NN39, October 2007
Best Practice in Education and Training: Hype or Hope?
Engaging with Best Practice: History and Current Priorities
By Kenneth King, University of Edinburgh/NORRAG
When there can actually be a ?Second Life Best Practices in Education International Conference? in May 2007, attracting 1300 participants worldwide, to what was a completely virtual conference, it is surely high time we in NORRAG had a special issue on ?best practice?!In one way the Research Review and Advisory Group (RRAG) which was set up in the mid-1970s by IDRC, and other donors, and from which NORRAG developed in the mid-1980s, was organised around the assumption of best practice. It was thought by its designers that a great deal of research, including on developing countries, already existed. What the founders of RRAG thought was missing was a systematic attempt critically to synthesise what was already out there, especially research findings that related to the developing world. The term that was used for such a synthesis was ?state of the art review?. The idea was that policy makers in education who would not have the time to sort out all the findings on, say, class size and educational achievement, rates of return to different levels of education, or policies for effective teachers, and a good deal else, would be able to have at their finger tips synthesised, evidence-based guides to better policy.
This notion that RRAG could synthesise educational findings in the developing world, and present them to policy makers through what we might call here ?best practice state of the art reviews? was partly a response to the move of the World Bank into summarising educational research findings (often its own!). At this point in the late 1970s, the Bank was actively seeking to build its own research capacity in education through targeted recruitment. As a result it began to make a series of general assertions about ?what works? or ?makes a difference? in the field of education. Thus we suddenly begin to have claims in the late 70s that ?textbooks make a difference? to educational achievement, or that teachers who have been to college are as good as those who have gone to university, or that diversified secondary schools do not make a difference to students? career orientation or to appropriate employment etc etc. These might well be called best practice findings nowadays.
What happened to RRAG?s original intention to synthesise research for policy into punchy, bite-sized findings? The answer is: Not very much. It carried out just one state of the art review - on teacher effectiveness research (Avalos and Haddad, 1979) ? but unlike the World Bank?s review of teacher effectiveness (by Torsten Husen et al, 1978), the RRAG review ended up saying something like ?it depends a good deal on context, culture and the educational environment? in which teachers are working (see also Mason in this issue). In other words, the RRAG review was unable to produce a set of punchy, best practice claims for teacher effectiveness, of general application, in the manner that the World Bank review had done.
The reason for this apparent failure of RRAG to fulfil its original mandate is very relevant to our current special issue on best practice. The initial members of the RRAG network, ably led by Robert Myers, were constitutionally and epistemologically disinclined to make universalist claims about what would work across the entire developing world. Instead, they backed off the very notion of these best practice reviews and started instead a series of studies on the ?educational research environment?, or the culture of education research in countries like Kenya (Court), Colombia (Myers), Mali (Diambomba), Uganda (Namuddu), Thailand (Pote), and Chile (Schiefelbein) which eventually came out in Shaeffer and Nkinyangi (1983): Educational research environments in the developing world.
The history of best practice
Both versions of the history of best practice that I have seen trace it back to America. And like so much in education discourse, one version of this history goes back to the private sector and to management-speak. Indeed the idea that ?among the various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than any of the rest? can be attributed to Frederick Taylor (1919) The Principles of Scientific Management. This came to be called ?One best way? (see also Kanigel 1997).
The other American origin claimed for best practice goes back to the extraordinarily successful model of agricultural extension in the United States where research-based innovations were promoted at the county and state level by extension agents (McKeon, 1998). A key element in the success of this model of good practice adoption would appear to have been the practical orientation of the agricultural research system, and the close collaboration between the extension agents and their clients. Not to mention the productivity gains and profits gained from the adoption of these tested and tried best practices. Arguably, the school system and its teachers and principals inhabit very different worlds from the community of educational researchers as compared to the close linkages between county extension agents and their local farmers.
Contradictory uses of good and best practice at present
True to its diverse origins in agricultural extension and business management, the language of good and best practice is still used very widely today, in diverse contexts, to commend particular innovations, whether in organizations, in technologies or in societies, to a wider audience. Ideally, as Trudell argues in her NN39 article, best practice should derive carefully over time as a result of research and experience. But all too often, in practice (!), the anticipated best practice is passed over in favour of the practice preferred by those with most influence, power or financial leverage. It is precisely this contradiction between what we may term genuine good practice (which is the way communities have learnt to improve, often through borrowing and adapting, since the beginning of time) and the enthronement of a particular set of development or research priorities by the multinational or international bodies, whether in aid, trade or human development, that is at issue.
