Education and Development Globalization & Education: The Coming of the Global-Competition State & its Educational Consequences Wing-kwong Tsang Ho Tim

Education and Development

Globalization & Education: The Coming of the Global-Competition State

& its Educational Consequences

Wing-kwong TsangHo Tim Bldg. Room 416; Ext. 6922;

[email protected]; www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~wktsang

Globalization and the Advent of the Empire: A Historical Account

The constitution of the United Nations in 1945The constitution of the bipolar world system between the “Free World” and the “Communist Bloc” in post-war era

The International Monetary and Financial Conference was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1944International Monetary Fund (IMF) held its inaugural meeting in 1946World Bank formally began operations in 1946General Agreement for Trade and Tariff (GATT) was established in 1948. In 1995, it transformed to World Trade Organization (WTO)North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1950


The emergence of the “Third World” and the tri-polar world system in the 1970sThe first meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was held in 1960. The oil crisis in the 1970s triggered by the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.The liberalization of the authoritarian regimes among socialist states in the 1980sThe collapses of the soviet bloc in 1989


The US’s “just wars” in the 1990s

The first Gulf War in 1990-91

Civil War in Somali in 1993

War in Bosnia in 1993

War in Afghan in 2001

The second Gulf War in 2003

The constitution of the Capitalist Empire in the 21st century

The Nature of the Empire of the 21st century

“Empire refers to a new form of sovereignty that has succeeded the sovereignty of the nation-state, an unlimited form of sovereignty that knows no boundaries or, rather, knows only flexible, mobile boundaries.” (Hardt and Negri, 2003, p. 109)

“Perhaps the most significant symptom of this transformation is the development of the so-called right to intervention. … What stands behind this intervention is not just a permanent state of emergence and exception, but a permanent state emergency and exception justified by the appeal to essential value of justuice.” (Hardt and Negri, 2000, p. 18)

The Nature of the Empire of the 21st century

The constitution of the Empire has embodied three classic forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy

Monarchical constituents: the US Government and in particular the Pentagon, the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF.Aristocratic constituents: the G8, the Security Council of the UN, and major transnational corporationsDemocratic constituents: General Assembly of the UN and various forms of Non-Government Organization (NGO)

Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire I: The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic Counter-power Movement

Erosion of the basis of national democracyDemocracy as unity of identity of the peopleDemocracy as representation of the peopleDemocracy as measure of democratic rule of the people

The limitations of national counter-power movement

The separation of resistance, insurrection and constituent powerThe paradox of national insurrection in the international context of the Cold war

Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire I: The Crises and Opportunities of Democratic Counter-power Movement

Hardt and Negri’s proposal of democratic counterpower of the multitude

“The multitude is an active social agent – a multiplicity that acts. The multitude is not a unity, as is the people, but in contrast to the masses and the mob we can see that it is organized. It is an active, self-organizing agent.” (Hardt and Negri, 2003, p.114)The advent of the Empire spawns crisis to national insurrection but opportunity to global counter-power movement of the multitude

Political Consequence of the Advent of the Empire II: Retreat of the Welfare State & the Coming of the Global-Competition State

The crisis of external governance of the nation-state

The dominance of international institutions, e.g. WTO, MIF, World Bank, etc.The constitution of the “Washington Consensus”


The constitution of the “Washington Consensus”

• Fiscal discipline • Public expenditure priority• Tax reform• Financial liberalization• Exchange rates• Trade liberalization• Foreign direct investment• Privatization• Deregulation• Property rights


The crisis of internal governance of the sovereignty of the nation-state

Fiscal crisis of the post-war welfare state in the 1980s

The collapse of the state corporatism between union and corporation

The retreat of economic nationalism and the rise of the “competition state”

The coming to power of the New-Right government in the US and UK in the 1980s


The crisis of internal governance of the sovereignty of the nation-state

The Neo-Classical Public Sector Reform movement

• Deregulation • Privatization• Marketization

Is Education Reform as the Panacea for the Global-Competition State?

Assault on public-sector education: The rhetoric of falling standard and mediocracy

In the UK, publications of the Black Papers (1969-1977) and the Parent Charters (1974-1984) in the 1970sIn the US, publication of the A Nation at Risk in 1983Berliner & Biddle (1995) The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools.


