global panaceas, local realities: international agencies and the future of education
Post on 25-Aug-2016
213 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
BOOK REVIEW
Global panaceas, local realities: International agenciesand the future of education
By Jason Beech. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2011, 279 pp. Comparative Studiesseries, vol. 22. ISBN 978-3-631-59477-3 (hbk)
Helen Abadzi
Published online: 18 February 2012
� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
This book, which is based on a doctoral dissertation from the University of London’s
Institute of Education, focuses on the influence of various international institutions on
the educational systems of various countries. It analyses the phenomenon of eloquent
emissaries from the World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, or from distinguished universities
who recommend educational policies to client countries and ultimately bring about
changes at the school level. The policies and solutions proposed by these institutions
aim to adapt education to the future needs of labour markets. Inevitably these
institutions make similar assumptions for different countries and give similar advice to
different clients. For example, the World Bank and UNESCO have reportedly
promoted universal models for decentralisation and teacher education in the
information age. But their staff may give little thought to interpreting the advice at
the local level, so the outcomes may be unexpected and not necessarily positive.
To demonstrate these outcomes, the book discusses the educational systems of
Brazil and Argentina. It analyses the educational philosophies and teacher training
models of these countries in the 1990s. A separate chapter presents the views of a
small number of experienced Brazilian and Argentine teachers. In interviews, the
teachers were asked to ‘‘reinterpret global educational discourse in practice’’ on a
broad range of topics, from curriculum application to teacher training practices.
Many books in the past have expressed concerns about the globalised models
pushed by international organisations on various countries. Some, like Susan
George and Fabrizio Sabelli’s Faith and Credit (1994) contend that the ‘‘experts’’
who create act more as priests than as scientists. A reader familiar with such books
might expect hard-hitting examples of assumptions gone awry in Brazilian or
Argentine classrooms and poignant stories about how students’ lives have been
compromised by poor policies. For example, the author might illustrate the impos-
sibility of teaching basic skills (let alone creativity, adaptability, problem-solving
H. Abadzi (&)
The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA
e-mail: habadzi@worldbank.org
123
Int Rev Educ (2012) 58:301–302
DOI 10.1007/s11159-012-9270-z
and various other high-level competencies) through models promulgated by
‘‘experts’’ who never spent a day as classroom teachers. Examples are available
from the independent evaluations of the World Bank’s education projects (see
www.worldbank.org/IEG).
The book would be a hit if it also contained some well-reasoned alternatives.
After all, the basics of information processing are known, and hopefully taught in
the London University’s Institute of Education. Worldwide, humans learn pretty
much through the same general processes; international organisations ought to base
their advice on these commonalities rather on abstract systems that are products of
cultural variability. Clearly, most students cannot attain high-level competencies
such as creativity unless they automatise early-grade basic skills; nor can modestly
educated teachers be expected to interpret abstract curricular guides and convert
them into effective classroom activities.
Unfortunately the book stays away from classroom specifics. It seems instead to
preach a new religion, ‘‘global educational discourse’’. The discourse is omnipresent
and omniscient, and the means of its transmission are never revealed. In particular
this deity seems to inhabit the ‘‘global academic space’’ (p. 264), where ‘‘specialized
academic discourses are created’’. Nowhere does the book reveal how this
knowledge overtakes those who indulge in the ‘‘circulation of the cutting-edge
knowledge about education’’. The readers who are not initiated to this religion are
regaled with esoteric statements such as ‘‘policy as discourse, policy as text, and
recontextualization’’ (p. 192) or ‘‘clearly discernible supranatural versions of
pedagogy’’ (p. 95), ‘‘supra-national versions of pedagogy’’ and ‘‘transnationally
standardised educational models’’.
In a sense the book reflects a clash of aspirations. On one hand are the World
Bank and UNESCO employees who create complex models that may bear little
resemblance to classroom events. On the other there are comparative education
specialists who want their turn at jet-setting around the capitals of the globe to give
advice. The jargon of the book may be interpreted as conveying the message that the
latter are equally competent. After all, the economic and educational jargon may
sound equally pithy and profound to policy-makers.
What policy-makers do not get (and the ‘‘discourse’’ does not provide) is
knowledge on how students can master more efficiently the skills needed for a good
life. Fierce ‘‘discourse’’ battles are waged on paper every day while thousands of
students in many low-income countries drop out or graduate illiterate. It would be
very helpful to the purported beneficiaries of education if comparative education
students were better schooled in the basics of learning and got teaching experience
in grades 1–12. Then they might be better equipped to take over from the
economists who dominate in international education agencies and do a better job.
Reference
George, S., & Sabelli, F. (1994). Faith and credit: The World Bank’s secular empire. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
302 H. Abadzi
123
top related