Reforms in the governance of higher education institutions in Kazakhstan to foster higher quality higher education systems, granting greater institutional autonomy, provide an opportunity to study the implementation challenges in moving from centralised systems controlled by Ministries to ones where institutions can pursue their destinies. This case suggests that moving towards a more autonomous system comes at a cost. Being free to set institutional strategies brings the possibility of making mistakes, something many leaders who have been trained in a compliance-based system find daunting. Further, if leaders have never operated in a more market-based system, their ability to scan the environment to determine and launch new initiatives can be a challenge. Such pressures can result in institutions reverting to compliance-based models which signal to the larger society that they are being responsible and faithful to prior norms of behaviour. In contrast, autonomy requires different systems of accountability.

In 2002, Hong Kong embarked on a carefully planned and ambitious ten-year reform of its primary, secondary and tertiary education. The central aim was to promote whole person development of students and a disposition towards lifelong learning to meet the needs of life and work in the twenty-first century. Changes in curriculum, assessment, pedagogy and far-ranging structural changes were introduced. Most significant is the introduction of the Hong Kong Diploma in Secondary Education (HKDSE), for all students, replacing the old British system of examinations at 16+ and 18+. The reforms have increased access of students to senior secondary studies whilst maintaining or improving standards of achievement. These reforms required thorough, on-going coordination, evaluation and renewal. Government expenditure increased and support for the recruitment and training of teachers and school leaders has been important. Hong Kong demonstrated that it is possible to introduce a more broad, balanced and coherent curriculum and assessment system whilst preserving or enhancing excellence.

This article explores the setting up of Independent Schools in Qatar as part of the response to the Education for a New Era (EFNE) reforms that were designed to focus upon improving the quality of education and equipping young people with the skills needed to participate in a knowledge-based economy. RAND had undertaken an assessment which identified the key factors to develop autonomy, accountability, variety and choice. The initiative was evaluated as not having met its goals and this chapter explores the factors that played a part in the successes and challenges, alongside giving an historical account of Qatar’s education system and its development. There is also discussion of the Empowering Leaders of Learning programme.

This chapter examines six externally developed ‘Instructional Improvement Programmes’ in the United States which have been subjects of a sustained programme of intervention studies. All six programmes sought to change instructional practice in both English Language Arts and mathematics and were adopted by schools both as a result of government incentives and normal ‘market’ processes. All six were externally evaluated by carefully measuring patterns of instructional practice and student achievement in order to assess the extent to which the programmes succeeded in changing teaching and improving student learning. Some programmes changed teaching and improved student learning, some changed teaching but did not improve student learning and some programmes did not change teaching or improve student learning. One proposition drawn from these evaluations is that successful external programmes of instructional improvement have well-specified designs for instruction and provide strong pressures and supports to encourage faithful implementation of these instructional designs in classrooms.

In 2011, Kazakhstan began the wholesale reform of the educational system, that is, the curriculum, assessment, teacher development, language policy, funding mechanisms, leadership, teacher appraisal and teacher working conditions. Innovative methods of implementation were used including the use of new networks of schools. The authors were partners to the establishment of the schools of innovation (NIS), which were the experimental sites that served as models for the later translation to the whole school system that completed in 2020. Since 2016, the authors, with a team from Nazarbayev University, have systematically researched the attitudes and perceptions towards the implementation of the new curriculum so as to gain insight into the challenges on the ground and to learn about implementing such a radical transformation in mainstream schools. The case study explores the model of change, its implementation and the different perspectives of the teachers and school leaders, parents, local leaders of education, school students and the national stakeholders and policymakers.

Conventional measures such as PISA judge the Vietnamese school system to have high levels of pupil performance and attainment. This chapter explores the interesting features that might account for the success rate in tests. The research explores the perspectives of parents, local business owners and teacher trainers. Key areas to emerge were policy, accountability, teaching, leadership and school community partnership.

This concluding chapter looks across the eight country case studies of implementation of education reform. It sets out to analyse the patterns, commonalities and differences in the reforms. It does so under headings which are seen as the key factors: the importance of context; timescales; the key role of communication; models of implementation; the role played by internal and external actors and stakeholders. Finally, there is a cross case analysis of the practicalities and truisms that are often overlooked in the rush to govern or manage a system to respond to a political imperative. These are described as reality checks, reminders that educational changes involve real people with direct and indirect interests in what they do in their working and learning lives, people with a deep understanding of their environment and thousands of hours engaged in learning, years of professional experience and stores of practice knowledge. These obvious and readily observable lessons are often overlooked and could be of use to designers, policymakers and deliverers of educational reform.

There is constant pressure on governments and policymakers globally to raise the standard of education and to develop the appropriate curriculum and pedagogies to enable students to fit the world they will enter post-school; there are also international comparisons. There is a body of scholarship in the leadership field on change and reform, largely focused on the processes and ways of working. The policy and academic world have also focused on these matters, largely in the form of theoretical discussions or critical debates about issues of transnational work, school effectiveness or school improvement. There has been less focus on the implementation of reform or change. This chapter synthesises the literature on implementation in the fields of public policy and education and reviews existing thinking and scholarship on reform and implementation. The authors identify the common understandings, different approaches and gaps in the field, thus providing a rationale for the book and for the choice of case studies.

Singapore is an improbable success story in the design and implementation of education reforms that transformed a small, resource starved port into a nation, indispensable to first the region, then globally. This chapter illustrates policy formulation and implementation challenges in unifying a school system that had been segmented by media of instruction to aid rapid and transformative industrialisation. It refers to the successes in enhancing access to education and the difficulties posed by hasty and poorly implemented policy of school bilingualism and documents how these were overcome. This globally oriented system embraced choice, competition and branding and changed curricular and pedagogic frameworks, enhanced TVET, re-positioned the universities and upgraded teacher education. While this has underpinned a system which ranks highly in all international comparisons of educational quality, the policies and practices are not a package or simple formula for others to embrace, they are a product of time and place and are likely to change as Singapore looks to the future.

This chapter explores the issue of the development of systems of education and whether it is possible to develop education systems that are both excellent and equitable, since many reform programmes result in increased inequality. Mel Ainscow was centrally involved in the Challenge programme. The first, The London Challenge (1997–2010), raised pupil attainment and in an equitable manner. It was seen as highly successfull. This chapter explores the whole Challenge programme, including Manchester and Wales, and the cultural, political and social factors seen as contributing to success, as well as the limitations. Ainscow argues against an emerging model of ‘what works’ in the implementation of policy and change of educational systems. He concludes by saying that successful change requires the coming together of different perspectives and experiences in a process of social learning and knowledge creation within particular settings.