So, in every sphere of development cooperation, for example, there are now illustrations of this tension. At the highest level of the MDGs, we saw in 2005 ?a practical [good practice?] plan to reach the millennium development goals? (UN, 2005). But the issue of whose ?practical plan? it was continues to be debated (see King, 2007). At other levels, there is plentiful evidence of good practice partnerships in development, good practice case studies, good practice monitoring and evaluation, best practice in international student support, and a great deal else.
From another angle, the good/best practice debate is about the eternal dilemma of going to scale, or mainstreaming when something appears to have been successful locally, in a pilot project, or in a single country. Hence, it faces every organization that moves from supporting a project in a single county or district to having a country strategy, and then a regional strategy and then an international strategy. Thus it is central to all development organizations which operate cross-nationally, whether they are NGOs, bilateral or multilateral.
Historically, of course, bilateral aid organizations based their offers of assistance on what they conceived of as their comparative advantage (best practice?) in Denmark, Canada, Sweden, or Japan. This offer of donor countries? best practice, like Danida?s support to the Design School in the University of Nairobi, or tool and dye making in India, or all manner of English language teaching projects, in the case of the UK?s Overseas Development Administration (ODA) and the British Council, was naturally a form of tied aid, and those who implemented these practices abroad were naturally termed technical assistance since they were seen to be part of a technology or good practice transfer.
As aid modalities shifted over time, and programme support, sector-wide approaches and direct budget support began to become commonplace in some agencies, so the notion of visiting ?the British project? or ?the Danish project?, along with tied aid, has became unfashionable. Current good practice has become accordingly much more complex, as a new aid architecture of the MDGs, and, for education, the Dakar Goals, has been constructed, largely by multilateral bodies, and yet this goes along with the strong view that country ownership of the aid agenda is vital.
As Ellerman has argued forcefully in this NN39 issue (?Best Practice Development Fads 101?), the discourse of best practice is particularly common in international development organizations. This can be illustrated in the most recent World Bank policy paper in education (the Education Support Strategy Update [ESSU] 2005), where there are plentiful references to good practice. For both of the main thrusts of the Bank?s strategy paper ? a) ways to achieve Education for All (EFA), and b) ways to support education for the creation of knowledge economies (KE), there are a whole series of what are termed ?good practice examples of country strategies?.
For instance, in respect of ways to reach EFA, the ESSU notes: ?The examples that follow bring together a number of good practices from a wide range of countries, including ones that are very poor or emerging from deep conflict, demonstrating that progress is within reach where commitment exists to do what it takes.?
Encouraging school-based management (16 countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa).
Reaching poor children through demand-side financing (Mexico plus 8 SSA).
Taking advantage of FTI. (Yemen).
Improving quality in African classrooms (Zambia plus 4 others).
Mainstreaming children from non-formal into formal schooling (India).
Accelerating the education sector response to HIV/AIDS in Africa (25 SSA countries).
Rebuilding capacity after war (Cambodia and Afghanistan).
Shifting the debate from inputs to outcomes in Brazil.
Scaling up progress on EFA in South Asia. (Annex 3, World Bank, 2005)
As far as reaching knowledge economy (KE) status is concerned, there is a second list of ?Good practice examples highlighting country strategies to support education for the creation of knowledge economies?:
Rethinking the Secondary School Curriculum in Europe and Central Asia.
Building national innovation systems (China).
Constructing lifelong learning systems: Chile
Constructing lifelong learning systems: Mexico.
Rethinking the State?s role: Public-private partnerships (Sikkim).
Identifying options for sustainable financing (Chile, Mongolia, China, Morocco)
Strengthening financial management and accountability in Indonesia?s tertiary education institutions
Strengthening labour market linkages.
Diversifying the institutional landscape. In Chile
Establishing quality assurance mechanisms and accreditation systems (Colombia, Korea)
Teaching creativity (Singapore)
Encouraging corporate ties. (Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Argentina)
Addressing the political economy of reform (Mexico)
Emphasizing science and technology in education - Uganda. (Annex 4, World Bank, 2005)
What are we to make of this list of claimed good practices linked to the achievement of the two main themes of the World Bank in its most recent policy paper?
First, it would appear that countries are being encouraged to ?mainstream? these ?innovative delivery mechanisms?. But they are also being encouraged to adopt three overall strategic themes which are: (a) integrating education into a country-wide perspective; (b) broadening the strategic agenda through a sector-wide approach; and (c) becoming more results-oriented.
