Global education is not a new concept but teaching students what it means to live and thrive as a global citizen is more important in today’s globalized society than ever before. Though basic math and literacy skills have improved internationally, a stronger approach is needed to make continued strides in achieving universal education goals.
According to the United Nations, achieving quality education is the foundation for creating sustainable development internationally. In addition to improving quality of life, access to inclusive education can help equip students achieve the tools needed to develop innovative solutions to the world’s greatest problems, and the problems they face day to day in their own communities.
The United Nations and its member states therefore created the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ as a blueprint to achieve a better, more sustainable future for all. In total, there are 17 Sustainable Development Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. The fourth goal in the UN blueprint is the right to a quality education.
English is increasingly seen as a “lingua franca’ or common language in business, science, and the arts. It is also one of the primary languages for intercultural communication in the media and the internet. Many people therefore believe that learning it is important for work opportunity, socializing, entertainment, and even for national economic development. Around the world, many governments have reacted by integrating English education into their school systems. The language is even the primary medium for teaching in some cases.
Russell Hazard, Director of the Teaching, Learning and Innovation Center at Aidi School/NIT Education Group – Beijing/Shanghai, in research presented at the European Conference on Education at University College London, says that students can potentially utilize English education programs to develop a range of 21st century competencies and thereby help both themselves and their communities.
“Recognizing the socio-cultural elements of language production, many modern English as an additional language (EAL) programs utilize a content-based approach. In the case of school-based EAL programs, this content often includes investigations such as understanding local values, citizenship theory, sustainability, media awareness, and digital literacy,” explains Russell Hazard.
However, he warns that English education is often implemented in ways that can actually harm students in developing nations. Scarce resources can be wasted in situations where students have little or no use for English, particularly in remote rural environments, and where the hours of study might be better used attaining basic literacy and numeracy in their mother language. Especially problematic are situations where both students and teachers are using English as the medium of instruction and assessment without proper training, resources, or support. This can lead to students not achieving a quality education at all.
Some of the reasons for lack of quality education are poor education policy and curriculum, an inability to hire and retain adequately trained teachers, poor conditions in schools, and equity issues related to opportunities provided to rural children. Kati Haycock, president of The Education Trust, says that in order for educators of children who live in poverty to be effective, they need to understand the important role of connecting, validating, educating, responding, leading, and succeeding with children who live in vulnerable environments. She adds, “Good teachers—and counselors and social workers and school principals—matter. They matter a lot to kids of all sorts. But they especially matter to kids of color and kids who are growing up in poverty.”
Russell Hazard notes that the model of development being used by government to determine education policy matters. Economic development that is solely focused on quantitative financial indicators can miss the context of quality of life for students living in poverty. He suggests that sustainable development be considered as a model because it includes indicators such as nutrition, health, and clean water and can therefore prevent oversimplified development models in which local GDP increases seem to indicate success but overall human well-being actually decreases because of pollution, disruption to important social or linguistic bonds, corruption, or other indicators that need to be tracked for a more complete understanding of outcomes. With regard to English language education, he suggests that language educators take on the role of advocates for the people they serve and that policy makers conduct a needs analyses to ensure that precious educational resources not be squandered on misguided programming, even when that means that a decision is taken not to include English in the education system until mother tongue literacy and numeracy has been achieved.
In cases where English language education is actually warranted, he suggests that it be contextualized to meet the needs of local people. For example, the needs of students who plan to take a university education in English may be quite different from the needs of students who might wish to access new agricultural markets or build digital communities with people from other backgrounds using project-based learning to acquire English while working toward real world outcomes that will allow them to utilize the language authentically.
One thing is for certain, to best fulfill the UN’s fourth goal in its Sustainable Development blueprint – namely, the right to a quality education – we must help 21st century educators find ways to help children who live in poverty build a bridge to a future of hope, inclusion, and empowerment. That means good policy backed by resources.
