TUTOR’S COMMENTS
Strengths in relation to the MA Assessment Elements
This assignment contains some good material. The title is appropriate for the EIC unit, and in much of the content you write fluently. You have demonstrated familiarity with a range of literature sources, and it is good to see where you have related discussion of sources to your own experience from the professional context.
Areas for improvement in relation to the MA Assessment Elements
It’s a pity that you didn’t make better use of the word allowance of 4,500 – 5,500 words; if the assignment had included an additional thousand words or so you might have been able to develop astronger argument. Do make sure that all future assignment are at least 4,500 words in length – and preferably closer to 5,000.
The main area for potential improvement relates to the absence of a clear view running through the assignment as to what exactly you believe is meant by the concept of international education – which then creates problems with being clear enough as to what is meant (as in the title) by the promotion of international education. Though in various places you describe factors that you perceive as being elements of international education, it isn’t always clear where these come from (in terms of being able to cite evidence in the form of published sources), and they aren’t always consistent throughout the assignment. This links to your reference in different places to, eg, global education, intercultural understanding and other related terms but without discussing (with supporting argument/sources) how they relate to ‘international education’ (or, indeed, to the concept of an international school). In general, whenever new terms/concepts are introduced you ought to demonstrate your understanding of their meaning by explaining it and referring to a source for support. I’m thinking, for instance, of globalisation – but that there are other examples too.
I found your choice of literature sources puzzling in places. Some of them are clearly relevant to this unit and to your chosen topic, but drawing on Ordanovska (or is it Oleksendra?) et al (writing about STEM education – in universities?) and Rezaei et al (writing about medical sciences education in universities), when your assignment was supposedly writing about international education in national schools, is difficult to understand. It is also difficult to understand some of the ideas you’ve cited from sources but haven’t explained, or shown that you’ve understood, such as Oleksendra (Ordanovska?) et al’s suggestion that it tends to be expensive to teach high quality international education in STEM subjects because of the materials and technology needed. The reader here is left wondering what sort of materials and technology (over and above what would be needed for teaching STEM subjects anyway) would be needed for including a focus on international education.
The assignment title refers to national education systems, which you have equated with a particular ‘type’ of education in national systems: education for the underprivileged, in poorly resourced schools – with all the challenges that brings. It might have made sense to modify the title to make clear that would be your focus, since the promotion of international education in other parts of national education systems might not raise the same issues (though possibly would raise others).
The assignment would have benefitted from much more careful proof-reading prior to submission. In some places ‘sentences’ don’t make sense (because, perhaps, of missing words); there are citations in the text that are missing from the list of references, and some of the entries in the references list are missing details (eg Goncalves). Do remember too that if a source has more than one author, it is important when citing it in the body of the text either to name all the authors, or (and usually if there are three or more authors) to use the first author’s name, followed by ‘et al’. This has happened in some places, but not others. And when including an author’s name and year of publication in the text, the opening bracket should appear before (and not after) the author’s name. Generally, too, it’s preferable not to ask rhetorical questions (that are left unanswered).
A related point is that, in checking your writing, you might think more carefully about the wording used throughout and whether it is always sufficiently clear in making the intended points. It looks odd, for instance, to suggest that the International School of Geneva and the UWCs are ‘based largely in the English-speaking world’ when Geneva is in Switzerland, and the 18 UWCs are based all over the world (see uwc.org), with most of them not being in first language English-speaking countries.
Other comments
There is some good material in this assignment. With some more work, taking into account the points above, it could become a Masters level piece of work.
With respect to the issues you raise in relation to the Education in an International Context unit in particular, I wonder if you might find the attached list of publications helpful – in addition to the recommended reading list that was provided with the online materials for the unit? In relation to the points you made, we do of course live in very difficult times, and it would be fine to comment on these points in what you write in an assignment; we encourage students, in their assignment writing, to draw on their professional experience as well as on academic literature – and just at the moment, world events may also be relevant to discussion relating to international education and its aims.