Reforming Education in Developing Economies of the World: Major Issues of Educational Reform in China and Russian Federation

Abstract

Reforming education has been a major challenge for the politicians, academicians and business world in many countries as well as many national and international organizations especially in the last two decades of the 20th century. The trends in education have changed since 1980s with globalization, neo-conservative political views, education as a source for human capital for market economy development especially in the developed western countries whereas the former socialist countries started experiencing a chaotic situation followed by systematic changes to adapt themselves to the global trends and to find a seat in the future of newly shaping world. Countries like China and Russian Federation, which are estimated to be the important counterparts of the USA and EU in the future polarized world, have been experiencing radical socio-economic reform processes to secure their seats in the new world order. The reforms in the field of education have been among the hottest issues with regard to the economic burdens of reforms and the change of the national, traditional values during the change processes. This paper aimed at analyzing the major issues on the agenda of the educational reform in China and Russian federation in the last decades with special focus on administration and finance of education systems, by reviewing major articles, journals, policy documents and reports published by the scholars, governmental, non-governmental, national and international organizations. The findings of the paper pointed out that the political and economic backgrounds of these countries were similar but the ways they followed for reforming education were quite different because political and economic situations affecting education systems. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved