NN40, May 2008
Education for Sustainable Development? Or The Sustainability of Education Investment? A Special Issue
Growth, Development, EFA, and the MDGs
By Steven J. Klees, University of Maryland
Email: sklees@umd.eduFor over half a century, economic growth has been the central feature of dominant views of development. Social progress has been seen as facilitated and constrained by the degree of a nation?s economic growth. There has been widespread recognition, even within the dominant neoliberal development paradigm, that economic growth has not been sufficient to achieve basic social goals. Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were the results of this recognition, the frustration with the slow pace of progress, and a commitment to move more rapidly in key sectors.
From the beginning of concerns with development, critics have pointed out the limits of the focus on economic growth. A key issue has been equity, but many other issues have been raised around the social and ethical meanings of development. Competing paradigms to a focus on economic growth-based development have emerged. The measurement and meaning of economic growth have been directly challenged by ideas of sustainable development. The meanings of sustainable development itself are contested, ranging from ones that require minimal adjustment to economic growth-based approaches to others that require a radical transformation of our global economy (Daly and Cobb, 1994).
Economic growth-based development has also been challenged from other directions. A human rights-based development approach has enjoyed significant popularity in the last few decades. One could even argue that EFA and the MDGs came to fruition as a result of the human rights movement, even though both EFA and the MDGs have been criticized for their neglect of a human rights framework (Klees and Thapliyal, 2007; Chan, 2006). Economic growth-based development has also been challenged by perspectives associated with the anti-globalization movement, or as movement proponents like to call it, the alter-globalization movement (Cavanagh and Mander, 2002). These perspectives raise fundamental questions about in whose interest growth operates and, by extension, about the extent to which EFA and the MDGs represent serious commitments to social progress.
The nature of EFA goals has been constrained (Torres, 2000). For example, before Jomtien, the World Bank told other participants in the EFA planning process that the focus had to be on primary education; adult education could not be included, or the Bank would withdraw its support. Nonetheless, at Jomtien, pressure by NGOs and others led to attention to adult education as part of EFA goals. In practice, however, the attention since then has almost exclusively been focused on attaining universal primary education (UPE) and, in the Dakar meeting revisions, and in the MDGs, UPE has become the centerpiece.
The original EFA goals envisioned UPE by 2000. This has been postponed to 2015, in keeping with the MDGs. However, it is clear today to all analysts that under current efforts the goal will not be even close to being fulfilled in 2015 (nor will any of the other MDGs concerning poverty, health, gender equity, and the environment). According to a recent estimate, 67 countries will not reach UPE by 2015 (Glewwe and Zhao, 2006). Moreover, some worry that even some of the 30 countries projected to be on track to achieve UPE by 2015 will not do so. The projection is based on a maintained economic and political commitment by both rich and poor countries that may not be forthcoming. Add to this picture the fact that UPE goals and promises have been unsuccessfully made every decade since the 1960s.
So what is happening here? Hans Weiler (1984) called it compensatory legitimation; more colloquially, I see it as a form of good cop, bad cop. Shaky and poorly-performing economies, increasing poverty and inequality, widespread conflicts, and the equivalent of structural adjustment policies everywhere, all call into question the legitimacy of the social order ? this is the bad cop. To compensate for this, our system of neoliberal globalization must introduce polices, for example, EFA and the MDGs, aimed at ameliorating some problematic conditions and thus restoring a degree of legitimacy ? this is the good cop. This argument does not question the good intentions of the proponents of these policies but does question their effects. Simply having these policies may be sufficient compensatory legitimation; fulfilling them, judging by past experience, seems to be less important. This does not have to be so. We could achieve UPE and the rest of the MDGs in a very few years if we were willing to devote the kind of resources and attention that go into current priorities, like the Iraq War. Sustainability is a policy choice.
References
Cavanagh, J. and Mander J. (Eds.) (2002) Alternatives to globalization: A better world is possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Chan, Jennifer (2006) Between efficiency, capability, and recognition: Competing epistemes in global governance,? Comparative Education. Vol 43 (3), pp.359-376
Daly, H.E. and Cobb, J. (1994) For the common good: redirecting the economy toward community, the environment, and a sustainable future. Boston: Beacon Press.
Gleww, P. and Zhao, M. (2006) Attaining universal primary education schooling by 2015: An evaluation of cost estimates. In Cohen, J., Bloom, D. and Malin, M. Educating all children: A global agenda. Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Klees, S. and Thapliyal, N. (2007, November) The right to education: The work of Katarina Tomasevski. Comparative Education Review, 51 (4), 497-510.
Torres, R.M. (2000) One decade of Education for All: The challenge ahead. Paris: UNESCO.
Weiler, H. (1984) The political economy of education and development. Prospects, 19 (4), 468-477.
Back to full contents of NORRAG NEWS 40.
Download the full issue of NORRAG NEWS 40 in pdf.