Learner-centred pedagogy in Tibet: international education reform in a local context - Stephen Carney

The paper explores the introduction in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of the new Chinese curriculum for basic education. In contrast to many previous initiatives since 1949 and present reform attempts to change not only what is taught, and by whom, but fundamental notions of how learning is best facilitated. The paper considers the connections between the reform and current directions in international education policy, and seeks to explore the ways in which the values inherent within this approach to teaching and learning relate to the practices that characterise Chinese/Tibetan classrooms. It is suggested that the meaning attributed to education at the local level shapes profoundly the types of cultural production that can emerge from it. International and national reform efforts must be and are always mediated through such understandings. In the case of Tibet, where often incompatible interests are at play, the impact of national level reform is unpredictable and uneven.
From: Comparative Education, Vol. 44 no. 1 (2008)