School effectiveness and improvement in Asia: Three waves, nine trends and challenges

In the past three decades, there have been numerous initiatives for school effectiveness and improvement in many countries and areas of Asia. These initiatives were in response to the influences and needs of social, economic, and political developments in fast-changing regional and global environments. Given the increasing interactions between Asia and its counterparts such as North America, Australia, and Europe in the past decades, the review and analysis of the development and effect of these efforts at the country and the regional levels in Asia may be in a larger international context of educational reforms in different parts of the world. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the development of initiatives for school effectiveness and improvement in Asia. It also aims to show how the development has experienced three waves of educational reforms with contrastingly different paradigms in policy formulation and practical implementation. Furthermore, this chapter reviews the nine trends and related challenges of initiatives for changing school education and draws implications for research, policy, and practice in school effectiveness and improvement. Copyright © 2007 Springer.