But tragically, studies show there is still a learning crisis …
The crisis in quality learning is evident
Source: USAID, 2015
Source: Global Partnership for Education. (2015)..
In the Pacific, only around 30 per cent of year six students are
performing at the expected level. Learning outcomes…are well below
regional averages Source: DFAT 2015 (p 55)
PILNA: in 2012, just three out of 10 pupils achieved basic literacy levels while
five out of 10 achieved basic numeracy levels. Source: http://www.spbea.org.fj/News-AndGallery/News-(1)/Pacific-Community-calls-for-more-attention-on-lite.aspx
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A complex, culturally situated activity (Barrett, Sayed, Schweisfurth, & Tikly, 2015)
 Occurs when new mental structures build upon existing
structures (Barrett & Long, 2012)
 An enduring process that ultimately enriches lives (Winthrop,

Anderson, & Cruzalegui, 2015)
Aim is to prepare an individual to take full control and
responsibility for their life and others. (Tefe, 2009)
Illeris
Winthrop

A Barrett
Defined as the process by which people acquire knowledge,
skills and attitudes (Illeris, 2009; Global Partnership for Education. 2015).
L K Barrett

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Tikly
learning is at the heart of the current debates about the post2015 education and development agenda … yet the
philosophical and methodological assumptions underlying
much of the current discourse, ... are rarely made explicit. (Source:
education and schooling are ‘obviously different concepts’ … the
(pre 2015) MDG was ‘universal primary education’ but the
achievement of this goal was defined as the completion of primary
Schweisfurth
Pritchett
... however, ‘learning’ received little attention from the
international development community …is ill-defined,
distanced from pedagogy and focused on questions relating to
the outcomes of learning –’(Source: Barrett, Sayed, Schweisfurth, Tikly. 2015 p. 231)
Sayed
Tikly 2015, p. 237)
school
(Pritchett, 2013)
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
A prominent constraint ... is the limited ability to generalize available
research… Similarly, research methods may vary greatly between one set
of studies and another ... overreliance on interpreting findings through a
prism of normally distributed data contains inherent biases …
About 5% of the world’s population resides in the United States, but nearly
95% of scientific publications on psychological development are based on
populations that are WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and
democratic) and living primarily in OECD countries (Wagner & Castillo, 2014 p 628/631)
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Castillo

Wagner
Which pedagogic practices, in which contexts and under what conditions,
most effectively support all students to learn at primary and secondary
levels in developing countries?
 Many of the terms and categories used to describe pedagogical theory
and practice are contested and subject to multiple interpretations and
uses ….
 Details of practices used are sometimes not given either, with
assumptions that they are already known
 theoretical approach (e.g., child-centred education, social
constructivism) … not clear (Westbrook et al., 2013, p. 69)
5
most effective interventions. (Evans & Popova, 2015)(p. 1).
despite a large and increasingly sophisticated literature, remarkably little is known
about the impact of education policies on student outcomes in developing countries
(Gewwe, Hanushek, Humpage, & Ravina, 2011)(p. 46)
There is a need to focus attention on the quality of data.
Winthrop, R., Anderson, K., & Cruzalegui,
I. (2015).
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77 Papers
McEwan
Evans
Popova
Glewwe

Hanushek

Systematic reviews may in fact fall far short of exhaustive coverage and – as a
result – reach varying and sometimes divergent conclusions..
the narrative review can incorporate the largest number of studies but requires
non-scientific tallying and weighting across studies,..
the meta-analysis may limit the included studies because of stringent
requirements on the data and it may fail to illuminate the mechanisms behind the
301 papers to get 227

