Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

do not understand. When teachers routinely take the blame for poor systemic
quality, they become cynical and resistant to change. This is particularly so when
they find themselves on the lowest rung of a hierarchy that accords much higher
status to syllabus designers and textbook writers. To the extent that they are
treated as low-status functionaries rather than autonomous professionals, their
engagement with their classes is likely to be performative (i.e. largely scripted)
rather than relational. They will also feel vulnerable to inspection regimes largely
heedless of the constraints imposed by examination syllabi, textbooks or other
contextual factors, and intent on assessing pedagogical effectiveness on the
basis solely of pupil ‘outcomes’ rather than observation or consultation.
The manner in which the teacher habitually
relates to his or her class is a factor crucial to
shaping their overall approach to learning. Their
natural curiosity can be transformed into selfdirected
enquiry when teaching is grounded
in an awareness of how children grow up and
learn. But while there is a considerable body of
professional knowledge regarding such matters
on which teachers could potentially draw, in
many education systems it is conveyed to them
poorly, if at all. Across much of Asia (though with
In their efforts to relate
to children, teachers are
often constrained as much
by the poverty of their
own training as by the
design of the curriculum
they are expected to
implement
significant exceptions, in parts of East Asia, for example), teacher education
itself often partakes of the same transmission-belt model of pedagogy that
teachers then go on to implement in school classrooms. Debates on learning and
intellectual development are ignored and teachers are fed, during their training,
on simplistic messages or aphorisms rather than evidential or theoretical debate
(Gupta, 2017). Such practices are based on a generalised perception of the
intellectual calibre of primary school teacher recruits. Curricula and methods in
teacher training often leave the novice teacher de-professionalised and reduced
to the status of a subordinate classroom technician. In their efforts to relate to
children, teachers are thus often constrained as much by the poverty of their
own training as by the design of the curriculum they are expected to implement.
While these issues of teacher capacity and de-professionalisation fall beyond
the ambit of the research conducted for this report (analysed in subsequent
chapters), they are crucial to interpreting the significance of its findings.
What Makes Curriculum Renewal for SDG 4.7 Particularly
Challenging in Asia?
Goal-setting and Systemic Reform: Impediments of Instrumentalist
Education Policy
The 1990 World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand, was a
precursor of current exercises in global goal-setting for educational reform.
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
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