Global Education Report Glossary

What is A Global Education Report?

Global Education Reports, in education may be used in reference to a wide variety of purposes to help administrators, teachers, and other educators improve their understanding of what is happening in education.

NJ MED uses its Global Education Report to get annual input from students, teachers, parents, educators, and taxpayers who are investors in education in their community.

In practice, NJ MED conducts a two-month (May and June) online international public survey of this group of stakeholders. And, annually publishes the survey results. That shows how these groups, would improve education in their country, through one of 12 topics, which were selected from a two-year international research study of problems affecting education development.

For example, they may range from wanting Better Teachers or More Government Funding Needed to Support Education.

Every five-years, a new Golden Global Education Report will be published to make recommendations on how individual nations could improve their education systems, based on the 5 year suggestions of their country’s educational stakeholders, and from the five-year research study, that was used to analyze each annual Global Education Report.

The Golden Global Education Report

The data and recommendation that will be published in the Golden Global Education Report, will be for governments reviews, will consist of five category levels- Early Childhood Development, Primary, Secondary, High School, and College.

Each category will have an educational expert explain the outcomes from each assessment, evaluation, and the methodology used for their recommendations,

The following are a representative selection of common terms used in the Annual Global Education Report, from the stakeholder groups, to the objectives of each term, and comments from educational experts on the 12 topics included in the reports:

Stakeholder Groups

STUDENTS –International students between the ages of 13 to 25, response to how to improve their learning environment. 

Purpose: Annually monitor students’ educational needs from three developmental levels – Primary, Secondary and Tertiary (Post-Secondary).

TEACHERS – International teachers of students between the ages of 3 to 19, response to what they need to improve student performances.

Purpose: Annually gather data from Early—Childhood, Primary and Secondary teachers, on what they need to help improve their teaching skills.

PARENTS – International parents of children between the ages of 3 to 19, concern about how their child is being prepared for life.

Purpose: Annually evaluate what parents want to focus on in schools, towards improving their child’s social and emotional capabilities.

EDUCATORS – International educational leaders (Principals, Guidance Counselors, and School Administrators) experience with Government funding.

Purpose: Annually assesses where Governments are investing their educational funds.

TAXPAYERS – Non-student parents or Former student parents.

Purpose: Annually track the global view on education from non-parents around the world that are investing in education.

12 Topics

Better School Leadership– Understand the needs to operate a successful learning environment for students.

Purpose: Annual review of school leadership in communicating and providing support for principals and teacher’s. 

COMMENTS: NOBODY WANTS TO BE THE BOSS: There are concerns across countries that the role of principal as conceived for needs of the past is no longer appropriate. In many countries, principals have heavy workloads; many are reaching retirement and it is getting harder to replace them. Potential candidates often hesitate to apply, because of overburdened roles, insufficient preparation and training, limited career prospects and inadequate support and rewards.

OECD: Improving School Leadership

Better Teachers – Are Teachers motivating students to learn and want to better themselves.    

Purpose: Annual review of teacher’s impact in communities around the world.

COMMENTS: WORLD WIDE TEACHER SHORTAGE: The shortage lies in the distribution of teachers. There are not enough teachers who are both qualified and willing to teach in urban and rural schools, particularly in those serving low-income students or students of color. There is also a shortage in certain geographic regions of the country, and there are not enough qualified individuals in particular specialties, such as special education, bilingual education, and the sciences (Bradley, 1999; NASBE, 1998). Some also argue that it is not an insufficient production of qualified teacher candidates that causes staff shortage, as conventional analyses maintain, but rather the high rates of teacher turnover (Ingersoll, 2000).

Keeping Good Teachers, Edited by Marge Scherer

More Government Funding for Education – Government’s investment and support towards education.

Purpose: Annually monitor the impact nation’s government funds are having on education.

COMMENTS: GOVERNMENT EDUCATION FUNDING MODELS:  Most countries use one of three models to fund education, 1) mainly by central government, 2) mainly by regional government, and 3) mainly by regional government. Therefore, this has to be taken into account when considering the influences on the financing of schools; the initial source of finance, the levels of government involved (both in financing and the transfer of resources to schools) and who is finally responsible for financing of schools. All these factors may have a  bearing on the financial decisions made. The initial source of funds has been used as the main basis for the development of models, however, the levels of government involved and the way in which resources are transferred give rise to a number of (local) sub-models.

National Foundation for Educational Research

More Technology – Preparing students for the 21st century knowledge base global economy.    

Purpose: Annually review countries technology investment for their students. 

COMMENTS: MORE TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM MAY BE THE WRONG ANSWER: “Computers in the classroom are commonplace but teaching practices often look similar, as do student outcomes,” “Clearly, as we move forward, technology will be in the classroom in one form or another. It is unrealistic and irresponsible not to figure out how to use technology well. However, the promise of “personalized instruction” has fallen short, however

Noel Enyedy, associate professor of education and information studies at UCLA

More After-School Program– Programs and activities to engage students both academically and socially.              

Purpose: Annually track nation’s educational support towards building student social development.

