Editorial

Citation

Roberts, B. (2012), "Editorial", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 26 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem.2012.06026aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Educational Management, Volume 26, Issue 1

Welcome to the first issue of 2012 in which there are six varied international papers by authors from the UK, Pakistan, USA, Oman, Malaysia and India and in fact there is a strong Middle east/Far east flavour to this issue.

The first paper is from Saddia Tayyaba who is currently working at the University of Oxford and who writes on rural-urban gaps in academic achievement in Pakistan. The evidence on this topic from developing countries is sparse and this study appears to be the first attempt to report these disparities in academic achievement. The results show that rural and urban students had comparable levels of achievement in some of the tested areas. Teachers’ training seemed to be a decisive factor in determining students’ achievement, whereas academic resources availability and multi grade teaching was less important.

The next is by Shakeel Sarwar, Hassan Danyal Aslam and Muhammad Imran Rasheed from the Islamic University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan, who contribute a paper on factors which hinder teachers’ high performance in higher education. The authors state that this exploratory study looks at HE teachers’ early careers in respect of high performance, in particular, at the obstacles they face. A total of 11 factors were identified as hindering teachers’ performance.

Alan Cheung of John Hopkins’ University in Baltimore and Ping Man Wong of The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong write on the factors influencing curriculum reform in Hong Kong following a large scale survey study. This is the third in a series of papers on Hong Kong reform. Following a government push through a document called “Learning to Learn – the way forward in curriculum development in 2000”. The study examines the effectiveness of short-term curriculum development in schools, tracks its progress, makes suggestions for supporting schools in curriculum reform and provides information for medium term strategies.

Ali Khanis Ali of the University of Nizwa, Oman, contributes a paper on the academic staff’s perception of the HE learning organisation’s characteristics. The paper concentrates on the characteristics as applied to the International Islamic University, Malaysia. The results showed, amongst others, that there were positive and significant relationships between the dimensions of the learning organisation and satisfaction with the performance activities in teaching and research.

Coincidentally, the fifth paper represents Malaysia and the quest for strategic leaders in Primary schools. In this work Hairuddin bin Mohd Ali of the International Islamic University in Malaysia, investigates the nine point strategic leadership of Malaysian Quality National Primary School Leaders (QNPSL). The results show that the Malaysian QNPSL do not possess three of the nine predetermined characteristics of a strategic leader (wisdom, strategic intervention point and strategic competence).

The last paper from Vidyashankar Gourishankar and Prakash Sai Lokachari of the Indian Institute of technology, Madras, is on the benchmarking of the educational development efficiencies of the Indian States. The study establishes that different Indian States are at different levels of achieving the educational development and “education for all” goals. The government provides funding and it is up to the states to implement successful programmes. The educational development efficiency model proposed in the paper can assist in the planning for states and also in helping school administrative heads to focus on resources which impact on schools’ enrolment and academic performance.

Brian Roberts