Global education reform: Trends, learning community and research

In response to the challenges of globalization, technology advancement, international competition, and local development, there have been numerous education reforms initiated in different parts of the world. This keynote speech aims to illustrate the major trends of global reforms in both school education and higher education in these two decades. As no simple formula of practice available to overcome the key obstacles and syndromes in systemic changes of education, the speech highlights how key actors, researchers, change agents and other stakeholders should work together as a learning community to learn, implement and achieve the reforms successfully. In particular, the fundamental changes in policy concerns, the paradigm shifts in global education reforms and their implications for learning community and future research are discussed. Various types of local, regional and global research networks (such as AIAER, WERA) are expected to play a key role in supporting the learning communities of key actors and change agents in global education reforms. Higher order research with sophisticated methodologies is strongly required for effective policy development, practical implementation and theory building in education reforms locally and internationally.