"Globalization and Education: Can the World Meet the Challenge?"
This chapter gives a description of how globalization has brought about challenges in education. The number of students who venture abroad for their studies has increased dramatically over recent years, in fact more than 2.2 million people studied abroad last year. (Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.137) This has increased the interest of universities to increase their foreign campuses rapidly. Many of these universities have also adopted partnerships with foreign institutions. Globalization has brought about economic and cultural change. The changes globalization brought about pose five challenges for education.
Five Challenges for Education Posed by Globalization
Interdependence on other countries for merchandise has grown rapidly since 1950(Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.139). Low skilled tasks are often subcontracted out to China and India. This creates a labor cost differential that is so large that several OECD countries have to adjust their economies to the new situation. If economies have to adjust rapidly to the changing needs of the world distribution of labor the market must be flexible. Enterprises should also have the ability to adjust their workforces as rapidly as possible to the new situation. Due to this change, people will have to update their knowledge and skills more often. People in these economies will also be expected to change jobs more often. In order to move with this change, education systems will need to create students who are flexible, creative, able to learn and relearn, have the capacity to learn independently, digital literacy and the ability to develop networking.
Globalization is leading to similar cultural traits around the world. Globalization leads to more international economic exchanges. With the increase of international economic exchange more people in the work force will need to migrate internationaly. This is leading to an international cultural exchange. Advances in technology is rapidly accelerating these exchanges. Due to this, our societies are becoming multicultural. Education will need to adapt and prepare our youth for intercultural exchange by educating students about various cultures and teaching them different languages. International migration also presents a problem about how to properly educate the migration families children. There is an implied social norm in most countries who receive immigrants that is refered to as the republican school of thought. Immigrants in this norm are expected to make every effort to learn and we are to provide them with the same quality education as the nationals. This poses a problem because most immigrants want their culture represented in the schools they are attending. This can cause some immigrants to reject their learning and or become resentful towards their host country. Native born students often score higher on tests than foreign born students(cited by Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.145). How can education help solve this problem? Instead of following the republican school of thought approach, schools will need to integrate some of the international school’s cultures into their own. This would lessen the immigrant’s fears of losing their roots or cultural identity. This would also enrich the culture of the host country.
There is becoming an increasing wage gap between the rich and the poor. Globalization has lead to increased outsourcing which will only increase this gap. This increased wage gap will increase social cohesion throughout cultures because more people will feel that society provides them with fewer opportunities and that social protection for the less wealthy is diminishing. Education can provide a solution only if it is equitable. In order to do this, education will have to provide equal educational quality, equal access and equal outcomes for everyone.
With globalization there will need to be a united citizen accountability in order to solve the international problems we see today. National accountability alone is not enough. When we become citizens of the world we inherit all of the worlds problems such as: drug trafficking, terrorism and poverty reduction. In order to solve these problems book claims we will have to raise global consciousness and make all citizens aware of the world problems. Education will need to educate our youth on the issues around the world so they can contribute to the solution as a citizen of the world.
Higher education is becoming internationalized. The growth of higher academic institutions has brought about new ways to deliver education. Online classes, foreign campuses, and for-profit providers are examples of this. In order to insure these new institutions deliver quality curriculums, accreditation bodies has risen also. The problem with this picture is that these bodies focus entirely on national delivery systems and not on international systems. This can lead students who get their education internationally to have a low quality education. This problem can be solved by having accreditation bodies go to a global range as opposed to a domestic. The accreditation bodies will need to co-operate so they can set unified set standards to ensure that students have equal quality education (Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.154).
This chapter gives a description of how globalization has brought about challenges in education. The number of students who venture abroad for their studies has increased dramatically over recent years, in fact more than 2.2 million people studied abroad last year. (Suárez-Orozco, 2007, p.137) This has increased the interest of universities to increase their foreign campuses rapidly. Many of these universities have also adopted partnerships with foreign institutions. Globalization has brought about economic and cultural change. The changes globalization brought about pose five challenges for education.
Five Challenges for Education Posed by Globalization