What is globalization and in which ways has this impacted on educational policy and practice?

The University of Reading

Course: MA

Assignment: EDM 109.

Viktor Zhabrov

Student number: 20029105

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is globalization and in which ways has this impacted on educational policy and practice? What are the implications for curriculum development, pedagogy and classroom practice? In this discussion give consideration to the idea of global citizenship, economic and social development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          2012

 

 

Introduction

 

Globalization is a significant process that always existed but due to technological progress considered as the most widespread trend of the twenty-first century. It proves definition given by Anthony McGrew:

“globalization is a process which generates flows and connections, not simply across nation-states and national territorial boundaries, but between global regions, continents and civilizations. This invites a definition of globalization as: ‘an historical process which engenders a significant shift in the spatial reach of networks and systems of social relations to transcontinental or interregional patterns of human organization, activity and the exercise of power.”

 

Many other authors have tried to define globalization in a variety of ways. Some of them affirm that it cannot be done; the others maintain that it would constrain the meaning to do so, and still others have defied these two beliefs and have constructed a working definition. Despite the difficulties with given right and full definition, all authors agree on one thing: that this term brings with it a multitude of hidden agendas. An individual’s political ideology, geographic location, social status, cultural background, and ethnic and religious affiliation provide the background that determines how globalization is interpreted. People from different continents and countries see, feel and understand globalization in different way. For instance: in 1995, Martin Khor, President of the Third World Network in Malaysia, referred to globalization as colonization. Concurrently, Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson, in his book The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization (2001), stated that globalization:

 

“is the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world.”

 

The understanding of globalization in many cases depends on personal life experience and circumstances. For instance: “I think globalization is something you have the privilege to enjoy”( Mr Ndlovo, tribe leader in Africa). The context of his remark insinuated that the word ‘you’ meant ‘you Westerners’, and by ‘privilege to enjoy’, he meant that it is largely people from Western industrial countries that reap the benefits of globalization. For scholars like Susan Strange, globalization represents a falsehood, because it represents nothing more than ‘a term used by a lot of wooly thinkers who lump together all sorts of superficially converging trends’ (Strange, 1995, p. 293). Lastly, there are some ‘post-globalists’ who believe that the era of globalization is ‘unexpectedly over’ (Ferguson, 2005), that it is so conceptually impoverished as to not even have existed’ (Rosenberg, 2005). Others argue that globalization is a unique phenomenon that is occurring because of the confluence of key factors, specifically changes in technology that speed communications and make information and knowledge instantly and democratically available to all via the Internet and the integration of national economies into a tightly knit, global web on a scale not seen before. (Castells, 2000; Friedman, 2003) These examples reflect different perspectives rooted in different world positions. By its nature, globalization covers a multitude of disciplines, communities, and cultures. This is the reason of variety of viewpoints, which are based, as shown in the examples, on economic, social, or political situation. The presented definitions reflect some of those viewpoints. It is also vital that these definitions be presented against the reality of the global situation, as Vidya S. A. Kumar rightly points out in his article “A Critical Methodology of Globalization: Politics of the 21st Century?” Although The process of globalization has common indications as it involves economic integration; the transfer of policies across borders; the transmission of knowledge and cultures,  the reproduction, relations, and discourses of power; it is a global process, a concept and “an establishment of the global market free from sociopolitical control.”   Correspondingly the process of globalization connected and influence on many process in the world including the transmission of knowledge and education. If it is so, what impact on educational policy and practice it has? What are the implications for curriculum development, pedagogy and classroom practice?  These questions will be discussed throughout the next sections of this paper. The first section will discuss the impact of globalization on educational policy and practice. The second section will expose the implications for curriculum development, pedagogy and classroom practice. The final section will contain the consideration to the idea of global citizenship, economic and social development.

Knowledge-based competition towards the end of the twentieth century has come to world focus with increasing globalization. This was engendered by the realization of the contributions of higher education to the productivity, competitiveness and economic growth of nations (Bloom, Canning & Chan 2006a). The most obvious fact is that globalization stimulated market-led reforms in higher education, which has had its main driving impetus and motive from Europe and North America. In Europe the Bologna Process and globalization constitute one of such driving forces impacting currently on the educational systems and policies. 

