Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

The same sentence or long phrase was coded more than once when it referred
to more than one sub-category. In the example above, Article 1 ‘Education
must be provided with the aim of fully developing the individual character, as
we endeavour to cultivate a people that is sound in mind and body and imbued
with the qualities that are necessary in the people who make up a peaceful and
democratic nation and society’ was coded also in the sub-categories 3c) mental,
emotional health; psychological health, 6a) peace, peaceful, and 4e) democracy/
democratic rule; democratic values/principles. On average, researchers reported
spending 4 to 200 hours coding per document. The sizeable range can be
attributed to length and type of documents coded, and overall understanding
of researchers. Coding English-language documents was reported to take twice
as long, but that can also be due to the fact that English translations were only
available for the more significant policy and curricular documents which tended
to be larger in size.
4. DATASET
The dataset consisted of:
• Education laws: The binding regulations/frameworks pertaining to education
that all federal and state bodies must adhere to.
• Strategic plans/ education policies: Strategy-based documents that mainly
focus on the broader aspects of the national education system, including
issues pertaining to access, retention, enrolment, gender parity, quality of
teaching, school facilities, education sector structures/ bodies, and costs
and financing.
• National curriculum frameworks (NCFs): A general plan or set of standards,
outlining what is important in a country’s national education system. ‘Each
includes an overview of learning content and learning outcomes, which shape
subject curricula and school syllabi. NCFs are generally prepared by the
Ministry of Education, often in consultation with a variety of stakeholders,
including national and international education experts, teachers, students
and parents. NCFs may cover both primary and lower secondary education
(broadly termed “basic” education) but it is equally likely that primary and
secondary are separated. Some NCFs provide a clear and comprehensive
plan or outline of subject and learning content, while others give a much
more general outline and discuss learning content and outcomes in
somewhat theoretical terms.’ (UNESCO, 2016a, p. 10).
• Curricula of core subjects: The guidelines for the academic content to be
covered, which, other than knowledge, skills, and competencies, also include
teaching methods, lessons, assignments, exercises, activities, projects,
study material, tutorials, presentations, assessments, test series, learning
objectives, and so on. In the absence of curricula, syllabi were examined
which provide a general overview of all the topics and units to be covered
(often the terms ‘curriculum’ and ‘syllabus’ were used interchangeably, and
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Appendices