Second meeting of ministers of education
GLOBALIZATION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
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- A NEW ERA IN INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR EDUCATION
- Increase the Variety of Policy Options --Three Tasks for International Agencies
- International assistance should
- Two Approaches to De-Linking
- Increase the Diversity of Stakeholders that Participate in Decision-Making.
- AN EXAMPLE OF A PROPOSED REGIONAL COLLABORATION
GLOBALIZATION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIONThe concept globalization is a metaphor for the vast changes taking place in relationships between the countries of the world. There is a growing consensus that the latest stage in globalization includes a major shift in the dominant paradigm for industrial production, and the predication of a new model for development.xvi These changes have great significance for both education and international cooperation. The new model for development emphasizes:
The education required to support these changes cannot be produced merely by more money for today’s schools. Instead there must be a fundamental paradigm shift in education equivalent to that underway in economics and politics. Some elements of that paradigm have already appeared:
Education should contribute to realization of the social and economic conditions required for stability and consensus. These conditions include:
The construction of a new consensus, and the elaboration of the new paradigm, can be facilitated through and requires greater cooperation among the countries of the Americas. This should take two forms:
A NEW ERA IN INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR EDUCATIONInternational cooperation in the Americas will continue, for some time, to require aid and assistance from richer to poorer countries and from outside the Americas. What is proposed here are ways to organize and direct that aid to contribute to greater collaboration among the countries of the Americas. New forms of aid should:
The proposals seek to reduce external control over national policies, to maximize the quality and effectiveness of national education policies, and to stimulate regional collaboration.
The logic behind conditionality is a reasonable desire by international assistance agencies to insure that funds are well spent. The agencies require some way to assure that governments will follow through on their agreements. Unfortunately the linking of funding to intervention by international agencies maintains dependency and weakens public institutions. Without competent governments democratic institutions do not flourish, and the cycle of decay continues. International assistance should:1) contribute to increasing the legitimacy of public institutions 2) build a relationship of trust between agencies and recipients 3) make funds available to local as well as national organizations, and
Two Approaches to De-Linking(1). Development contracts can move aid in the direction of being a collaborative form of cooperation. In this approach both parties (donor and recipient) commit themselves to actions and obligations. Experience with this form of aid is limited, but the model characterizes some of the more recent linkages with European countries and agencies. Project Columbus, for example, commits both American and European countries to change, although resources flow from Europe to Latin America. (2). A second approach is the independent or autonomous development fund. These funds are administered by legally and politically independent bodies. They are organized and monitored to insure financial accountability, and receive competing proposals for funding from both government and non-governmental organizations in a region or country. The development funds are financed through transfers of public revenues, bond issues, debt swaps and conventional aid. Funds are managed by an autonomous board of trustees prohibited by charter from political activity. They are monitored to insure use of professional criteria in decisions to finance projects, but initiatives are generated by national, central and local organizations. International organizations can withdraw their support if the fund does not live up to its charter. The proposal here is to found a regional development fund for education in the Americas. The mission of this fund would be the stimulation of collaborative projects involving two or more countries seeking to develop new forms of education.
We know relatively little about how to build national consensus with respect to education. Networking strategies have been used to increase private sector dialogue with national governments and to help developing country universities conduct research that is more policy relevant. Some work has also been done on how the research process can be altered to increase stakeholder participation and generate consensus.xviii Missing is systematic understanding of how to develop a regional consensus about education.Regional collaboration permits economies of scale not achieved when countries undertake their own projects. Globalization is both cause and source of solution for some of the problems implied in the lines of action. Collaborative action at the regional level can contribute both to solving these problems and to enhancing national idiosyncrasies. AN EXAMPLE OF A PROPOSED REGIONAL COLLABORATIONThis proposal is designed to maintain national differences while also taking advantage of regional-level knowledge.
Similar efforts can be carried out in the development of:
All these are feasible with current technologies; all can be achieved for the benefit of all participants without the harmful effects that can accompany uniformization. All of these efforts can be consistent with the new paradigm of development that promises so much for the future of our hemisphere. A PROPOSAL FOR HORIZONTAL COOPERATION AMONG COUNTRIES All the countries in the hemisphere have had experiences with education programs that can be regarded as successful at increasing coverage, bringing about greater equity, or raising the quality of education at different levels and in various modalities. However, no systematic strategy exists that might enable education ministries to share those experiences and ministers to expound their strengths, the lessons learned, and the challenges that they continue face. One proposal is for the OAS, as Technical Secretariat, to develop a mechanism that might permit such horizontal cooperation among countries, in which the stakeholders (supervisors, school principals, teachers, and education authorities) would themselves do the sharing, and international agencies would only facilitate the process. This strategy will make it possible to bring an improvement in education programs and to progress with firmer stride toward the objectives of the Summit of the Americas. If each education ministry could identify and share with other ministries the programs that they have been implementing for some time, that extend beyond a single government term, and that have borne fruit, not only because they meet their intended objectives, but because there is quantitative and qualitative evidence that attests to their impact, then that horizontal cooperation, assisted by the international