Education is at a critical juncture. While its role and effectiveness in nurturing a
sense of values, critical enquiry and civic engagement have been debated for
centuries1
, such debates have been eclipsed in recent years by the new language and
exigencies of the global economy. Talk of civic values, justice, transformation, and
flourishing has been replaced with talk of efficiency, performance, competition, and
employment. A range of new forces, influences and technologies has entered the field
and the work in rewriting the scope, ambition and mission of our schools and
colleges, together with that of their students, is almost complete. As the contributions
to this volume ably demonstrate, this new vision for education – one that places it at
the service of the global economy rather than society more broadly, building
‘knowledge economies’ rather than ‘knowledge societies’, poses significant
challenges to development educators. Attempting to introduce development
education, with i...
|