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The University of Southampton
Southampton Education School

Partnerships between schools and third parties in curricular delivery and their implications for the quality and equity of outsourced education Seminar

Time:
12:00 - 13:00
Date:
9 May 2023
Venue:
Online

Event details

This talk discusses the delivery of TESOL curricula in Hong Kong state schools in collaboration with third parties such as education businesses, and the impact of the practice on the quality and equity of outsourced education. It draws in part on findings from two government-funded projects that investigated the enactment of public-private partnerships in four polities (Hong Kong, Japan, Greece and Australia), involving policymaker interviews, document analysis, case studies and surveys. In Hong Kong where school-based management gives schools autonomy in fiscal and curricular management, the outsourced programmes’ quality varies as its monitoring is left to the discretion of the schools or service providers. While the extra funds allocated for outsourcing increased marginal students’ access to learning English, an indispensable capital for social mobility, the arrangements were not necessarily conducive to their active engagement or increased learning outcomes. The findings suggest that the designers and managers of education reforms mind the evolutionary nature of policy processes to raise their effectiveness.

Speaker information

Doctor Tae-Hee Choi , researches education policy processes and teacher change therein. She also conducts comparative education research and is currently leading two international projects (e.g., New Education Privatisation in English for Speakers of Other Languages). Dr Choi has made real-life impacts with her research, drawing on her professional experiences as a teacher, teacher educator and policy developer. For instance, she has provided policy advisory to 13 countries at the invitation of the local governments or international organisations (e.g., Asian Productivity Organisation; the British Council) on long-term education plans, reform management and teacher education. Dr Choi obtained her BA in English Language Education (Korea University & University of Melbourne, Australia), MA in Second Language Studies (University of Hawaii at Manoa, US), and PhD in Education (Kings College London, UK). She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK and of the East-West Center, US.

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