour and student mobility.

The Convention is significant in providing the platform for countries to appreciate and respect the differences that exist in their education and qualifications systems and to work towards embracing a common recognition system. Strong and robust institutional as well as national quality assurance systems are instrumental in ensuring national recognition mechanisms are recognised and valued and they consequently can become the pillar upon which a regional recognition process is built. To facilitate and support the establishment of a regional recognition process, it is imperative that national mechanisms exist to enable institutions to recognise each other’s programs and qualifications.

Ratification of the Tokyo Convention by countries in the Pacific Region will strengthen and fortify the efforts already being undertaken to establish a regional recognition process mutually agreed to by the countries; it can become the next step in the process where national and regional mechanisms already exist.

Through the continued collaboration of governments, higher education institutions, and regional and international organizations it is our hope that Pacific Island students and graduates will reap the benefits of international recognition of their education and at the same time, the world at large will benefit from the contributions of Pacific Islanders in their workplaces and higher education institutions.

Dr Michelle Belisle is the Director of the Educational Quality and Assessment Programme (EQAP) at the Pacific Community (SPC).

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

By Michelle Belisle
NOUMEA, New Caledonia, Jan 25 2021 (IPS)

In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 January as International Day of Education, in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 challenges all nations to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by the year 2030. As we think about this in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the emerging post-COVID-19 environment, what does inclusive and equitable education look like and how do we ensure that lifelong learning opportunities are benefitted by all?

EQAP Director Michelle Belise

At the senior secondary level, student results for the South Pacific Form Seven Certificate (SPFSC) have shown similar trends in recent years. Higher-order questions requiring students to apply their knowledge and problem solve in subjects across the spectrum, but particularly in the sciences and maths, are challenging. Students are generally able to respond to questions by applying recall or direct application of skills and knowledge, but struggle when asked to inter-relate multiple concepts, to address real-world situations or to extend their thinking into a more abstract use of skills and knowledge.

“…traditional education has frequently focused on problems that already have solutions…”

How do we equip learners for the demands of lifelong learning in an ever more rapidly changing world? Traditional education has focused on skills and facts, the kind of education many of us have experienced and the kind of education that has long been a staple of formal education systems around the world. It has frequently focused on problems that already have solutions and in supporting students in getting to those solutions. In recent years there has been increasing recognition that if learning is a lifelong effort, education needs to provide learners with skills that will allow them to solve problems that don’t yet have solutions.

Learning in the twenty-first century should be less focused on facts and figures, which are far more readily available than was the case in past centuries. Instead, education for lifelong learning must emphasise the importance of critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information, as well as collaboration and digital literacy skills. Gaining these skills, however, involves different ways of engaging in learning that are often not as readily available in large classrooms or in settings where students are not encouraged, or perhaps even overtly discouraged, from questioning what the teacher is saying. The efforts to develop the many skills needed by learners are complicated by the added challenge of disruptions to learning caused by the pandemic and efforts to fill the gaps with distance learning and virtual gatherings.

As we navigate the COVID crisis, we have a unique opportunity to reset standards in education, by providing the tools to ensure future generations embrace critical thinking both here in the Pacific, and globally.

Michelle Belisle Director, Educational Quality and Assessment Programme Pacific Community (SPC)

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

By Michelle Belisle
NOUMEA, New Caledonia, Aug 10 2020 (IPS)

School as we all know it hasn’t changed that much in over a century. However, in the face of new threats to health and wellbeing, the future of those familiar structures that bring teachers and students together is starting to be questioned.

Large numbers of people in crowded spaces for long periods – it all runs contrary to what the experts advise to keep us safe from contagious diseases like COVID-19. Class size is no longer an academic debate over quality of instruction versus budgetary restrictions, but rather a life and death discussion of the transmission of pathogens.

Lockdowns closed schools for some 1.5 billion children globally. About half of these are located in developing countries where many had to take up jobs. As a result, Save the Children estimates that around 10 million may never return to school and warns that unparalleled budget cuts would see pre-existing inequality explode between rich and poor and between boys and girls.