Education reform as panacea for global-competition state in the global-informational context

Education reform in the UK• Education Reform Act, 1988• The Learning Age, 1998

Education reform in the US• Goal 2000 Act, 1994• No Child Left Behind Act, 2001

Education Reform in South Korea: • Lifelong Learning• Education in the information age


Education reform as panacea for global-competition state in the global-informational context

Education Reform in Singapore: Education for Learning Society in the 21st Century

(2000)Education Reform in Taiwan

教育改革行動方案 , 1998Education Reform in HKSAR

• EC (Sept. 1997) Quality School Education: ECR#7• EC (Sept. 2000) Education for Life and Education through L

ife• CDC (June 2001) Learning to Learn

The Paradigm X in Global Education Reforms: Education Policy of the Competition State

Instrumental Economicism: The underlying principle of the Paradigm X

Dominance of instrumental rationality: Extrinsic and instrumental value of competitiveness replaces intrinsic and substantive value of educationEconomicism: Education is subject to the prescription of economicism in all aspect

The Paradigm X in Global Education Reforms:

Quasi-market restructuring: The operational mechanism of the Paradigm X

The quasi-market restructuring: Restructuring project of education system by transforming state controlled and professional-led schooling structure into consumer-led schooling system which resembles as much as possible the neo-liberal free marketDemand-side of the quasi market: Enhancing choice

• Amalgamation of public and private school-sectors, e.g. voucher system

• Public schools: Privatization, e.g. opting-out or charter schools

• Private schools: Incorporation into the public scheme of school-place allocation



Supply side of the quasi market• Devolution and de-regulation of public schools• Re-regulation of incorporated private schools

Establishing the medium of exchange in quasi-market: Hegemony of performativity

• Standardization according to the imperatives of the economic system

• Standardization according to the imperative of the administrative system



The quality-assurance hegemony: The big-market-&-great-government education system

• Manufacturing measures of quality: Performance indicators, targets, tasks, criteria, benchmarks, etc.

• Constituting mechanism of auditing: Quality assurance inspection, school-self evaluation scheme, target-related assessment, criterion-referenced test, benchmark assessment, etc.

• Building accountability mechanism: awards to students, teachers and schools, and penalty to students, teachers and schools

• Constructing systemic and global normalization mechanism: School league tables, international comparisons, etc.



Individualization in education and destruction of the “social”

• Individualization of the educated: Education as zero-sum game of separating the educable from the uneducable (Wexler’s thesis of education as social destruction process)

• Individualization of the civil society (parents and families): Education as zero-sum game dominated by the parentocracy and that differentiating those parents with wealth and wish and those without (Whitty’s thesis of education of consumerism and Brown’s thesis of parentocracy)

• Individualization of the teaching profession: Education as rat race among teachers for benchmarking and/or stratifying qualifications



Individualization in education and destruction of the “social”

• Individualization of the school system: Education as zero-sum game among schools

– Zero-sum game of financial resource among schools

– Zero-sum game of educable students among schools

– Zero-sum game of parentocrats (parents with wealth and wish) among schools

– Zero-sum game of benchmarked teachers among schools

– Game of publicity and customization among schools

The Paradigm Y in Global Education Reform: Education Policy of the “Learning State” & the “Learning Society”

Lifelong Learning for All & Collective Intelligence: The underlying principle of the Paradigm Y

Paradox in lifelong-learning policy: • Lifelong learning for productivity and employability for

global economic competitiveness • Lifelong learning for Social inclusion, political

empowerment, and citizenship in deliberative democracy

The Paradigm Y in Global Education Reform: Education Policy of the “Learning State” & the “Learning Society”


Collective intelligence: “ Collective intelligence can be defined as empowerment

through the development and pooling of intelligence to attain common goals or resolve common problems. It is inspired by a spirit of co-operation rather a Darwinian survival of the fittest. …It involves making a virtue of our mutual dependence and sociability which we will need to make a dominant feature of post-industrial society based on information, knowledge and lifelong learning.” (Brown & Lauder, 2001, p. 218-19)

The Paradigm Y in Global Education Reform:


Two constituents of collective intelligence• The capacity for intelligence: “The capacity for intelligence d

escribes the raw materials on which the development of intelligence depends. It refers to the state of knowledge, scientific discovery, technology and learning techniques, on which societies can draw. It includes the knowledge and technological resources amassed in society in the form of books, journals, databases, computers and laboratories, and super-highways to name but a few.” (Brown & Lauder, 2001, p. 219)

• Relations of trust: “Trust is used …to refer to whether the development and pooling of intelligence is reflected in the relationship between individuals, groups, and social classes that are embedded in classrooms, offices, shopfloors, household, neighborhoods, welfare policies and taxation system.” (Brown & Lauder, 2001, p.220)