community, becomes a way of learning for all the stakeholders. | It should be emphasized that the systematization and evaluation of selected programs must be a fundamental part of this mechanism. Accordingly, it will be very important to involve local, municipal or provincial stakeholders, as well as national and international researchers, in order to examine the program from every angle with the aim of improving and sharing it with other countries, not with a view to imposing it on them but, rather, to making careful adjustments in order to adapt it to different contexts, needs, and realities. The materials produced by the process will be made available to countries interested in putting in motion programs inspired by lessons learned in cases similar to their own. Bibliography Arnove, R. F. (Ed.). (1982). Philantropy and Cultural Imperialism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Berman, E. H. (1983). The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Buchert, L., & King, K. (Eds.). (1995). Learning from Experience: Policy and Practice in Aid to Higher Education. The Hague: Centre for Studies on Education in Developing Nations, CESO Paperback No. 24. Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. (1986). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century. Washington, D. C.: Author. Cassen, R., & Associates. (1994). Does aid work?: report to an intergovernmental task force. New York: Oxford University Press. Consejo Interamericano para el Desarrollo Integral. (1998). Anteproyecto de Seguimiento del Plan de Accion en Materia Educativa: II Cumbre de las Americas. Washington, D. C.: Organizacion de los Estados Americanos. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). (1992). Education and knowledge: Changing production patterns with equity. Santiago, Chile: UNESCO. Farrell, J. P. (1994). Educational Cooperation in the Americas: A review. In J. M. Puryear & J. J. Brunner (Eds.), Education, Equity and Economic Competitiveness in the Americas: An Inter-American Dialogue Project (pp. 67-102). Washington, D. C.: Organization of American States. King, K. (1991). Aid and education in the developing world: the role of the donor agencies in educational analysis. Harlow, Essex, England: Longman. Krueger, A. O. (1993). Economic Policies at Cross-Purposes: The United States and the developing countries. Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Institution. Lockheed, M. E., & Verspoor, A. M. (1991). Improving Primary Education in Developing Countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McGinn, N. F. (Ed.). (1996). Crossing Lines: Research and policy networks for developing country education. Westwood, CT: Praeger. National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk: The imperative of educational reform. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. Nieto Angel, M. C. (Ed.). (1996). Participacion Ciudadana, Poder Local, Descentralizacion. Bogota: Organizacion para el Desarrollo Territorial. Reimers, F. (Ed.). (2000). Unequal Schools. Unequal Chances. Reimers, F., & McGinn, N. (2000). Dialogo Informado: el uso de la investigacion para conformar la politica educativa. Mexico: Centro de Estudios Educativos. Rossi, M., & Grinberg, S. (1999). Proyecto Educativo Institucional: Acuerdos para hacer escuela. Buenos Aires: Editorial Magisterio del Rio de la Plata. Samoff, J. (1993). The reconstruction of schooling in Africa. Comparative Education Review, 37(2), 181-222. Schiefelbein, E., & others, a. (1998). Education in the Americas: Quality and Equity in the Globalization Process. Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States. Schiefelbein, E., & Tedesco, J. C. (1995). Una Nueva Oportunidad: el rol de la educacion en el desarrollo de America Latina. Buenos Aires: Santillana. Sellers, M. N. S. (1996). The New world order: sovereignty, human rights, and the self -determination of peoples. Oxford: Berg. Smith, B. H. (1990). More than Altruism: The politics of private foreign aid. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stifel, L. D., Davidson, R. K., & Coleman, J. S. (Eds.). (1982). Social Sciences and Public Policy in the Developing World. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Stokke, O. (Ed.). (1996). Foreign Aid Towards the Year 2000: Experiences and challenges. London: Frank Cass. 1 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development . 2 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. 3 Programme for International Student Assessment. 4 Plan of Action, Second Summit of the Americas (pp. 1) 5 Plan of Action, Third Summit of the Americas (pp. 34) 6 Plan of Action, Second Summit of the Americas (pp. 1) 7 Plan of Action, Third Summit of the Americas (pp 35). 8 1997-2001 Strategic Plan for Partnership for Development. Executive Secretariat for Integral Development. Organization of American States. Washington, D.C. (pp. 4-5). 9 Ibid. 10 Second Summit of the Americas. Plan of Action. 11 Ibid. 12 Paper commissioned by the OAS’s Unit for Social Development and Education to be presented at the Meeting of Education Ministers of the Americas, Punta del Este, September 24-25, 2001. i ii iii These criticisms are made in every country, from Canada to Chile (Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986; National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983; Schiefelbein & others, 1998). iv See Reimers (2000) for detailed accounts of inequality in education. v (Lockheed & Verspoor, 1991). vi To some extent all cooperation involves a reduction in sovereignty. Whether as aid or as collaboration, one or both cooperating countries give up some control over internal decision processes. A discussion of sovereignty issues in aid and cooperation see Sellers (1996). vii For examples see King (1991), Farrell(1994), and Buchert (1995). viii See, for example, Krueger (1993), Cassen (1994) and Stokke (1996). ix The following list of negative practices attributed to one agency operating in Africa has relevance for agency practices in the Americas as well. The agencies control education programs by: 1) providing loans only for agency-specified programs; 2) establishing conditions (changes in policies and practices) that must be met before loans can be implemented; 3) influencing the hiring of foreign consultants to help in implementation; 4) providing overseas training and education in institutions approved by the agency; 5) organizing communication among policy-makers in various countries; 6) using research to justify recommendations for specific programs (Samoff, 1993). x For a critical review of the experience of NGOs see Smith (1990). xi Arnove (1982), Berman (1983) and Stifel (1982). xii Paul Streeten in Stifel, et al. (1982). xiii For a review of experiences with education research networks in developing countries see McGinn (1996) xiv The electronic address of REDUC is www.reduc.cl. xv (Consejo Interamericano para el Desarrollo Integral, 1998) xvi This change was signaled 10 years ago by ECLAC. See Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) (1992). xvii These arguments are made by Schiefelbein and Tedesco (1995). xviii For Latin American examples see Nieto Angel (1996), Reimers and McGinn (2000) and Rossi (1999). Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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