But while COVID is the immediate challenge, it is also shining a spotlight on some of the larger issues surrounding the resilience of traditional education systems and practices.

Sending children home has highlighted the huge technology gaps between and within countries. Online teaching does not work if you have no quiet place to study, no computer or electricity. Some 500 million children already had no access to the resources and technology required to support distance learning. For these children, the education restrictions COVID has created are a permanent part of their learning experience.

While there are certainly initiatives in place attempting to close the technology gap, not enough attention is being given to what a more effective education system could look like. Would recreating the classroom in a virtual environment simply reproduce the same issues, gaps and challenges that marginalise the same groups but in a different way? What about the “soft skills” and the life lessons learned at school that aren’t so easily transitioned to worksheets and Zoom technology?

Recently released findings of the 2018 Pacific Island Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA), a huge collaborative exercise across 15 countries and more than 900 schools, showed improved literacy and numeracy skills of primary school students. But learning resource availability ranged widely. A third of students attended schools where only the teacher had a textbook (25 per cent) or there were no textbooks at all (8 per cent).

Measurement and data from such surveys have a big role to play in understanding how change impacts students. Now more than ever it is critical to have timely education data to help understand what is happening in our systems and how to respond to the new needs. We have to get past the idea of education data as a “report card”, judging students, parents, teachers and schools, and instead embrace it as diagnostic information holding the key to unlocking success into the future.

How can education systems strike a balance between using technology to reach students and keep classrooms safe while ensuring that all students are able to fully participate and benefit from the education experience?

Experts have made claims about how technology will change the way learning happens, but interestingly, radio, television, computers and now a plethora of smart technologies and connectivity platforms have really not made a great deal of difference to how school looks or what the processes are.

What has changed is our understanding of how students learn – what motivates them to keep learning and what turns them away from formal education. We have seen over time that students are more motivated and learn more readily when they are engaged and interested and what they are learning has meaning and relevance.

We know that students, like virtually all people, respond better to positive feedback and support than to threats, degradation and punishment. We know that children learn by observation from a very young age and that they value what the adults around them value, particularly those adults whose opinions matter to them and whose support and acknowledgement they strive for.

The quest for free, accessible and high quality education for all children is highly unlikely to line up perfectly with what governments can resource in terms of numbers of teachers, their materials and training.

It is possible though to provide the support and encouragement that children need one on one. A key element is the degree to which the significant adults in a child’s life take an interest in and pay attention to their education.

Our PILNA 2018 results showed that literacy and numeracy scores were higher for those children whose caregivers (parents or other significant adults) asked what they were doing in school and what they were reading, compared with the children of caregivers who paid little or no attention.

Regardless of their own level of education, adults can support the motivation of Pacific Island children to learn and grow academically.

Taking an interest in what children are learning is a first step but if we really want to support children, particularly when regular access to classrooms and teachers is not guaranteed, adults need to take a lead in developing the inquiring minds of young people.

But what are we actually doing to support this and are we asking the impossible of caregivers?

PILNA showed that students across all 15 participating countries struggled with critical thinking and problem solving. These are difficult concepts to teach, but the first step is to support the mindset that allows children to think critically.

Asking questions about the world around them is normal for very young children but over time we train them to keep their thoughts to themselves, that even asking questions is potentially disrespectful or will lead to appearing stupid. Questions met with frustration or ridicule teach children to remain silent. That is the first step to extinguishing the will to learn and one often taken in a mistaken perception that an authoritarian approach to demanding that students complete rote tasks is equivalent to supporting learning.

COVID-19 will not be the last crisis we face, but its global impact can be an opportunity to rethink our approach so that we are better able to adapt, both to future crisis situations and also to the evolving realities of society and technology.

It’s time to think beyond building a better classroom and instead use our experience and knowledge to create a better system — one that provides all students with high quality learning opportunities that lead to success in an unknown future.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

Excerpt: