Tamari Gabisonia

Education Borrowing

A Literature Review on the causes and stages of the Education

Borrowing
Or
Nature of Education Borrowing

Tamari Gabisonia
ITSF 4091
Professor Lesley Bartlett
Paper #1

March 5, 2007

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Education Borrowing

The education borrowing is a widespread phenomenon in the world today. Experts of

education reforms increasingly consider international perspective to be indispensable in

period of globalization (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). Education policy makers often look at

the successful experiences of other countries as the solution to the problems of education

deficiencies at home. However, they often fail to consider that the success of certain

policy in one country may not bring the same affect in the other; this mainly results from

overlooking the local context and ignoring social, political, economic or other important

aspects of the borrowing country. But what reasons stand behind the decisions on policy

borrowing and what stages in the borrowing process have been observed by the

researchers? In order to examine these specific issues, the paper will review the articles in

the field in an attempt to improve understanding of the politics and process of the

education borrowing.

However, before we look into the details of the questions that we have posed as

the main interest of this paper let‟s first briefly review the origins and the meaning of the

“education borrowing” itself.

According to the Phillips (1989), first interest towards the education borrowing

has been sparked by Marc-Antoine Jullien, when he developed a questionnaire and

attached it to his work Esquisse d’un auvrage sur l’education compare “with the express

intention of identifying good educational practice and aiding its transfer to other systems

(p.2)”. Since then, as Phillips claims, interest toward the practice has increased

enormously and still is very strong. However, the initial good intentions of Jullien have

not been always followed and in fact, more cases of abuse have been obvious than that of

the success in the practice of education borrowing.

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So, what is “education borrowing”? Phillips (2000) defines the term as “the most

obvious consequence of learning and understanding what is happening “elsewhere” in

education” (p.299). Also, later Ochs and Phillips give another definition for the term

where they state that “educational „borrowing‟ is one type of educational transfer, which

might be conceived within an continuum of educational transfer” (as cited in Ochs, 2006

p. 601).

Phillips and Och (2003) note that the term “borrowing” has often become the

subject of criticism and different alternatives have often been offered by researchers; the

words such as „importation‟, „transfer‟, „copying‟ and others have been used to describe

the same practice; however the term “borrowing” has been one of the most prevalent in

the research literature.

However, if we go back to Jullien‟s initial intentions we can state that education

borrowing is the process of finding effective educational practices in one country in order

to help support the improvement of education system in the other. With this particular

purpose in mind, policy makers in many countries have actively looked at the education

practices of different countries to borrow their best examples and transfer them to their

local contexts. These activities have been especially frequent and strong with the

increased force of globalization as education policy makers often look at this practice as

absolutely vital for improving education processes at home. As Spreen (2004) puts it “in

our current area of globalization, educational policy makers increasingly look to

international trends, ideas, and standards to underscore the urgency for dramatic school

change (p.102)”

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Education Borrowing
But how different can be the actual preconditions and motives behind the

decisions on policy borrowing. Let‟s look at what some researchers have explored in this

respect and this way move to the main question of this paper.

Among other researchers, Phillips and Oches (2003) have looked at the process of

education borrowing and examined the number of different forces that may trigger

education borrowing in different countries. In their article Process of Policy Borrowing

in Education: some explanatory and analytical devices the authors discuss number of

preconditions that may trigger the decision on education borrowing. “The context of

educational policy and provision in the „home‟ country (p.457)” is discussed as one the

preconditions for borrowing in this article. The authors claim that increasing

dissatisfaction of parents, teachers, students and inspectors in the quality of education can

become a serious trigger, also inadequacy of some aspects of educational provision that

can become obvious in comparison with other countries‟ achievements. One of the

examples that the authors discuss in this respect addresses the Sputnik shock in 1950s,

when US became very concerned about the pitfalls of the American education system in

comparison with the advances in the education system of the Soviet Union.

As other precondition for policy borrowing researchers discuss to be the new

political alliances, religious and social factors, economic changes and changes of

governments or political regimes. As an example for such preconditions authors discuss

the cases of Eastern Europe and post-Apartheid South Africa, where changes in the

political regimes have triggered major policy borrowing.

Among other contextual reasons, authors discuss negative external evaluations to

be the strong precondition for policy borrowing. According to them such negative

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evaluations can come from the reports of influential organizations, academics and

international tests, such as TIMSS, PISA and etc. As a specific example for such

precondition they discuss the case of Germany when OECD‟s PISA in 2001 revealed that

German students were performing much badly than it was expected and this caused major

concerns about the conditions of the German education system.

Few more triggers for education borrowing discussed in the article include local

and regional preconditions, innovations in knowledge and skills and also aftermath of

extreme upheaval. As an example of local preconditions, the authors point to the strong

tendencies that may be obvious in a country towards globalization and may trigger the

need for modernizing country‟s education system; for the regional preconditions,

researchers bring the example of the effects of the education and training policy of

European Union (EU) that can become major cause for policy borrowing and as for the

aftermath of extreme upheaval they mansion wars, national disasters.

In her later work Cross-national policy borrowing and educational innovation:

improving achievement in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Ochs (2006)

gives specific motives for policy borrowing. She states that “foreign example might only

be borrowed to influence policy discourse” (p. 601) and points to the four motives of

borrowing in the policy discourse. Number one reasons according to her serves to caution

educational reform; second one serves the glorification of the education system at home

while comparing to the pitfalls in the systems of other counties; the third motive is seen

as the purpose for legitimating the education reform to be implemented at home, and the

fourth motive is seen to serve the scandalizing education practices at home in order to

trigger changes.

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In her paper Appropriating Borrowed Policies: Outcomes Based Education in

South Africa, Spreen (2004) looks at the specific case of the post-Apartheid South Africa

and among other things examines those specific preconditions that resulted in education

borrowing in this country. In the case of the post-Apartheid South Africa Spreen sees

education borrowing as a response to the countries changing needs. The author states that

with major changes taking place, the country found itself in the need for transforming its

education “into an equitable, world class system (p.101)”. On the other hand, the author

also points to the fact that policy borrowing was used as a strategy for leveraging the

education change in the country by decision makers. However, she states that the

historical analysis of borrowing show that at the final process of borrowing, when

policies are being institutionalized, their origins need to be concealed in order to make

them politically viable.

Apart from this particular case of South Africa, Spreen also points to different

reasons that can become preconditions for policy borrowing. Similar to Phillips and

Oches (2003) who saw internal dissatisfaction and education inadequacy as reasons for

policy borrowing, Spreen also points to the problem solving as one of the preconditions

for policy borrowing. However, she also brings some other possible reasons for policy

borrowing, that have not been discussed by the above researchers, such as: conscious

selection, lessons learned from elsewhere, unavailability of internal references and as it

was the case in the South Africa – leverage for contested policy initiatives.

In general Spreen differentiates three phases or periods in the process of policy

borrowing. During the first period she sees policy actors to be outside of the policy

establishment, and refers to the process of borrowing as external transactions or external

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referencing. Spreen describes second period as to be the process of political manipulation

when contested reform is being legitimized. As for the third period the authors names it

to be the process of establishing internal ownership.

On the other hand Phillips and Oches (2003) differentiate four different stages in

the policy borrowing process. They name first stage to be the “cross national attraction:

impulses and externalizing potential”. In this stage they emphasize those different

impulses that we‟ve discussed above to be the preconditions in the first stage of the

policy borrowing. The claim that “these impulses for change can inspire the search for

foreign models which might solve existing or emerging or potential problems” (p. 453).

They name second stage to be “Decision” when government or other responsible

agencies make decision on the process of change. However, they differentiate different

types of decisions: such as theoretical, phoney, realistic/practical and the quick fix

decision; each used to describe the different conditions of decision making.

„Implementation‟ is named to be the third stage in the policy borrowing process

by Phillips and Oches and „Internalization/ Indigenization‟ as a fourth stage, under which

they imply the process when the policy becomes the part of the education system of the

borrowing country.

In the research paper Adopting the Language of the New Allies Silova (2004)

examines the specific conditions that triggered massive policy borrowing in the Eastern

European and former Soviet Union countries, where she claims that education borrowing

became one of the key strategies in the education reform process in these countries.

Silova states that the major trigger for policy borrowing in these countries was the

„regional precondition‟, pointed by Phillips and Ochs in the research article discussed

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above. Silova says that the strive for the integration in EU became major cause for policy

borrowing, as the urgent need to adjust the education systems of these countries to the

needs of the market economy was one of the preconditions for EU membership. Silova

claims that “driven by strong desire to join the Western alliances, policy makers have

made extensive references to Western educational concepts such as “democracy”,

“pluralism”, and “multiculturalism” (p. 75).

The case of policy borrowing that was preconditioned by the major political

changes in the country is examined by Streitwieser (2004) in his research paper Local

Reactions to Imposed Transfer: The case of Eastern Berlin Secondary School Teachers.

The author describes here how the fall of the Berlin Wall brought major changes to

former East Germany (German Democratic Republic GDR) and how big share of these

changes covered the education system of this country. As author claims, this was the

case when education transfer was triggered by the specific local needs, namely the need

for unification of East and West Germany. Streitwieser states that “as a part of the

country‟s reunification process, the new government directly transferred the West

German… educational system into former East German Schools, dramatically changing

the way teachers in those schools went about their jobs” (p. 114).

Educational borrowing triggered by the negatives results shown by the

international test scores and research of major scholars is discussed by Oches (2006). In

her work she shows how TIMSS test results caused major concern about educational

level and “helped to „scandalize‟ education in Britain at the national level” (p. 603). Ochs

claims that one motive for borrowing in this case was improving educational achievement

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of students and the second one was “to compete, and be competitive within Europe” (p.

603), precondition for both motives being the international TIMSS test.

The reviewed works have undoubtedly contributed to our knowledge of those

different preconditions that may trigger education borrowing in different countries, both

in developed as well as developing. In addition, we have been able to get brief overview

of the stages in the borrowing process as well. However,

only limited number of research work has been focused specifically on the preconditions

or triggers of the education borrowing.

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References

Ochs, K. (2006). Cross-national policy borrowing and educational innovation: improving

achievement in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Oxford

Review of Education., 32(5), 599-618.

Philips, D. (1989). Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be? The problems of Cross-National

Attraction in Education. Comparative Education, 25 (3), 267-274.

Phillips, D. (2000). Learning from elsewhere in education: some perennial problems

revisited with reference to British interest in Germany. Comparative

Education, 36(3), 297-307.

Phillips, D. & Ochs, K. (2003). Processes of policy borrowing in education: Some

explanatory and analytical devices. Comparative Education, 39(4), 451-461.

Silova, I. (2004). Adopting the Language of the New Allies. In G. Stiener-Khamsi (Ed.),

The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. (pp. 75-87). New

York: Teachers College Press.

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Education Borrowing
Spreen, C.A. (2004). Appropriating borrowed policies: Outcomes-based education in

South Africa. In G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.), The Global Politics of Educational

Borrowing and Lending. (pp. 101-133). New York: Teachers College Press.

Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2004). Globalization in Education: Real or imagined? In G. Steiner-

Khamsi (Ed.), The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending.

(pp. 1-6). New York: Teachers College Press.

Streitwieser, B.T. (2004) Local Reactions to Imposed Transfer: The Case of Eastern

Berlin Secondary School Teachers. In G. Steiner-Khamsi (Ed.), The Global

Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. (pp. 114- 128). New York:

Teachers College Press.

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