Asian Education Podcast

In this episode of the Asian Education Podcast, we are joined by Dr Brenda Dobia, who has a background both in clinical psychology and cultural studies, and has been actively involved in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), both in her native Australia and in Asia-related projects. In Australia, she has worked with indigenous children and youth and on training pre-service teachers in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

We begin by discussing Brenda’s involvement with the Australian government’s mental health and well-being initiative for the early childhood and primary phase, KidsMatter, which had SEL as one of its pillars. We then discuss how SEL discourse has gained traction in policymaking circles, through widespread adoption of the CASEL framework and growing credence to the idea that social and emotional skills are teachable skills. Questions that arise include: Who identifies these skills? How can (or should) they be assessed? And for what purpose? Drawing on her experience of efforts to adapt KidsMatter for indigenous communities, Brenda elaborates on the challenges of accommodating cultural diversity within standardised approaches to SEL. For example, SEL based on mainstream Australian values, including the assumption that children should have autonomy and express their individuality, may clash with indigenous values that see “standing out and putting yourself forward” as shameful.

But the issues raised by the growing fashion for SEL extend beyond such questions of cultural adaptation or contesting ‘Western’ universalism. As we noted in Episode 3 (our interview with Tara de Mel on education policy in Sri Lanka), SEL is also increasingly touted as a strategy for responding to manifold crises. But is the most appropriate response to a crisis like climate change, for example, to teach individual youngsters to manage their anxiety (the SEL approach), or should we be urgently fostering political agency and active citizenship as we work together to tackle such issues (the ESD approach)? Might certain forms of SEL contribute to depoliticisation, deterring young people from speaking up - especially in the many Asian societies where regimes seek to lend conformity and political quiescence the sanction of ‘tradition’? In assessing the usefulness (or otherwise) of SEL programmes, we need to be mindful not just of cultural difference, but also of political context. As our conversation with Brenda takes a more political turn, we discuss tensions between individualism and collectivism, the fashion for yoga and mindfulness as a ‘reverse import’ from the United States to Asia, and the relationship between Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas and youth climate activism.

Notes: Edward’s comment on the arrest of an Indian climate activist (around 38:10) requires explanation. In February 2021, Disha Ravi, one of the founders of the Indian chapter of the Fridays for the Future climate strike, was arrested after sharing a document (first tweeted by Greta Thunberg) intended to help Indian farmers protesting against new agricultural laws. Her arrest therefore broadly reflects the Indian government’s approach to quelling dissent and deterring anti-government protests, if not specifically its reaction to youth climate activism.

Organizations and initiatives mentioned in this episode

Recommended readings:

Tara de Mel on Sri Lanka’s Educational Challenges

Sri Lanka has experienced a succession of acute crises over the past five decades, from terrorist insurgencies to ethnic civil war and, most recently, an economic emergency intensified by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout this period, education has been intimately intertwined with the island’s various social and political problems. Endemic credentialism combined with economic stagnation have played a potent role in fueling youth discontent. Sri Lanka is celebrated for its success in universalising access to basic education. But the country’s experience illustrates that educational expansion in and of itself is not an unalloyed good - for Sri Lanka, this has entailed intensified competition, fueling the shadow education industry and worsening social inequality. Meanwhile, divisions of ethnicity, language and religion continue to threaten social cohesion, posing challenges for education reform.

In this episode, Dr Tara de Mel talks to Edward Vickers and Yoko Mochizuki about her three decades of involvement in education policy debates in Sri Lanka. Originally a medical doctor and university lecturer, from the mid-1990s Prof. de Mel spent almost ten years as education policy advisor to President Chandrika Kumaratunga, also serving as Vice-Chair of the Education Commission. In recent years, she has continued to engage in education policy advocacy, founding the NGO Education Forum.

Themes covered in this wide-ranging discussion include:

Recommended readings:

Tara de Mel (2023). Reforming Education: Challenges to Change (Education Reforms 1996-2005).

Angela Little and Siri Hettige (2013). Globalisation, Employment and Education in Sri Lanka: Opportunity and Division. London and New York: Routledge.

Christina P. Davis (2020). The Struggle for a Multilingual Future: Youth and Education in Sri Lanka. Oxford University Press.

Paul Morris on education in Hong Kong

In this episode, Professor Paul Morris of the UCL Institute of Education in London talks to Edward Vickers about education in Hong Kong.

