Editorial: Competition or Collaboration

Abstract

In many minds, competition and collaboration are uneasy bedfellows. While competition on the sports field may be regarded as healthy, and rivalry in the classroom an acceptable spur to progress, for some children, when competition is writ large and occurs between schools, educational research groups or tertiary institutions, it seems to be much more problematic. In a recent Fulbright Newsletter (August, 1998), Helen Ladd, Professor of Public Policy at Duke University, observes that in New Zealand, "the introduction of parental choice ... led schools to compete for students, and this competition between schools is happening on a more dramatic scale than in other countries." She also observed that reforms like those under Tomorrow's Schools "create prominent losers" [emphasis added].Therein may lie the key. If there are such losers (unpopular schools having to close down, through dropping rolls; tertiary institution faculties being decimated because of fickle student demand) they are painfully exposed and publicly vulnerable