COMMENTS: MEETING THE NEEDS OF ALL THREE MAJOR GROUPS: There were several similarities among the groups’ views of the afterschool enrichment programs. Teachers and parents stressed academic focus and structured and age-appropriate activities that were well supervised. Teachers and students wanted creative, enthusiastic approaches to learning new skills and more firm (but fair) discipline for disruptive participants. Parents and students valued teachers who had a genuine interest in students, and believed community safety was a major problem after sunset. Finally, all three groups wanted a safe environment; a wide variety of interesting activities; increased parental involvement in school; and programs that complemented the child-care and work schedules of older siblings and parents.

Office of Child Development

No Standardized Testing– Community attitude towards standardized test training. 

Purpose: Annually monitor students, teachers, parents, and educators support for standardized test training. 

COMMENTS: WHY WE NEED A GLOBAL STANDARDIZE TESTING SYSTEM: In an ideal scenario, the world will settle on an international testing regime that makes it possible to have national level debates – comparing Nigeria’s performance to Ghana’s as well as Malaysia’s – while embracing NGO’s concern for the youngest and most disadvantaged learners. For the time being, international organizations have constructed a vast system of statistics to measure mastery of complex concepts among students in Boston and Shanghai, while making do with crude metrics of enrollment and textbooks in rural Nigeria and the slums of Dhaka. Illiteracy remains a mostly silent epidemic, and it seems unlikely that we’ll fix it before we bother to measure it. It’s time for global standardized testing.

Justin Sandefur, Center for Global Development

More Parent Involvement in Schools– Measure Parents involvement in support of their child’s education.

Purpose: Annually evaluate the support schools want from their community’s parents.

COMMENTS: WHOSE MOMMY IS THAT? : A study from the NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development was conducted to investigate children’s academic and social development across first, third and fifth grade. The study examined within- and between-child associations among maternal- and teacher-reports of parent involvement and children’s standardized achievement scores, social skills, and problem behaviors. Findings suggest that within-child improvements in parent involvement predict declines in problem behaviors and improvements in social skills but do not predict changes in achievement. Between-child analyses demonstrated that children with highly involved parents had enhanced social functioning and fewer behavior problems. Similar patterns of findings emerged for teacher- and parent-reports of parent involvement.

National Center for Biotechnology Information

More Challenging Classwork – Countries educational curriculum meeting the challenge of their students learning abilities. 

Purpose: Annually assess students learning curve from the curriculum offered by their countries education system.

COMMENTS: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: To motivate students, connect abstract learning to concrete situations. One of the reasons learners get bored is that they do not see the practical applicability of what they learn in real life. Adopt the case-study method that has proven so effective for business, medical and law school students: apply abstract theories and concepts to a real-world scenario, using actual formulations to analyze and make sense of situations involving real people and real stakes. Take learning beyond the four walls of the classroom using news items, Face book updates or anything helpful, to allow students to connect to real issues.

Christine Osae, Author

Smaller Classrooms– The classroom-learning environment is not meeting the needs of the students or teacher. 

Purpose: Annually monitor students and teachers’ ability to learn and teach.

COMMENTS: SMALLER DOES MATTER FOR SOME: Smaller class sizes have a significant impact on boosting student achievement, according to new Australian research. More importantly, smaller class sizes in the first four years of school led to better student engagement, and less disruptive behaviour. This was especially true for students from low-income and minority communities.

David Zyngier

More Cultural Activities for the Classroom – Providing classroom culture inclusion environment.                

Purpose: Annually review the educational effects on cultures.

COMMENTS: CLASSROOM CULTURE: Teachers can show they value students’ lives and identities in a variety of ways. Some are small, like taking the time to learn the proper pronunciation of every student’s name or getting to know young people’s families. Others require more time and investment, like building curriculum around personal narratives or incorporating identity-based responses into the study of texts. At the community level, it is important to understand neighborhood demographics, strengths, concerns, conflicts and challenges. Like students themselves, these dynamics may change frequently.

Southern Poverty Law Center

More Community Involvement in School– The relationship between schools and community programs.

 Purpose: Annually evaluate the support schools want from their communities.

COMMENTS: IT TAKE A VILLAGE: This is not to say that community participation is something new in the education delivery, however.  It did not suddenly appear as panacea to solve complex problems related to education.  In fact, not all communities have played a passive role in children’s education.  For instance, Williams (1994) stresses that until the middle of the last century, responsibility for educating children rested with the community.  Although there still are places where communities organize themselves to operate schools for their children today, community participation in education hasn’t been fully recognized nor extended systematically to a wider practice. 

World Bank Group: Community Participation in Education

Safer Schools– Student’s safety to, from, and in school.

Purpose: Annually review the effects communities have in protecting their children as they develop academically and psychologically.

COMMENTS: TO, IN AND FROM SCHOOL: “More than one billion children around the world attend school. Many of these children enjoy their right to be taught in a safe and stimulating environment. For many others, however, schooling does not guarantee such opportunity. These girls and boys are exposed to bullying, sexual and gender-based violence, corporal punishment and other forms of violence… Many are also exposed to schoolyard fighting, gang violence, assault with weapons, and sexual and gender-based violence by their own peers. New manifestations of violence are also affecting children’s lives, notably the phenomenon of cyberbullying via mobile phones, computers, websites and social networking sites.’

UNESCO/ the Global Education 2030 Agenda