Discussion: Crisis? What crisis? International organisations, crisis narratives and education policy debate
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper is an edited transcript of the Day Two Plenary Panel session at the Biennial Conference of the Comparative Education Society of Asia, held in Hiroshima, Japan on November 16, 2023.The theme of an educational “crisis” has become entrenched in global policy discourse, to the extent that a pressing need to “fix” education is today widely seen as axiomatic (Takayama, 2007; Zembylas, Baildon, & Kwek, 2022). Meanwhile, various sources of turmoil and disruption – political, environmental, economic, epidemiological – pose undeniable challenges for the provision of education as for other public goods. But the perceived urgency of “fixing” education is heightened by the widespread perception that it is to our schools and teachers – and ultimately to “youth” themselves – that we should look to save humanity from the myriad crises it faces. Not only is education expected to solve problems bequeathed by past crises; it is also expected to prevent future ones – by rendering learners “resilient” and capable of adapting and innovating their way past any obstacles life may throw in their path. Such views impose on education policymakers and administrators, educators and, most critically, on young learners themselves an enormous burden of expectation and responsibility.At CESA's 2023 Hiroshima conference, this plenary panel discussed how notions of “crisis” are used by international organisations to shape the global education policy agenda, considering especially (but not exclusively) the course and aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Special reference was made to Asian contexts, notably to the case of Sri Lanka, where the legacy of civil war, economic dysfunction and disease have in recent years caused massive dislocation, and where international organisations have played a significant role in influencing the educational response.In preparing their remarks, the panellists were asked to consider a number of guiding questions:Vickers:Yesterday, in our first plenary panel, we heard about specific disasters, natural and manmade, that Japan has experienced and about how education has been implicated in the responses to those disasters or crises. That discussion was very concrete and offered some important and practical lessons, particularly as regards to the potential of education to help heal or rebuild devastated and traumatised communities. In this respect, Japan certainly does have some inspiring positive lessons to offer. So, for example, the way the Japanese society and schools in particular responded to the COVID pandemic was quite exemplary by international standards. As a father of two school-aged children, I was quite grateful that my family found ourselves in Japan, rather than for example Britain, during the pandemic.But it is important to also consider how education can cause or exacerbate crises, rather than just considering how it might help us to cope with or recover from them. So, for example, if we think about Japan's 2011 Tohoku disaster, discussed in the other plenary session of this conference, how did the education and training of the Tokyo Electric and Power Company and management and of senior government bureaucrats help turn what was originally a natural disaster, tsunami and earthquake, into a major nuclear disaster? 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Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4417045784