Fernando M. Reimers Editor Audacious Education Purposes How Governments Transform the Goals of Education Systems Audacious Education Purposes Fernando M. Reimers Editor Audacious Education Purposes How Governments Transform the Goals of Education Systems Editor Fernando M. Reimers Graduate School of Education Harvard University Cambridge, MA, USA ISBN 978-3-030-41881-6 ISBN 978-3-030-41882-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41882-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents 1 Thinking Multidimensionally About Ambitious Educational Change . 1 Fernando M. Reimers 2 Curriculum Reform in Brazil to Develop Skills for the Twenty-First Century �������������������������������������������������������������������� 47 Claudia Costin and Teresa Pontual 3 Curriculum and Teacher Education Reforms in Finland That Support the Development of Competences for the Twenty-First Century �������������������������������������������������������������������� 65 Jari Lavonen 4 Japanese Education Reform Towards Twenty-First Century Education . 81 Shinichi Yamanaka and Kan Hiroshi Suzuki 5 Education Truly Matters: Key Lessons from Mexico’s Educational Reform for Educating the Whole Child . 105 Elisa Bonilla-Rius 6 Peru: A Wholesale Reform Fueled by an Obsession with Learning and Equity . 153 Jaime Saavedra and Marcela Gutierrez 7 Reforming Education in Poland . 181 Jerzy Wiśniewski and Marta Zahorska 8 Curriculum and Educational Reforms in Portugal: An Analysis on Why and How Students’ Knowledge and Skills Improved . 209 Nuno Crato 9 From the “Best-in-the World” Soviet School to a Modern Globally Competitive School System . 233 Isak Froumin and Igor Remorenko v About the Contributors Elisa Bonilla-Rius (Mathematics BA, UNAM and MPhil, Cantab) was an official of the Mexican Ministry of Education, during two periods: as Director-General for educational materials (1993–2007), she coordinated the National Literacy Program, distributing millions of books to schools; as Director-General for curriculum devel- opment (2016–2018), she headed the new National Curriculum (0–3 and PreK–9). She was also Fundación-SM-México’s CEO (2007–2016) and Ediciones-SM- Mexico’s Chief Publishing Officer (2010–2016). In 2018–2019, she was selected Antonio Madero Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, where she wrote this chapter. She has written various academic and educational materials and opinion pieces. Claudia Costin is CEIPE’s General Director. She was, previously, the Director of Global Education at the World Bank. Prior to that, she was Municipal Secretary of Education in Rio de Janeiro from January 2009 to May 2014. Under her leadership, learning as measured by the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB) increased by 22%. Claudia was Vice President of the Victor Civita Foundation, an organisa- tion dedicated to improving the performance of public education in Brazil. Believing in the transformative power of education, she helped create the All for Education movement, where she also served as a Member of the Technical Committee. Her previous positions include Secretary of Culture of the State of São Paulo, Brazilian Minister of Administration and State Reform and President of Promon Intelligens, a company focused on e-learning. She has also worked to support various African countries in public policies and state modernisation initiatives. She presides over the Education Business Council of the Commercial Association of Rio de Janeiro, which, under her management, works to build a Priority Agenda for Education for the State of Rio de Janeiro. She is University Professor, having worked at PUC-SP, Getulio Vargas Foundation and INSPER, and Visiting Professor at the École Nationale d’Administration Publique, Québec, and Harvard University. She holds a Master’s in Economics from the School of Business Administration of São Paulo of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, where she was also a PhD candidate in Administration. vii viii About the Contributors Nuno Crato was Portuguese Minister of Education from 2011 to 2015. During his tenure, compulsory schooling was raised from 9th to 12th grade, mandatory English introduced starting at 3rd grade, dropout rates reduced from c. 25% to 13.7%, reten- tion rates improved, and Portuguese students achieved the best results ever in inter- national surveys PISA and TIMSS. A Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Lisbon and Visiting Researcher at the EC-JRC in Italy, he is an active science writer and educa- tional essayist. For his writings, he has received prizes from the European Mathematical Society and the European Commission. Isak Froumin is the Head of the Institute of Education at National Research University, Higher School of Economics (Moscow) – first graduate school of educa- tion in Russia. He started his career as School Principal. He worked in the World Bank and was an Advisor to the Ministry of Education of Russia. His key research interests are development of education systems in transitional economies, educational and life trajectories. Prof. Froumin is an Editor and Author of more than 270 publications including articles and books in Russian and English. Marcela Gutierrez has 7 years of experience designing, implementing and evalu- ating human development programs and large-scale research projects in diverse country contexts. She is currently a Research Analyst on the Education Global Practice of the World Bank. Prior to this, she supported the implementation of the STEP Skills Measurement Survey and worked as an Advisor to the Ministry of Social Development and Inclusion in Peru and as a Consultant for the Interamerican Development Bank, UNRWA and Innovations for Poverty Action. She holds a mas- ter’s degree in Public Administration and International Development from Harvard University and in Economics from Universidad de los Andes. Jari Lavonen is Professor of Science Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is Director of the National Teacher Education Forum and Chair of the Finnish Matriculation Examination Board. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg and an Honorary Chair Professor at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He has been researching science and technology and teacher education for the last 31 years and published 150 refereed scientific papers in journals and books, 140 other articles and 160 books for science teacher educa- tion and science education. He has been active in international consulting, for exam- ple, involving the renewal of teacher education in Norway, Peru and South Africa. Teresa Pontual is CEIPE’s Executive Manager. Previously, she was Director of Curriculum and Integral Education at the Secretariat of Basic Education of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, where she was a Member of the Managing Committee of the National Curricular Common Core. From 2013 until her arrival at the Ministry of Education, she was Undersecretary of Education at the Department About the Contributors ix of Education for the city of Salvador, where she led an educational reform that raised the city’s Basic Education Development Index from 4.0 to 4.7 in 3 years. Previously, she served as Project Manager at the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Secretariat of Education and Undersecretary of School Management and Teaching at the State Department of Education of Rio de Janeiro, where she implemented the Student Evaluation System (SAERJ). Teresa holds a master’s degree in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a Lemann Fellow and also holds a postgraduate degree in Business Management from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from