Change model in Quality Improvement in Education

Since the turn of the new century, there have been drastic impacts from economic globalization, advances in information technology, international market competitions, and rapidly increasing local social-political demands on nearly every country in the world. Facing up these impacts and challenges, numerous education reforms have been initiated in the Asia-Pacific Region and other places. According to Cheng, the world-wide education reforms are experiencing three waves since the 1970s. The three waves of reforms are mainly based on different changes and theories of education effectiveness, and they result in the employment of different strategies and approaches to changing schools and education.Assuming goals and objectives of education are clear and consensus to all, the first wave of school reforms and initiatives since the 1970s focuses mainly on internal effectiveness, with efforts made to improve internal school performance particularly the methods and processes of teaching and learning. Many changes are government-directed and top-down, with the aim to improve school arrangements and education practices, thus enhancing their effectiveness in achieving the goals and objectives planned at either the site level or the system level. Improvement of teacher and student performance up to identified standards obviously had been a popular and important target for educational reform.