Iranian Journal of Comparative Education
Volume:7 Issue: 4, Autumn 2024

This research was conducted with the aim of comparative study of the strategies and challenges of the selected countries in facing the overloaded curriculum in the primary school. The comparative research method is of a qualitative type based on the Bereday approach and the selection of countries was based on the strategy of "different social systems, different educational outcomes ". The method of data collection was documentary searching the Ministry of Education websites, reliable databases and international reports. The findings indicated that similar strategies in both selected countries were in terms of expanding the content, adopting an integrated and interdisciplinary approach, and in terms of content overload, content rearrangement in the areas of learning, clarity and simplification of early childhood documents and programs. Australia's strategy is to use key concepts and big ideas, reduce the scope of content, experimental implementation and interactive curriculum, and Ireland's strategy is spiral approach and self-evaluation of schools. Similar challenges in the content expansion dimension, adding new topics to the demand of influential groups, and in the content overload dimension, content and documents are repetitive and voluminous, and different challenges are the lack of vertical communication and the difficulty in prioritizing content at the local level in Ireland. Finally, suggestions were presented for Iranian curriculum planners, the most important of which is to use an interdisciplinary approach to include new content in available subjects and to identify and remove unnecessary repetitions of content between subjects and grades.

The aim of current research is to compare the Iran's educational upstream documents and international documents in order to identify the components of teachers ranking and explanation of its effective mechanism in the formulating stage of teacher ranking system in Iran. In this comparative study, documentary method with Bereday approach has been used for collection and analysis of data respectively. Research findings revealed that the similarities of documents have been in three components of "goals", "policies" and "strategies". In addition, their differences have been in four components of "principles and values", "career path structure", "scope of action" as well as "prediction of possible challenges"; which "prediction of possible challenges" have not been seen in the upstream documents of Iran's educational system. In order to enhance effectiveness of Iran's teacher ranking mechanism, it is suggested that the goals, policies and strategies of this system should be clearly and precisely determined with regard to the real needs of the society and its common cultural values - through consensus and creating common understanding and values. Also, considering the professional nature of the duties of school administrators, defining a different career path structure from teachers gives legitimacy to this issue. In addition, in order to predict the expected consequences and results related to the goals, it seems necessary to generalize the scope of inclusion and review the definition of school and teacher in the upstream documents of the Iranian educational system.

Setting standards has long been emphasized to ensure quality in online education both internationally and locally. As a result, comparing e-learning standards from different regions may contribute to developing regional and international guidelines. This comparative study employed quantitative content analysis to review the existing standards manuals across six regions, namely Africa, America, East Asia, West Asia, Europe, and Oceania, to develop a comprehensive set of e-learning standards and highlight the possible commonalities and disparities. Firstly, the selected standards manuals were carefully reviewed, and the main categories were determined using the content analysis method, yielding 103 standard items with 204 references, grouped into six standard categories including 1) course design and structure, 2) student support and administration, 3) materials and presentation, 4) learning tasks and activities, 5) assessment and feedback, and 6) media and technology Use. Moreover, the results of the quantitative phase indicated a general consensus as to the importance of providing accessible course materials and regular learner-instructor interaction. In contrast, when it came to student support and administration and technology use and material presentation, significant differences were observed between and among the regions. The findings bear practical implications for policymakers, educators, and practitioners on both regional and global scales.

Policy-makers in every society refer to fundamental documents as road maps to education reforms. Therefore, examining the quality of such documents has been among the favorite topics for educational researchers. This comparative study was conducted to investigate to what extent the competencies incorporated in Iran Fundamental Reform Document of Education (FRDE) aligns with those formulated in the P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning. To achieve the intended objective, first a code-subcodes-segments model was designed based on the P21 framework. Then, the content of FRDE was analyzed for extracting the relevant codes, using MAXQDA software. The results of the content analysis indicated that out of 16 competencies (8 skills and 8 literacies), 2 skills (critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and flexibility and adaptability skills) and 3 literacies (global awareness literacy, civic literacy, and information literacy) have been totally neglected in FRDE. Further analyses revealed that the references made to other competencies in FRDE were not considerable. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the competencies required for life in 21st century received scant attention in the current version of the document. It is recommended that the 21st century skills and literacies be incorporated more adequately in later amendments or revisions of the document.

This study aimed to determine and compare the extent to which argumentation-driven inquiry skills are incorporated into the chemistry sections of second-stage primary science textbooks in Iran and Malaysia. By analyzing science textbooks, the research evaluates the extent and significance of these skills using the Shannon entropy method. Results indicate that the amount of mean entropy weight in the chemistry section of Iranian science textbooks is higher than in Malaysia. However, the number of skills used in the content of the Malaysian book is very high and it has been more suitable than Iran. It was found that the chemistry section of Malaysian science textbooks has used inquiry skills in a better way than Iran. It is recommended that Malaysian science textbooks be revised to ensure that inquiry skills are properly incorporated into the textbooks. It is also necessary to include the correct and balanced number of all inquiry skills in Iranian science textbooks.

This research aims to explore the methods and approaches to selecting and preparing educational leaders in schools of Britain, France, Singapore and USA to provide recommendations for educational management policymakers. The method of this research is qualitatively comparative, and the countries were selected using a purposeful sampling method based on criteria such as superior education systems and educational leadership preparation programs. The findings indicate that the methods and approaches to selecting and preparing educational leaders in the selected countries share similarities in two areas: Preparation of educational leaders through pre-service training programs and the requirement of obtaining a professional qualification certificate. Additionally, the findings reveal discrepancies among the selected countries. For instance, while obtaining a professional school management qualification is essential for appointments in all selected countries, this requirement is not mandatory in primary schools in France. Another finding of the research indicates that in the Britain and USA, the selection and appointment process is the responsibility of the school board, while in Singapore and France, this process is carried out by the regional education council. Based on the findings, it is recommended that policymaking institutions in the educational management systems of developing countries redefine the selection, preparation, and appointment of educational leaders and design a pre-service training program.