Societal policy of Lifelong Learning for Collective Intelligence: The operational mechanism of lifelong learning education for collective intelligence

Re-drawing the demarcation line between productive and unproductive laborRe-formulation of rules for income distribution:

• From winner-takes-all market mechanism to the mechanism of entitlement of “citizen’s wage”

• “The entitlement of a citizen’s wage… is wage above the level of poverty eligible to all citizens, taking into account the number of dependents. The move to a citizen’s wage would mark a decisive step in freeing individuals from the material fear poverty while ending material exclusion based on race, gender or class. It provides one of the foundations of a society based on collective intelligence and gives expression to the way in which collective intelligence can be seen as a principle of social integration.” (Brown & Lauder, 2001, p. 235)


The operational mechanism of lifelong learning education for collective intelligence

Education reform for lifelong learning for collective intelligence

• Re-defining criteria for educational achievement– Moving away from methodological individualism of I.Q. test

as sole measure of intelligence

– Conceptualization of educational achievement with reference to multiple intelligences

– Conceptualization of educational achievement with reference to collective intelligence

• Re-designing curriculum and evaluation with reference to the conception of multiple intelligences and collective intelligence




• Re-structuring for multi-cultural education system– Replacing suppressive-common school system with

inclusive-common school system

– Replacing segregating and stratifying school system with comprehensive school system

– Education for knowledge as well as identity




• Restructuring for “attested mobility” educational selection system

– Replacing both “sponsored mobility” and “contest mobility” educational selection systems

– Replacing with “attested mobility” educational selection system– “The challenge in a pluralist system of education is to juggle the

need to pay attention to the particularity of cultural identity and yet create rules of competition which are fair for all groups. The need for fairness across groups is necessary because at the end of the day educational credentials will still be a prime determinant of career opportunities. For this reason we believe a new concept, that of attested mobility should be introduced into the discussion. To attest is to affirm or bear witness. In this context it draws attention to the link between a person’s cultural identity and educational performance.” (Brown & Lauder, 2001, p. 247)

– Replacing principle of praise with principle of respect




• Restructuring for education system of equality of opportunity– Means-regarding equality of opportunity

– Equality of access to education

– Equality of education process

– Prospect-regarding equality of opportunity

– Equality of education result

– Equality of education outcome



Restructuring higher education for lifelong learning for collective intelligence

• Replacing upward spiral and stratification in higher education

• Restructuring an open, inclusive, accommodating, flexible and affordable higher educational system

Paradigm X in Education Reform of HKSAR

Education Commission Report No.3 (ECR#3), 1988Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS)Public Sector Reform, 1989ECR#4, 1990 Target-related assessment (TRA) and issuing “definite guidance” for MOI of secondary schools in 1998/99 The School Management Initiatives: Setting the Framework for Quality in Hong Kong Schools, 1991Issuing Medium-of-Instruction Grouping Assessment (MIGA) to parents and secondary school


Education Commission Report No. 7, 1997Quality indicatorsQuality assurance mechanismQuality school managementQuality Education Fund (QEF)

Establishing benchmarks fro IT teacher, 1998Implementing MOI Guidance fro Secondary Schools, 1998Implementing benchmarking assessments for English and Putonhau TeachersProposing to publicize HKCEE results of secondary schools in Secondary School Profile, 2000


School-Based Management: Publication of Transforming Schools into Dynamic and Accountable Professional Learning Community: School-Based Management Consultation Document, 2000Establishing School Value Added Information System (SVAIS) in 2002Implementing “New” DSS, 2002Issuing School Self-Evaluation mechanism, 2003

Paradigm Y in Education Reform of HKSAR

Education Blueprint for the 21st Century: The Education Reform of the HKSAR, January 1999 to September 2000Education reform proposal for Education for Life and Education Through Life

Through-road for foundation educationUnification and universalization of upper-secondary educationLiberalization of tertiary education

Paradigm Y in Education Reform of HKSAR

The outcome of the education reformContradictory policy measures on the through-road for foundation education

• The reforms on the Primary One Allocation (POA) • The reforms of the SSPA• The proposed trough-train school scheme

The hung and delayed decision on reform 3-year upper secondary and 4-year of university educationThe paralogism on Increase in Post-Secondary Education Opportunities

Implementing self-financing associate degrees and community colleges

Documents

Education and Development Globalization & Education: The Coming of the Global-Competition State & its Educational Consequences Wing-kwong Tsang Ho Tim