Problems of Education in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864 Volume 32, 2011

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Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

The phenomenon of falsification is becoming more and more interesting and relevant. This phenomenon is related to all educational areas. Such important areas as quality of education, management and funding of education, recognition of qualifications etc. are often susceptible to falsification. Recently, careful attention is paid to the questions of education quality. The systems of quality management are created, services are certified etc. However, along the process of modernization the degradation of education is taking place. Falsification hints are accepted as evidences of degrading education. At present, the problem occurs due to actual insufficient data on the conception of the degradation of education and the actuality of the latter phenomenon in the Lithuanian education system.

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Authors: Yoshiko Asano

There is a general responsibility to protect the earth system to reach “Sustainability” since the earth problems grow more serious day by day. However, it is not easy for everyone to be aware of this problem and to act for protecting the Earth in daily life, because the environmental problems are not visible. This study suggests ESD as a means for raising the awareness and behavior about the Earth. And “The environmental epistemological model of 5 aspects” is presented which connects ESD of earth environment with environmental policy. This study shows how the “The environmental epistemological model of 5 aspects” is reflected on the environmental policy and education within two municipalities which are trying to be woody biomass society as an example of the vision of “Sustainable society”. The municipalities are Växjö city in Sweden and Kaneyama-machi in Japan. As a result, it is clear that environmental policy and education at preschools in Sweden and in Japan are important institutions for promoting “The environmental epistemological model of 5 aspects” of a municipality's environmental policy. And it is concluded that ESD at early childhood is important as the base of the life-long learning and citizen's participation.

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Authors: Irena Lama, Artur Sula, Mimoza Gjokutaj

World society, technologies and sciences are changing very quickly. The school, as an educational institution is facing great challenges of the century. The school needs to change many components like curricula, teaching, strategies, learning techniques. By using a series of strategies, contemporary teaching needs to strengthen the learning environment and offer different models, in order to design proper curricula for all subjects, fields of study and levels. Based on some official data, empirical surveys, questionnaires, as well as data from the students’ results, there have been identified some problems in our school, concerning traditional and contemporary teaching and learning. The focus of the research is: teaching principles applied in school curricula in Albania such as student – centered teaching and future oriented one through the paradigms of interactive teaching and passing from traditional to contemporary teaching methods. This principles aim at developing students’ critical thinking and learning skills to educate students as lifelong learners. These principles and solutions are necessary to be known and to be applied in everyday process of teaching and learning, in order to improve their quality.

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Authors: Maiyo K. Julius, Jyoti Bawane

Poverty has many dimensions and does not merely entail low levels of income or expenditure. According to Sen (1992), poverty is the lack of capability to function effectively in society. Inadequate education can thus be considered a form of poverty. Education is widely accepted as the main exit route from poverty. It is the backbone of growth and development of individuals and the nation. However, its achievement continues to elude many who are poverty stricken. This paper articulates the issues of education and poverty which is related to that of chicken-egg relationships. The study used secondary data from eight provinces in Kenya. The study correlated the poverty headcount with the educational indicators. It emerged from the data that provinces which had less poverty levels (Central-30.4% and Nairobi 29.5%) experienced high literacy rate, high enrolment and low dropout rate, while regions which had higher levels of poverty headcount (North Eastern-73.9% and Coast-69.7%) experienced low literacy rates, and poor academic performance. The study Concluded that extreme poor are denied access to education, poverty hampers learning in developing countries through poor nutrition, health, home circumstances, quality, costs and inadequate resources for education. The study recommends the government to introduce/re-introduce/strengthen school feeding programme, subsidize school uniform and address the issues of opportunity cost for the extreme poor among others.

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Authors: Agnes Oywaya-Nkurumwa, John Gowland Mwangi, Nephat N. J. Kathuri

The Maasai like many pastoralists around the world have in recent years been forced to seek alternative livelihoods as pastoralism becomes untenable due to climate change and population pressures. Agro-pastoralism is one of the alternatives being pursued, but there are associated challenges mainly due to the Maasai people’s lack of indigenous technical knowledge on crop farming, and negative cultural attitudes to the practice. Agricultural extension services have a crucial role to play as the major providers of necessary technical knowledge on crop cultivation. The purpose of this gender-based study was to investigate the role of government extension services among Maasai agro-pastoralists as a source of influence and information on crop cultivation. The study also sought to determine the type and frequency of extension contact that the agro-pastoralists receive. The study adopted a survey research design and was carried out in Narok North District of Kenya, using a sample of 153 male and 87 female household heads, who were selected either through multi-stage cluster sampling or systematic sampling. Agricultural extension workers and key informants also provided data for triangulation purposes. The findings indicated the respondents had low contact with agricultural extension service, with 55.6% of male respondents and 66.7% female respondents reporting having had no contact at all. Informal sources comprising of relatives, friends and neighbours were the leading source of influence to grow crops as well as the leading source of technical information on crop farming for most of them, more so for the female respondents. The frequency of extension contact was generally low, with 50% of male respondents and 64.3% of female respondents reporting a frequency of three times or less over the past two years. Fifty-one percent of male respondents and 53% of female respondents rated the information they received as inadequate. For the female respondents, the leading types of extension contact were farm and home visits and seminars as well as seminars. For the male respondents, the leading extension type was a combination of different extension methods including farm and home visits, field days, demonstrations, seminars and office visits. The study findings clearly indicated the inadequacy of the extension services provided for the Maasai agro-pastoralists. The study therefore concluded that there was need to strengthen agricultural extension services among them in order to facilitate successful livelihood diversification and promote food security and livelihoods.

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Authors: Mzia Tsereteli, Khatuna Martskvishvili, Ia Aptarashvili

The goal of present study is to investigate the impact of school culture on academic achievement level. Specifically, the influence of school management system on students' performance. The study represents the part of the National Assessment in Math. 234 public schools principals were administered with the questionnaire for school principals. The questionnaire consisted of several blocks: the new style of school management; evaluation of effectiveness of teachers' work; evaluation of effectiveness of various school boards; participation of teachers and students in professional trainings, conferences and scientific competitions; various events for students as well as for parents. Result showed that school management system predicts level of students' academic achievement. Specifically, among the best predictors are following variables: democratic strategies of class management, school board effectiveness, popular-scientific meetings, and teachers' democratic approach to students.

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Authors: Editorial Board

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864 Volume 32, 2011