Editorial
1
hf. J. EducationaIDevelopment, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. El,1992 Printed in Great Britain EDITORIAL u7384593/92 $5.00+ .oo Pergamon Press Ltd The current issue of International Journal of Educational Development is divided into two parts. The first deals with the special theme of higher education in development. This is introduced by Teame Mebrahtu and Michael Crossley and is based on a number of papers given at a Conference held at Bristol Univer- sity in January 1991. The second part represents a small fraction of the papers that are being received by the journal, a larger range of which will appear in the next issues. The first of these papers, by Daniel Sifuna, is a further and useful addition to the literature relating to vocational education and makes interesting, if depressing, reading. He shows that while the introduction of secondary vocational education courses in Kenya was badly thought out, the introduction of prevoca- tional education subjects into the primary schools has been even less well thought through, largely because of inadequate equip- ment and inadequate teacher preparation. Once again, however good a theory may be, absence of appraisal and effective forward planning only make for costly mistakes. Kenya, along with many other African countries, can ill afford to continue to misjudge popular demand so consistently. Lyn. Ilon tackles another contentious but, nevertheless, increasingly important issue - that of girls’ attendance at school. She argues, from evidence gained in Zimbabwe, that too many economic paradigms of girls’ attendance at school ignore the domestic element, the constitution of girls to the domestic economy. While this is not always easy to measure and costs foregone by allowing girls to attend school rather than help on the family smallholding can only be loosely calculated, it is easy to explain, and to justify, why girls drop out of school before their formal education is completed. If gender equality is to become more than a slogan in the 1990s educational planners need to take on board the complexity of gender differences in the economies of different developing countries. The third paper takes a very different topic and is indirectly related to the special issue theme of higher education in development. Loudon and Aspinall explore the collaboration between two higher education institutions, one in Wales and one in Brunei Darussalam, over in-service training of teachers. While obvious benefits were to be gained, problems were nevertheless highlighted and lessons of ownership and training could be taken on board by others involved in collaborative training. This could become an increasingly contentious issue during the 1990s as govern- ments and international agencies seek to offer more and more training courses in the countries of the south yet still aspire to northern validation. What all the papers in this issue show is that debates about education-and development are far from static, and that the more research evidence that is provided the more the issues in the debate have to be refined. KEITH WATSON 81
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Transcript of Editorial
hf. J. EducationaIDevelopment, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. El,1992 Printed in Great Britain
EDITORIAL
u7384593/92 $5.00+ .oo Pergamon Press Ltd
The current issue of International Journal of Educational Development is divided into two parts. The first deals with the special theme of higher education in development. This is introduced by Teame Mebrahtu and Michael Crossley and is based on a number of papers given at a Conference held at Bristol Univer- sity in January 1991. The second part represents a small fraction of the papers that are being received by the journal, a larger range of which will appear in the next issues.
The first of these papers, by Daniel Sifuna, is a further and useful addition to the literature relating to vocational education and makes interesting, if depressing, reading. He shows that while the introduction of secondary vocational education courses in Kenya was badly thought out, the introduction of prevoca- tional education subjects into the primary schools has been even less well thought through, largely because of inadequate equip- ment and inadequate teacher preparation. Once again, however good a theory may be, absence of appraisal and effective forward planning only make for costly mistakes. Kenya, along with many other African countries, can ill afford to continue to misjudge popular demand so consistently.
Lyn. Ilon tackles another contentious but, nevertheless, increasingly important issue - that of girls’ attendance at school. She argues, from evidence gained in Zimbabwe, that too many economic paradigms of girls’ attendance at school ignore the domestic element, the constitution of girls to the domestic economy.
While this is not always easy to measure and costs foregone by allowing girls to attend school rather than help on the family smallholding can only be loosely calculated, it is easy to explain, and to justify, why girls drop out of school before their formal education is completed. If gender equality is to become more than a slogan in the 1990s educational planners need to take on board the complexity of gender differences in the economies of different developing countries.
The third paper takes a very different topic and is indirectly related to the special issue theme of higher education in development. Loudon and Aspinall explore the collaboration between two higher education institutions, one in Wales and one in Brunei Darussalam, over in-service training of teachers. While obvious benefits were to be gained, problems were nevertheless highlighted and lessons of ownership and training could be taken on board by others involved in collaborative training. This could become an increasingly contentious issue during the 1990s as govern- ments and international agencies seek to offer more and more training courses in the countries of the south yet still aspire to northern validation.
What all the papers in this issue show is that debates about education-and development are far from static, and that the more research evidence that is provided the more the issues in the debate have to be refined.
KEITH WATSON
81
