Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

compared to the majority of countries surveyed, a recent influx of foreign
migrant workers means that ‘multiculturalism’ has become a topic of a
public concern. Giving further support to this observation, ‘migration’ has
some weightage in Korea and Japan — as well as in Kazakhstan, which also
receives migrant workers, and in countries well known as senders of migrant
workers, namely, Nepal, Afghanistan, Lao PDR and the Philippines — although
the concept is absent in documents from all other countries. It is important
to note here that there are also countries that are significant senders or
recipients of migrant workers such as India and Pakistan that do not refer
to ‘migration’ in education policy and curriculum documents. 10 To explain
such absence requires careful investigation into national contexts which is
beyond the scope of this chapter.
b. With some exceptions, there is an absence or paucity of references to the
three coding categories associated particularly with global citizenship:
‘justification and general orientation about global citizenship’, ‘global
systems, structures and processes’ and ‘global issues’ (see Appendices
II-7-9). The only concepts that receive a high weightage in more than one
country under these categories are ‘global governance system’ (in Nepal,
Bhutan, and Thailand) and ‘globalization’ (in Korea, China, Uzbekistan,
Pakistan, India, Lao PDR, Malaysia, and Viet Nam). This indicates that many
themes and topics associated with GCED have not found their way into
education policy and curricula in countries covered by this review. Among
22 countries, Bhutan is the only country that puts a very high weightage on
‘environmental sustainability’ and a moderate weightage on ‘justification
and general orientation of global citizenship’, reflecting a relatively holistic
approach to ESD and GCED.
c. Overall the category ‘culture of peace and non-violence’ is weakly covered
in documents analysed. This seems to indicate that peace is not a priority
in national curricular goals in many Asian countries. While a generic subcategory
of ‘peace’ receives a high weightage in 6 countries (Japan,
Thailand, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan), other sub-categories
such as ‘peace-building’, ‘conflict resolution’, and ‘non-violence’ receive
little or no weightage across countries (with exception of ‘peace building’
which receives a moderate weightage in Japan) (see Figure 2.2). Reasons
for referring to ‘peace’ in education policy and curricula are different
from country to country, and some are explained in sub-regional synthesis
chapters (see, for example, Chapter 3 for explanations for Japan, Chapter 4
for Thailand, and Chapter 5 for Afghanistan, Bhutan and India).
10 Other countries that are also well-known sender countries are: India, Bangladesh, Indonesia,
China, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Korea, and Thailand. See https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/
publication/178966/adbi-labor-migration-asia.pdf
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
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