I actually happen to believe that some recognition of these three themes is valuable. But where have these three strategic themes come from? The Bank?s answer is intriguing, in terms of the origins of its good or best practices:
These themes originate in the objective of responding to the changes in the environment discussed above, with the benefit of lessons from recent years? experience. In many instances, the proposals reflect the mainstreaming of innovative practices that have already been tried in specific regions or countries. (World Bank, 2005: xi)
Each of these three strategic themes also brings with it a series of some 8-10 suggested approaches (good practices?). Thus, countries are being presented with an agenda for action which is relatively simple (just 3 strategic themes, and two overall objectives (EFA and Knowledge Economies)), but is also highly complex, for, as we have just seen, each of the two overall objectives has a range of good practices that could be mainstreamed, as do the three strategic themes. So implementation could be a challenge. Here then is what the Bank says about the implementation process:
Implementation of Strategic Priorities
Implementation of the ESSU calls for new or modified ways of doing business in terms of viewing education issues in a broader (sector-wide or country-wide) context, knowing more about what drives a country?s education outcomes, more systematically building country capacity in certain areas, and harmonizing with donors wherever feasible. While these approaches may not seem entirely new, the ?novelty? of the ESSU relates largely to their mainstreaming, as also the mainstreaming of innovative delivery mechanisms. (World Bank, 2005: 43)
Bearing in mind the danger of development fads or fashions (see Ellerman in this issue), the Bank seems to be declaring that mainstreaming (or generalising?) these innovative good practices we listed above for the two goals (EFA and KE), along with mainstreaming the three strategic objectives (also good practice?) is the novelty of this policy paper.
But, for any particular country, what on earth could it mean to mainstream some of the innovative practices highlighted under EFA or KE, for example ? building national innovation systems? which is only illustrated by the good practice example of China? The paragraph that explains what China did may be very difficult for other countries to learn from. This is central challenge of claimed best practice: that the good practice example is of course embedded in a particular system, culture and context. The range of factors, both direct and indirect, that appeared to make it work well in its original context are very hard to tease out, and yet they are inseparable from the identified practice.
So what we have, in this example of comparative, cross-national discussion of good practices, is a series of perhaps quite compelling good practices associated with the two objectives or the three overall strategies, but in combination they amount to an enormous range of ?good practice examples?. It is not at all clear what mainstreaming these would imply. Nor is it particularly clear what the evidence base is for these good practice examples.
It should be recalled, however, that the first target of this battery of good practice proposals is the World Bank staff itself. The adoption of cross-sectoral thinking, and locating education within a wider macro-economic framework are acknowledged to require capacity building within the Bank, not to mention with its clients. In other words, the disseminators of these good practice messages and priorities themselves need training to understand the new strategies and objectives.
We have illustrated this dilemma from the World Bank, since its policy material is so accessible, and is also so widely read, and indeed influential. But it would be equally possible to illustrate some of these tensions around the meanings of best practice from other multilaterals, and indeed bilaterals or NGOs. Here, for example, was UNESCO laying out its mandate for 2002-2007: ?UNESCO will promote education as a fundamental right, work to improve the quality of education and stimulate innovation and the sharing of knowledge and best practices? (UNESCO, 2002: 15). Good and best practice run right through the objectives and the benchmarks of UNESCO?s programme and budget for 2006-7.
Norrag News and Good Practice
We have not had a policy of identifying best or even good practice, over the almost 40 issues of Norrag News since 1986. What we have sought to do, for any particular issue, such as SWAPs, Education Capacity Building, the World Summit on Education, or the politics of language is offer our readers and contributors a range of different, often critical, approaches to the particular theme, conference, aid modality. We have avoided synthesising across the 30-40 viewpoints expressed, preferring that our readership do this crucial job themselves. Hence our policy briefs, if we are honest, are not executive summaries, but more often testimonies to an inescapable diversity.
References
Avalos, B. and Haddad, W. (1981) A review of teacher effectiveness research in African India, Latin America, Middle East and Malaysia, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa.
Husen, T;. Saha, L. J, and Noonan, N. (1978) Teacher Training and Student Achievement in less Developed Countries. Staff Working Paper, World Bank, Washington.
Kanigel, R. (1997) The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. New York: Penguin Books.
McKeon, D. (1998) Best practice: hype or hope, TESOL Quarterly, vol 32, no 3. Research and practice in English language teacher education.
Shaeffer, S. and Nkinyangi, J. (eds.) (1983) Educational research environments in the developing world, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa.
Taylor, F. (1919) The Principles of Scientific Management, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
World Bank (2005) Education Sector Support Strategy, World Bank, Washington.
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