Challenge and change are two words that are commonly used to describe many
aspects of our life in the world in the early 21st century. We can expect more
challenges because of increasing globalization, information and communication
technologies and socio-economic development. Meeting these challenges
quickly points to the crucial need to enhance new perspectives on educational
leadership, policies, curriculum, contents and methods of teaching (Sarkar
Arani, 2004). The need to re-construct teaching, both within and outside the
school, is gaining increased attention among educational researchers,
policy-makers, administrators, practitioners, parents and media. Therefore
educational management in the recent past has heavily emphasized the
importance of re-thinking education for more effective teaching, enhanced
learning, higher student achievement, and civic and moral education.
In the latter decades of the 20th century, educational reform in many
countries emphasized the one-way and top-down relationship between
educational administrators and schools and teachers. It appeared to be a more
authority-oriented strategy for change and focused on educational policies,school management, and the content of teaching and curriculum as ideology.
However, it seems that in the early 21st century, it shifted to put more emphasis
on learning-oriented strategy for change and to focus on empowerment of
teachers and self-sustaining change in school. Consequently, teacher quality has
developed into a core innovation issue of school education in many countries.
This observation is based on the results of TIMSS (1999, 2003, 2007) and PISA
(2000, 2003, 2006) which emphasize what actually goes on in the classroom and
how the quality of teaching can be improved (Inprasitha et al., 2009; Steele and
Boudett, 2008; Sternberg, 2008; Johnson and Bonaiuto, 2008; Matoba, Krawford
and Sarkar Arani, 2006; Sato, 2006; Lewis et al., 2006; Matoba and Sarkar Arani,
2003; Stigler and Hiebert, 1999).