LCT in Developing, Lower and Middle Income and Developed Countries

Abstract

LCT has been a recurrent theme in many national educational policies in the global South and has had wide donor support through aid programs and smaller projects and localized innovations. However, the history of the implementation of LCT in different contexts is riddled with stories of failures, grand and small. This article provides an overview of the four major topics-context of LCT, LCT in lower and middle-income countries, LCT in the developing and LCT in the developed countries. The major aim of the article is to explore the status of LCT in underdeveloped, to develop and developed countries. For this purpose, I searched scholarly and online databases (Google Scholar, JStor, Proquest) that focus on LCT and related policies, trends, and issues in various countries. I used search terms associated with the various LCT topics in lower and middleincome countries, LCT in developing countries, and LCT in the developed countries. LCT is a traveling policy that has been endorsed by international agencies, national governments, and local innovators. As a globally traveling policy and practice, prescriptions and innovations regarding LCT are often found in contexts where it is culturally new and where the realities of educational governance and resources for schools have not historically accommodated it. Though there are several successful LCT projects, these are too few compared to the magnitude of the failures of the approach in developing countries. In a number of these countries, attempts at transforming traditional classrooms into LCT classrooms have failed. In a recent analysis of the research on LCT implementation, it was evident that the history of the implementation of LCT in different contexts is riddled with stories of failures, grand and small. Across a wide range of developing country contexts, the reports of tissue rejection as teachers and learners struggle to make the paradigm shift far outnumbered the stories of successful transitions from the pedagogies in place towards LCT.