Spotlighted Event
Education and International Development
- MCCI 5081 - Education and International Development (Spring 2008)
This course provides an introduction to the policy and practice of education in developing countries. Students will become familiar with a wide range of issues and skills necessary to understand and participate in the debates revolving around the state of education in varied countries and regions of the world: Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia. Students will gain a broad understanding of the economic, social, and political dimensions of education and development. The course begins with an introduction to the role of education in economic, social, and human development. Next, we consider the current level of educational achievement across the globe, the prevailing “diagnoses” of the most important problems, the most prominent goals for improvement (e.g., the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education), the politics of educational reform, and the most prominent and promising strategies for improving educational achievement and social and human development outcomes.
We pay particular attention to issues of educational governance. Throughout the course, we will concentrate on specific case studies and comparative information largely drawn from less-developed countries—recognizing that there is huge variety within this group. In addition, since many less-developed countries are now looking to the developed world for models of education reform and improvement, we will consider some of the most prominent reform models from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and how they are being adopted by less-developed countries. We will discuss the various actors in the provision and reform of education in the developing world: governments (nationals and sub-national); international multi-lateral organizations (The World Bank, the regional development banks, UNESCO, UNDP, OECD, etc); inter-national and local NGOs and civil society; communities, parents, schools, teachers and children; labor unions; etc. The focus of the course will be on primary and secondary schooling but we will consider higher education as necessary as well as the impact of labor markets. And while the course focuses on education per se, it is built on a philosophy that broader human development requires that educational issues be considered together with health, social protection, and other sectors.
Concentrations:Governance and Rights, Development