> 9000 to get 79
papers
Improving learning in primary schools of developing countries: A meta-analysis of
randomized experiments. McEwan, P. J. (2014).
6
One of the factors that contributes to the unreliability of learning data in host
country projects is the reluctance of donor agencies to conduct impact studies
of their interventions on student learning (Gertler, Martinez, Premand, Rawlings, & Vermeersch, 2011;
But the causal attribution of an intervention to a
project outcome is a ‘wicked problem’ – one with multiple interpretations
due to the interactions of multiple variables. However, learning outcomes
are frequently ignored and not reported.
Office of Development Effectiveness, 2013).
USAID: Thirty three projects …$733 million … although raising education quality
was the main goal of nearly all projects reviewed, ‘relatively few
projects actually assessed the extent to which project activities led to
desired student learning outcomes and fewer yet were able to
demonstrate success in increasing student learning. (Chapman and Quijada , 2009)
Nigeria: 113 phone numbers but no student assessment data.
Ingawa, & Nasir, 2013),;
(Larcom,
Falola-Aaoemuah,
Indonesia: IDBEP: Detailed inputs, but no student test results. ‘The business of
schools is learning’. (Evans, 2012);
AIBEP : Aim is M&E and to set B.M.; 69 pages, 241 para, 3 tables, 54
figures, 1710 schools – no student assessment (AIBEP Managing Contractor, 2010)
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
Westbrook
Durrani
concerned that student scores on international
assessments of reading, math, and science were
‘appallingly low’ … They found that there was no
significant intervention that consistently increased student
achievement (Murnane and Ganimian:, 2014)
(
Murnane
teachers’ use of communicative strategies
encourages pedagogic practices that are interactive
in nature, and is more likely to impact on student learning
outcomes and hence be effective. … but … none of the
studies evaluated the impact of interventions/reforms
using control and treatment schools… guarded hesitancy in
being definitive about which communicative pedagogy will
promote learning. The report recommended further
research to provide more significant and generalizable
conclusions. Westbrook et al., 2013)
Ganimian

.
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J., & Stevenson, R. (2014). Teacher reform in Indonesia. The role of politics and evidence in policy making.

‘Isomorphic mimicry’: Uncritical transfer of what works in
one context to a different context (Pritchett, Woolcock, & Andrews, 2013)
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Chang
S., Al-Samarrai,

The mere fact of teacher certification and the consequent
doubling of teacher income have not achieved what was
expected: better teaching and better learning by those who
were paid double … and …
No significant differences were apparent between certified
and uncertified primary school teachers in terms of either
competencies (subject knowledge and pedagogical skills) or
student learning outcomes. Source: Chang, M. C., Shaeffer, S., Al-Samarrai, S., Ragatz, A. B., de Ree,
Woolcock

9

EFA III: We commit to quality education and to improving learning
outcomes, which requires strengthening inputs, processes and
evaluation of outcomes and mechanisms to measure progress Article 9
Incheon Declaration 2015…..

EFA III: We commit with a sense of urgency to a single, renewed
education agenda that is holistic, ambitious and aspirational, leaving
no one behind. This new vision is fully captured by the proposed SDG
4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” and its corresponding targets (Article 5
Incheon Declaration 2015)
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

To globally track learning outcomes, the Learning Metrics
Task Force was convened to develop recommendations for
measuring learning as an input into the post-2015
discussions (Winthrop, Anderson, & Cruzalegui, 2015)
The task force developed ‘‘A Global Framework of Learning
Domains’’ that proposes seven domains and more than 100
corresponding subdomains of learning outcomes.(LMTF -Learning
Metrics Task Force, 2013). Delores had 4: to know, to do, to live
together and with others, and to be. (Delors, 1998).

Quality Primary Education in the North Pacific was designed
to develop and trial new inputs in learning assessments,
teacher professional development, and data management to
improve quality in the primary education in the northern
Pacific Micronesian nations of RMI, the FSM, and to evaluate
student assessment system in Palau (Asian Development Bank, 2015)
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Tikly:
‘critical realist’ approach to
learning that leads to a theory to explain
‘what learning is and how it is inhibited
or facilitated for different individuals and
groups of learners in different contexts
in terms of causal mechanisms operating
at a number of interdependent levels
from the individual to the global’ (2015, p. 248).

Cheng in reviewing the Asian
perspective, suggests that
western learning standards at
international level may be ‘less
relevant to nations with
alternative governance systems
and education values’ (2015, p. 4)
In asking who are the current custodians of Pacific education, McCormick says
that it depends on recognizing confluences between contextually and
historically located, multi-level perspectives. Navigation of such political
dramas will continue to define custodianship within future educational
development discourses and policies (McCormick, 2014).
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

We are reminded by Thaman: Culturally democratic teaching and
learning are important not only for the sake of improved students’
learning outcomes but ultimately perhaps for the sake of peace in,
and sustainability of, Pacific societies and cultures. Source: Thaman, K. H. (2009).
This presentation provided my perspective on learning in schools
and I mentioned the term ‘conversation; in the title. I will be very
pleased to have a conversation on these topics which I raised in
my presentation:
◦ Do we have a learning crisis in Oceania?
◦ Is the LMTF framework Oceania friendly?
◦ Who are the custodians of Oceania learning?
THANK YOU
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