                 From the ‘Magna Charta Universitatum’ in 1988, through the Lisbon Recognition Convention (1997), Sorbonne Declaration in 1998, and to the birth of the Bologna Process in 1999, and the launching of the Erasmus Mundus in 2004, Europe has for the past two decades been taking measures to create the most competitive higher education area globally in a bid to maximize the opportunities of globalization and minimize its challenges. The 19 June 1999 Joint Declaration of the European Ministers of Education (otherwise known as the Bologna Declaration and more commonly called the Bologna Process) was primarily aimed at establishing an European area of higher education by the year 2010, as a key way to promoting citizen mobility and employability and the Continent’s overall development (see Bologna Declaration 1999). It was also driven by the need to achieve greater compatibility and comparability of the systems of higher education within the European area. And more importantly, it was aimed at increasing the international competitiveness of the European system of higher education by promoting its higher education worldwide (Bologna Declaration 1999). But in spite of the neo-liberal orientation of the Bologna Process, the 2001 Prague meeting of the European Ministers of Education declared higher education a public good, which should remain a public responsibility. This ‘social dimension’ of the Bologna Process (i.e., conception of higher education as a public good in this era of neo-liberal globalization) appears to us to expose the limits, contradictions and hypocrisy that usually underpin neo-liberal capitalist globalization. In particular, for example, the acceptance of the social dimension of higher education runs counter to the logic of listing of higher education as a tradable commodity under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Yet the listing of higher education as a tradable commodity is a brainchild of the West.  The implementation of the Bologna Process so far has raised a major challenge to many universities all over the world, particularly with respect to how they will relate with an established European higher education area after 2010.

       Another appreciable sign of the globalization influence on educational systems all over the world is European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). The ECTS, a major outcome of the Bologna process, is a tool for promoting comparability, harmonization and compatibility of European higher education systems. The ultimate goal of the ECTS is to promote the transferability and mobility of staff and students among European countries that are signatories to the Bologna Process, and between European countries and other countries classified as a Third Country in the Bologna Process. Essentially, the ‘ECTS is a credit system based on a definition of what constitutes a full-time academic course load, reflecting the quality of work each course requires of a student in relation to the total quality of work required to complete a full year of academic study at a particular institution. Credits are assigned to all academic work (lectures, laboratory work, seminars, examinations, private study and theses) that comprises an integral part of the program of study’ (Clark 2005; WES Staff Members 1999).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among the main implications of globalization, some can be mentioned : l) due to the growth of the sources of information and communication, the emergence of learning societies.; 2) the transformation of the nature of work with the need for more flexibility and mobility, high importance of communication skills, the necessity for teamwork, the increasing use of new technologies, etc., In this context of a changing world, education carry out very important function, to favor social and professional integration appears to be hugely reinforced.

By globalization there were raised some educational challenges like: 1) The need to change the delivery of content, integrating all possible and new sources of information. 2) To concentrate on the development of skills alongside knowledge. 3) The need to adapt curricula to the needs of different socio-cultural groups, and to maintain the national and social cohesion of the country.

As globalization implies working and leaving together there appeared necessity to change the curriculum with the purpose to teach people to interact with each other from the childhood.

There exist several ways of introducing this concept into educational content. The three main strategies: 1) by defining renewal for ‘old disciplines’ (history and geography, foreign languages, etc.), 2) by introducing new subjects (i.e. education towards active citizenship, environmental issues, etc.) in curricula, 3) by promoting social consensus on a common core of values.

For example: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University offers training in food and management. But as much of the terminology used in this sector is derived from Western cultures, Chinese students had difficulty in communicating. To help students fit better with the needs of their future employers, it was proposed: l to improve their listening skills in English; l to develop their confidence in speaking, thanks to a student-centred learning methodology.

In other words, learning how to interact with the Western system (Journal of vocational education and training, vol. 49, no. 3, 1997).

There appeared international students and teachers faced the problem of adopting their teaching methods.  Several policies can be used in order to help them adapt their teaching methods.

To help them develop new skills through initial and in-service training (involvement in teamwork, etc.). The most obvious strategy consists of renewing their initial training through in-service courses designed to integrate new subjects that will be taught in an interdisciplinary way, at the same time familiarizing them with participatory and student-centered approaches.

To modify the design of textbooks to allow them to be used differently.

In order to modify their teaching methods, teachers should be given the opportunity to use newly-designed educational materials.

To make new evaluation means available to teachers, defined together with different actors. In order to be ready to adopt ‘competency-based’ curricula, teachers should be provided with new evaluation tools.

 By giving them the possibility of resorting to non-formal educational resources (science museums, etc.): The creation of innovative science museums—such as the Exploratorium in San Francisco, USA, or La Cité des Sciences de la Villette, in Paris, France should be regarded as key partners for teachers to access the most recent knowledge and to experience other ways of teaching (development of projects,group work, etc.).

To involve teachers in the development of curricula: Innovative experiments have been conducted in Sub- Saharan Africa in order to enable teachers to take part actively in the setting-up of educational programmes.

To favour school-based curricula: an example from Scotland illustrates another way of associating teachers with the development of educational programmes. For a while, Scottish teachers have been authorized to select, adapt and develop, at school level, the limited guidelines provided to them by the government. They have had, for instance, no textbooks available to help them. This experience was said not only to favour a sense of ownership of curricula among teachers, but also to help improve the relevance of what was taught, by adapting it both to local and school needs. To conclude, from all the topics presented above, a selected number were chosen to be discussed during the sub-regional course on curriculum development, namely:

1) The relevance of new trends in the teaching of science, social science and humanities to the challenges of globalization and the principle of living together.

2) Decentralization of curriculum development to local or school level.

3) Integrated and interdisciplinary approaches in curriculum reform.

4) The adaptation of teacher training to curriculum change.

5) The potentials and challenges of information and communication technologies in the adaptation of curricula.

6) Non-school science resources and collaboration between formal and non-formal educational institutions.

7) The need for vocationalizing curricula.

Conclusion

Globalization has definitely heightened knowledge-based competition, most

fundamentally in the twenty-first century. But, this competition seems more

manifest in the developed regions of the world, competing for both the control of

world ideas as well as ‘followers’ in the acceptance and spread of these ideas. It is against

this backdrop that one can see the emergence of the Bologna Process. Interestingly,

it seems, some other universities, for example: African universities had pre-empted the importance of this process with the Arusha Declaration of 1981. But, unfortunately, after over two decades, the Bologna Process that came after it has become a major influence on its

implementation.  Granted the important fact of cross-fertilization of ideas, each stakeholder ought to define the limits of what is tolerable in establishing its external relationships. For

Asian countries, this has not been the case, as the neo-colonial situation seems to hold sway

in perpetuating dependency. And this is made easy by the ruling elite group – itself

a creation of the colonial experience – that continues to ape the colonial benefactors.

This is equally true because, as Prah (2002) rightly observed, the inherited educational experience as well as its perpetuation is a status, both an economic and a power-enhancing phenomenon. Consequently, in so far as knowledge is controlled from the outside, the brain drain is an inevitable trajectory regardless of whether the point of migration presents motivating factors or not. And again, in so far as the space and pace of education is externally driven, the ability to ‘catch up’ is dependent on the need to refabricate along externally changing

requirements. Unfortunately, these changing requirements are informed by the political and socio-economic circumstances in the latter nations. Perhaps of most signifiicance is the fact that neo-liberalism, as Erasmus Mundus has shown, is not limited to economic considerations and the freemarket economy. The Bologna Process has therefore exposed the limits and contradictions of market-oriented higher education reforms. The experience of Europe has shown that neo-liberal higher education reforms under globalization can be manipulated as dictated by the exigencies of national interests. The question, however, is whether Africans or Asians can be given the chance or even have the confidence and audacity to manipulate such neo-liberal reforms, especially in the light of the marketization drive of the WTO/GATS. Consequently, the paper recommends that policy-makers in Asia should be wary of attempts to use the Bologna Process and the Erasmus Mundus programme as a subtle process of heightening the brain drain problem.

 

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