Since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, the world has witnessed the emergence of a western hegemonic construct that has influenced education and development in the developing world more than the rhetorics of the Cold War decades.

This phenomenon is globalisation. Globalisation has spread its tentacles from the banquet tables of UN technocrats in New York to the remotest women folks in Africa; from the drawing board of World Bank experts to that of the village teacher in Nepal or Djibouti; from the busy stock market isles of Tokyo and London to the lonely oases in the Sahara Desert; indeed from the furthest point in the North to the thickest tropical rainforest in the South.

Globalisation is a form of economic, political, cultural and mental domination that every nation-state has been forced to reckon with. It has exerted tremendous pressure on people and nations and created phenomenal impacts left, right and centre. Some pundits feel that the impacts of globalisation are felt only on the economy. Others argue that it is felt more in the political landscape. Yet still, some insist that the impacts are better understood in terms of the homogeneity of cultures it has brought or is attempting to bring. I believe that the impacts of globalisation are no less felt in education policies and practices across the world. As globalisation processes transcend national boundaries, so too does it affect the way education systems are formulated and implemented across the world.

 In this discussion, we shall look at what globalisation is and how it forces its ways as an important agenda in today’s education systems. We shall also examine the features of globalisation and what they mean for education especially in the developing world. Then we will explore the impacts of the forces of globalisation on issues such as the shifting emphasis in education policy, administration and funding, alleged increased in the alienation of youths, educational reforms and migration. Finally, we will attempt to look at what all these globalisation processes mean for education policy and practice within a nation-state.

Before looking at the impacts of globalisation on education policy in developing countries, it is essential that we consider what globalisation is. While there is a notably divergent view as to the impacts of globalisation (some seeing it as a necessary evil while others see it as the scourge of our modern times!), there is a lot of commonality in the way development commentators have defined it. Graham Gibson (2000) for instance, writes that globalisation is: “A set of processes by which the world is rapidly being integrated into one economic space via increased international trade, the internationalization of production and financial markets, the internationalization of a commodity culture promoted by an increasingly networked global communication system”

Thus, globalisation is the process of internationalisation of practices, ideas, values and technology; their departure point being the West. It comprises multiple and drastic changes in all areas of social, economic and cultural lives of a people. As such, globalisation is not a thing; rather, it is a phenomenon with myriad processes and ramifications. It encompasses both global processes and global outcomes. And the outcomes of globalisation have profound effects on education policy as well as educational provisions and practices.

It is somehow baffling how globalisation processes have had such a swift influence across the world at such a short period. But looking at the dominant capitalist dogmas which have silenced alternative views of progress, and the world system theories that propel globalisation to glory (e.g., economic liberalisation, decentralisation, marketisation, unfettered individual and institutional liberties), it seems rather fatalistic that the influences of globalisation will obstinately increase.

It is no surprise now that the tolerated concept of development is one in which non-western societies are theoretically and shrewdly being incorporated into the progress development paradigm defined by the West. It follows that following the demise of the Eastern Bloc that once upon a time offered an alternative model of development, globalisation processes are now faced with little challenges. No wonder that these processes have now been embraced as de facto engines of progress, notwithstanding the pockets of resistance and contestations from environmental groups, NGOs, civil rights organisations, and peasant workers largely from developing countries.

Globalisation comes in many shapes and forms, each sweeping across the world with overwhelming speed and having profound effects on education policy and practice. With the World Bank, IMF, UNESCO and other international agencies serving as the guardians of educational policies, no longer can educational prescriptions and practices be said to be purely locally construed. These agencies, coming with money and instructions, have heralded the homogenisation of education systems.

Can any country afford to resist the desire to be the same in a globalised world? Will any country allow itself to be left behind by the space of technological and communication advancements that come with globalisation? If the answer is in the affirmative, then what type of world will such a country prepare its children for? These searching questions among others compel every nation-state to accept the driving tendencies towards homogeneity in education policy. It is no wonder that by and large, policies of quality assurance and accountability, market organization, the construction of teacher professional identities and learner-centred pedagogies, school management, school inspection, and school effectiveness are all now being championed in the education systems of many developing countries.

In most parts of the world especially in developing countries, policy borrowing is necessitated by the massive failure of post-independence education policies. With poverty on the rise as a result of poor economic policies, interventions mainly from the World Bank and IMF came with Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) in the early 1980s to mitigate the chronic problems of underdevelopment. The multilateral agencies did not only give aids and grants to boost up economic growth, but they also entreated on member-states to make wholesome changes in their education systems as a basis for the general overhaul of the economy. SAP came with lot of promises of poverty eradication, creation of wealth and trickling down of the economic gains of booming liberalised markets.

By the mid 1990s, barely a decade after the introduction of SAP in most Sub-Saharan African countries, the actual number of people living in poverty increased by almost 100 million worldwide (most of them from Africa!) as the prescriptions exacerbated the ailing economies and indeed the bedridden education sectors of many developing countries. Long after SAP, stunning statistical revelations on access to quality education, success rates, disparities in provisions, gender enrolment and quality of provisions became commonplace thus necessitating further sweeping changes in education polices and practices.

The appalling statistics once again prompted agencies such as the World Bank and UNESCO to intervene in the education systems of member countries with the aim of helping them set standards and targets in achieving meaningful education for the citizenry. Olden targets such as Universal Primary Education and more maiden ones such as Education for All, Millennium Development Goals, just to name a few, are some of the few outcomes of international commitments which have been thrust upon countries, particularly developing countries. And so education policies and practices across the world must be seen to be attempting to meet these lofty ideals. Unfortunately though, for some of these countries like those in Sub-Saharan Africa, lack of material and human resource base continues to impede the fulfilment of such aspirations.

Nonetheless, every country is more than enthusiastic to fulfil the global pledge of education for all for their people. However, the perennial lack of adequate funds for education and the continuous shrinking of many economies as well as the unrealistic reliance on foreign expatriate knowledge at the expense of local knowledge, combined with the unabated brain drain are increasingly prompting sceptics to further wonder how the Dakar Declaration (2000) for Education for All target by 2015 could be attained in most of Africa.

Therefore, for quality education to be accessible to all, lot of resources (human and material) have to be invested in education, not to talk of the enormous amount of sacrifice on the part of everybody for the realisation of the said targets. Henceforth, the provision of quality and critical education must be the concern of all, not only teachers and officials of ministries of education and their related agencies. When the people take over education, collective responsibility will make it thrive for the good of all and for posterity.

But what are the impacts of globalisation on education? Let us assert that the market forces of globalisation have not only changed the way education polices are formulated and implemented, they have also transformed the way educational institutions are run.  Market responsiveness and competition in education, privatisation and liberation of the education sector have all combined to change the pedagogic discourse of education to a more business discourse with profit-orientation as the focus. Consequently, in most parts of the world, education institutions are increasingly being perceived as production units in the same manner firms such as Ford Motors, Microsoft Corporation, MG Rover etc are conceived of.

The economic concept is gradually changing education organisations to markets even to the extent of changing the terminology in education provision and administration. Terms like Manager or Director (for Head teacher), Board of Governors (for School Governors), School Accountant (Pay Master) and many other economic terminologies have irresistibly permeated the education nomenclature.
To be continued