Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

to be included in the study was based on a combination of ideal criteria and
practical considerations.
In terms of ideal criteria, the study includes countries from different sub-regions
of the Asia-Pacific region, and of a variety in terms of national size, the level
of economic development, as well as other variables. Given that a similar study
conducted by the Global Education Monitoring Report (UNESCO, 2016a) analysed
official documents that were only in English, French or Spanish, there was also a
conscious effort to cover countries whose official documents were not available
in these languages.
With regard to practical considerations, the study includes countries already
covered by previous, relevant cross-national studies, to build on and synthesise
the findings of existing studies (see UNESCO, 2014d; UNESCO, 2015c; ILO/
CEDEFOP, 2011; IGES, 2012; IEA, 2010). Additionally, efforts were made to include
E-9 countries located in the Asia-Pacific region, namely Bangladesh, China, India,
Indonesia, and Pakistan, given their large population size and the availability of
documentation on their activities implemented in the context of Education For
All (EFA).
Subject Areas
Given their high weight in the curriculum in terms of time allocation and
mandatory and examinable status, mathematics, science, languages, and social
studies (core subjects) are critical to enhancing understanding of the scientific
and social dimensions of interconnected and interdependent local to global
challenges. It is important to not only look at civics and citizenship education
which are viewed as ‘carrier’ subject of values, but also at core subjects and
knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they attempt to inculcate through
curricula (see Introduction for elaboration of the importance of different subject
areas).
Grade Level
A particular focus was placed on grade 4 and 8 curricula based on the target
populations of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement’s (IEA) TIMSS (Mathematics and Science), PIRLS (Literacy), and
ICCS (Civic and Citizenship Education) studies 2 . Yet this focus was flexible when
necessary as per the individual contexts of the nation-states (for example, for
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, grade 5 and 9 were looked at instead).
2 For more information, see http://www.iea.nl/current_studies.html.
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
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