欧盟教育政策对中国教育政策的启示

近年来,欧盟教育政策呈现出了新趋势、新理念和新思路.从理论和实践两方面探讨、分析欧盟的教育和培训政策,将会给中国的教育和培训政策带来很多启示.     

Social justice jurisprudence of clinical education programme: A paradigm shift from legal education to justice education

The legal profession has remained relevant in bringing about positive transformation in society — with leaders, policymakers, and change makers around the world mostly possessing a background in the law. That said, the trust, and positive image, enjoyed by legal professionals continues on a declining path. Considered more glamorous, the legal profession has gone astray from the path of social justice. In this article, I argue that the negative perception of legal professionals is, in large part, because of the way legal professionals are taught and trained in law schools. I argue that legal teaching pedagogy in South Asia, and generally in developing countries, is a product of colonial structure. Even after the so-called decolonisation movement, law schools and universities, for example in South Asia, institutionalised a legal pedagogy unsuited to the epistemic actualities of their societies. A law student in South Asia was and continues to be taught the Western conception of what the law is and its relationship to justice. In a legal culture carrying the transplanted laws of the colonisers, the students of developing countries are meticulously trained in the technical skills of reasoning and interpretation by applying Eurocentric guidelines of positivist construction. In light of this, I propose a shift in legal education: to transform the existing legal education and pedagogy into ‘justice education’. I focus on the ancient principles — located in the Eastern legal philosophy — of empirical reasoning and the importance of the human nature of sociability in arriving at social justice. To combat the tendency of insulating law students from societal problems, I propose a social justice-driven legal pedagogy. I have also reflected on some practices that ‘are’ and highlighted other practices that ‘ought to be’. My thesis connotes that the legal profession has an innate role in building the capability of individuals who are deprived and excluded. In line with it, I present examples of scalable clinical legal education being practised specially by the Kathmandu School of Law that can create multidimensional legal professionalism.

     

Competency-based education: An alternative for criminal justice education?

Over the last several years, criminal justice education In the United States has increased dramatically. Much of this growth has been in response to the needs of an evolving criminal justice field. However, there is some concern among professionals that the criminal justice system needs to be impacted more directly, and that institutions of higher learning need to be impetus for this change. To complete this task, curricula in higher education programs need to become more relevant to the needs of the system, while not ignoring the student of the educational system. This article examines the use of competency-based education (CBE) as a model that will serve the criminal justice student of today and the criminal justice system of tomorrow.     

Ethics and legal education

ABSTRACT

This article explores how theatre, particularly forum theatre, may be used as a means of testing new legislation. This article documents a workshop involving a theatricalised bilingual Tribunal and uses this as a case study of how theatre may be used to explore the implications of new legislation in order to gain an understanding of its potential problems and weaknesses. The article concludes by exploring other ways in which theatre may be used to explore new legislation.     

Government and education news

Abstract

The issue of feedback to students on assessment has been identified by many law schools as an area of high priority. Feedback to students is a key component of quality assessment, student progression and the academic experience of students. However, provision of high quality feedback is also a workload factor for lecturers.

Kingston University and Nottingham Trent University both have identified assessment feedback as an action area in their respective Learning and Teaching Strategies. The learning and teaching co‐ordinators within the Law Schools of these two universities decided to collaborate on a survey of the feedback techniques and practices used.

This study was undertaken to explore strategies to sustain and strengthen the quality of feedback in the context of larger classes, increased student numbers and pressure on resources. The aim was to establish the range of feedback and practices used and to identify student and staff perceptions of existing assessment feedback practices. Using semi‐structured questionnaires, data was collected and analysed in terms of the extent to which assessment feedback was perceived as effective, the extent to which these findings were consistent with the literature and to make recommendations on how assessment feedback could be enhanced.

Findings showed that students clearly distinguished between different features of assessment feedback and evaluated these differently, that there was little consistency in the perceived experience of assessment feedback, and that feedback given often did not meet students’ expectations. Staff perceived that giving good feedback was important but that students seldom acted on feedback. Staff also reported that giving individual written feedback was their preferred method although this is one of the most time‐consuming methods. The conclusions of the study offered practical ways of improving the quality and effectiveness of assessment feedback by revisiting established assumptions about feedback and raising students’ awareness of the various sources, forms and functions of assessment feedback.

For staff, larger classes, increased student diversity and diminishing resources mean that staff will need to work smarter, with regard to providing effective assessment feedback, if there is to be a consistently better student experience of assessment feedback.     

Government and education news

Abstract

FOR EIGHT years Cornell's Legal Information Institute has offered online law courses to students at other US law schools. Using a paced asynchronous approach, with streaming audio linked to referenced Web materials, interactive problems, online discussion/ and a series of written exercises, the courses offer a successful model of how law schools can pool teaching resources and students to enrich curricula. This article reports on and explains the choices, challenges, student response, and educational outcomes of this ongoing experiment, organised around ten frequently asked questions. It also ventures some cautious conclusions about the near‐term prospects for distance learning in US legal education, noting both inhibiting forces, including importantly constraints imposed by accreditation rules, and recent grounds for optimism.