Rounds pegs in square holes? Development education, the formal sector and the global knowledge economy
Gaynor, NiamhORCID: 0000-0001-5645-7032
(2016)
Rounds pegs in square holes? Development education, the formal sector and the global knowledge economy.
Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review, 23
.
ISSN 2053-4272
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 its critical and transformative approaches and practices, into these
formal spaces is akin to attempting to drive a round peg into a square hole. There are
scrapes and splinters. At times the peg does not fit at all, yet at times it finds its way.
And, as many of the articles in this volume demonstrate, driving the peg through
requires considerable imagination, determination and ingenuity as well as an acute
appreciation of the precise parameters and context within which manoeuvre is
possible.