From Global North-South Divide to Sustainability: Shifting Policy Frameworks for International Development and Education

Abstract

Education policies are becoming increasingly oriented towards employability (economic returns) and subjected to measurements especially post-2015. Despite resistance from different stakeholders, employability has become a global norm and funds for programmes with non-economic objectives, especially in low and middle-income countries have been cut tremendously (Singh & Ehlers, 2020). Is this a short term crisis, a faulty and confused policy decision, or a part of a long term policy agenda aimed at bigger changes with deeper policy linkages? Who is promoting it with what intentions? How should the actors in the education sector deal with it? This paper answers these questions by mapping and analysing the shift in policy framework for International Development from Global North-South Divide (1970s-2015) to Sustainability (2015 onwards) and its impact on the policy of education for development. It shows how International Organisations (IOs) used knowledge, information and policy linkages to gain control over states and UN created a narrative about sustainability rooted in environment to facilitate an obscure OECD agenda for sustainable economic growth, backed by World Bank and the IMF’s measurement and control tactics. It further explains how and why the development policies (reflected in education) of low, middle and high income countries converged post-2015.