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Seite 12<strong>ZEP</strong>30. Jg. Heft 1 März 2007broader educational support. In the UK for example the InternationalDevelopment Ministry, DFID, has stated that oneof the aims of its funding is to support proposals that ‘embed’greater understanding of international development issueswithin mainstream education. To achieve this, the Departmenthas recognised that there is a need to produce evidencethat development education does contribute to the ‘essentiallearning’ of children and young people (DFID 1998).The Education Ministry in England, the Department forEducation and Skills (DfES) in launching in 2004 theirInternational Strategy, ‘Putting the World into World ClassEducation’ made reference to the importance of promotingthe global dimension within all sectors of formal education.In planning its implementation in the summer of 2005, DfESofficials have stated to officers within the Development EducationAssociation (DEA) they wish to work with them, itsmembers and other key educational bodies to promote andensure an effective understanding of the ‘Global Dimension’amongst policy-makers. DfES officials have stated that apriority has to be to demonstrate the value and impact of theglobal dimension and ‘international experience’ for youngpeople. There is also a need to promote and publicise existingacademic research in this field to the wider educationalworld.Similar debates and initiatives have taken place in othercountries such as Finland, Austria and the Netherlands. ThePeer Evaluation initiatives led by Global Education NetworkEurope (GENE) have started an important process of reflection,analysis and need for strategies. GENE also organiseda series of seminars and events on the need for evaluationand quality assurance strategies (North-South Centre 2005;2006).But there has been no mechanism or structure that canbring together, identify and promote outcomes of researchand evidence on the impact and effectiveness of developmenteducation programmes.For example despite work undertaken in the UK andGermany on evaluation there is still a recognition amongstmany NGOs across Europe of the importance and value ofpublishing evidence and research of work undertaken. Thecomments made by McCollum commenting on the challengesfor evaluation for development education in 2001 are stillrelevant. ‘The key to moving forward is to identify waysfor development education practitioners and organisationsto work collectively to develop analyses of changes in thewider environment and their implications for their work’(McCollum 2001).Development education has therefore not been a subject ofbroader educational debate. A consequence of this is that it isvulnerable in terms of its long-term viability if it is not seenas part of mainstream learning. Without published bodies ofevidence and research it is likely that development educationand related terms will continue to remain on the margins ofeducation thinking, policy-making and practice.A comparison could be made with environmental education.That field has generated a well-respected internationalacademic journal entitled Environmental Education Research.The editors of this Journal are based at the research centrefor environmental education at the University of Bath in theUK. The National Foundation for Educational Research hasalso been actively engaged in a number of projects reviewingresearch on environmental education, some of which havebeen published in Environmental Education Research.There are a number of projects in many countries thatengage individual academics and institutions in particularinitiatives. But unless evidence is gathered and learning undertakenwhich deepens understanding of what ‘developmenteducation’ means, there is a danger that initiatives aroundthe theme of the ‘global dimension’ could be superficial andnot grounded in understanding of international developmentissues (see www.dea.org.uk/measuringeffectiveness).One example is the Global Citizenship project at BirminghamUniversity led by Professor Lynn Davies. The projectreport demonstrated the lack of clarity there is in the educationalworld about what is meant by ‘global citizenship’(Davies/Harber/Yamashita 2005). Professor Lynn Daviesidentified the need for more research on the long-term impactof global citizenship education. There is a need she suggestsassessing ‘the impact of teaching and learning on youngpeople’s attitudes and dispositions to challenge injustice andviolence’ (Davies 2005).Harriet Marshall, author of a recently completed thesis onGlobal Education, in a review essay of this area stated thatthere are few contemporary books in this field, ‘despite theburgeoning interest amongst teachers, NGO workers andresearch students’. She says that ‘it is vital for a discourse tobe developed in this area, particularly at a time when there issuch a demand by young people to learn more about globalissues’ (Marshall 2003).This means that none of the academic debates that havelinks to development education put at their centre the agendasof promoting of greater understanding and support fordevelopment.Creation of a Research Centre onDevelopment EducationIn recognition of these challenges, the Institute of Educationof the University of London submitted a proposal to create aResearch Centre on Development Education to the InternationalDevelopment Ministry in partnership with the DEA.The application was successful and the Centre beganoperation in the autumn of 2006 with a formal launch inNovember of that year.The purpose of the research centre at the Institute of Educationis to act as the hub for generating issues and areasfor knowledge generation, new thinking and quality outputon development education. An initial task of the centre is todevelop a body of evidence that can demonstrate the valueand impact of development education and to give it increasedstatus and profile within higher education.Its objectives are to:- promote the value of development education as part ofthe essential learning of the twenty-first century to the academicallyfocussed educational world through the creationof a research centre;
<strong>ZEP</strong>30. Jg. Heft 1 März 2007 Seite 13- provide evidence to DFID as to where and how developmenteducation contributes to their strategy on ‘BuildingSupport for Development’;- promote and encourage critical reflective engagementwith the meaning and effectiveness of development educationprogrammes with the educational community in the UK andinternationally;- develop a community of researchers engaged in developmenteducation;- develop a body of evidence through a series of publishedmonographs, academic articles and seminars on the contributiondevelopment education practice for building public supportand understanding of international development;- develop the first ever Masters degree course in the UK ondevelopment education aimed at NGO practitioners, teachersand educationalists;- develop and embed development education principlesand practices across teacher training and other educationalcourses and initiatives within the Institute of Education, andthereby in turn to other similar institutions.Support for the concept of the research centre came froma range of policy-makers and academics across Europe.Professor Annette Scheunpflug, from the University of Nurembergin Germany has written of the need for more sharingof thinking internationally as to the conceptual frameworkfor development education and global learning (Scheunpflug2004). In support for the Research Centre she has stated thefollowing: ‘The ongoing globalisation means challenge foreducation in general but in particular to all these educationalendeavours which deal with all efforts to educate for solidarityand justice in the one world. In all industrialised countrieswe can observe an educational scene coming from schoolpractice and NGOs which provides materials and ideas for globaleducation and learning for sustainability. In contrast thereare nearly no activities on research in this field. And if thereare some – for example as our existing work in Germany– they are focused in national perspectives not reflecting theinternational dimension of these learning challenges. Theresearch centre is an international answer to this deficiency’(Scheunpflug 2005).Ange Grunsell, former Head of Development Educationin Oxfam in the UK stated the following: ‘The progress ofDevelopment Education into mainstream policy and practicein this country is undoubtedly being held back by the absenceof a rigorous and substantive body of evidence as to howDevelopment Education methodology and content can raiseboth achievement and political participation. At Oxfam weidentified this in 2002 when we undertook a comprehensivereview in consultation with a range of external educationalistsand therefore identified the building a body of evidence as apriority strategic area. […] Only universities can provide thedevelopment of scholarship in this area, which will changeits image and its status and create a body of understandingabout teaching and learning through development education’(Grunsell 2005).Matt Smith from Northumbria University in UK stated:‘Despite being a significant element of their practice, there islittle research that focuses on NGOs’ development educationwork. The ways NGOs define and deliver development educa-Institute of Education of the University of London; Foto: http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk.
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