Before moving to London in 2007, Paul spent almost 30 years in Hong Kong as an academic and teacher educator, culminating in a five-year spell as President of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd; now the Education University of Hong Kong). He has written widely on issues of curriculum reform and the politics of education in Hong Kong, and he and Ed recently co-authored an article discussing the educational impact of the 2020 National Security Law.

This discussion ranges backwards and forwards, as Paul and Ed reflect on their shared experience of working in Hong Kong’s education sector, and on its continuing transformation following the political upheavals of recent years. They discuss the evolution of local debate over academic autonomy, with particular reference to the scandal surrounding government attempts to interfere with the conduct of research at the HKIEd in the early 2000s. They then focus especially on the National Security Law and what it means for curriculum development, schooling and academic freedom in a region that has liked to portray itself as an Asian ‘hub’ of openness and internationalism.

Recommended readings:

Peter Baehr (2022). Hong Kong Universities in the Shadow of the National Security Law. Soc 59, 225–239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-022-00709-9

Edward Vickers and Paul Morris (2022). ‘Accelerating Hong Kong’s reeducation: “mainlandisation”, securitisation and the 2020 National Security Law’, Comparative Education, 58:2, 187-205.

Paul Morris and Edward Vickers (2015). ‘Schooling, Politics and the Construction of Identity in Hong Kong: the “Moral and National Education” Crisis in Historical Context,’ Comparative Education, May 2015, 305-326.

What is the rationale for having a podcast that discusses education from a primarily Asian perspective? It is not necessarily that we are keen on setting up ‘Asian’ standards to challenge or counter the hegemony of Western-centric perspectives. The idea of ‘Asia’ itself, like any other category, is arbitrary and yet has been institutionalized and carries both symbolic and political weight. The thread that ties the three of us is the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), which is an integral part of UNESCO’s Education Sector and its only ‘Category 1’ research institute in Asia. MGIEP produced a report titled Rethinking schooling for the 21st century: the state of education for peace, sustainable development and global citizenship in Asia in 2017, for which Yoko and Ed, along with Krishna Kumar, served as coordinating lead authors. However we define ‘Asia’, whether in terms of economic clout or population, it accounts for about half the world population. So, we are dealing with a ‘region’ which should be central to global debates about the future of humanity and the planet. Here we agree with the ‘decolonialists’ that Asian perspectives on education generally do not get the airing they deserve in global debates, which still tend to be largely shaped by scholars, actors and institutions that are based in ‘the West’. It is important to have an Asian platform for discussing education issues to provide a corrective to the Anglophone or West-centric bias in academic debate – both in 'the West' and, often, in ‘Asia’, too.

Why, or to what extent, are the three of us qualified to speak for or about 'Asian education', or from Asian perspectives on education? Ed is currently based in Fukuoka, Japan, and has spent most of his adult life living and working in Asia; while Yoko, who is originally from Yokohama, Japan, worked in Delhi, India for seven years and now lives in Paris. Gairan from Manipur, India, is pursuing a PhD in Hong Kong. We critically reflect on our academic and professional experiences, our identities, our privileges as English speakers in Asia, and our ‘positionalities’: as ‘Viceroy Vickers’, as an East Asian woman who is stereotyped in a certain way within Asia as well as in ‘the West’, and as a junior scholar in Hong Kong from the ‘Mongolian fringe’ of what is today India.

What are some of the difficulties or tensions involved in promoting critical debate over education, especially the politics of education, in the Asian context? How do we anticipate these difficulties impacting our work on this podcast? We lament the reduction of education debates in many Asian societies to a technocratic discourse of ‘what works’. This tendency has complicated historical roots that we’ll certainly discuss in future episodes, but it has been exacerbated in recent years by various policy trends. Examples include the influence in educational debate of quantitatively-trained economists, a related fondness for Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), and the shift of focus in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) from a broad discussion of education’s purposes to a technical discussion of metrics for monitoring SDG 4.7. The emphasis on ‘what works’ diverts our attention away from the complex contexts, politics and ethics of education, hindering meaningful debate. In addition to the ‘tyranny of metrics’ and consequent narrowing of the education policy agenda, threats to academic freedom in Asia, as elsewhere, pose challenges to critical debate. This adds to the reasons for doing this podcast, and at the same time, presents difficulties in conducting a critical discussion on education with colleagues around Asia.

One topic is Social-Emotional Learning or SEL, which is becoming a global trend partly because of a recent attempt by the OECD to ‘measure’ social and emotional skills. We see SEL as reflective of wider efforts to ‘psychologise’ and depolitice education in general. This is particularly evident in areas such as ‘civics’, which used to be a carrier of a critical approach to citizenship and political issues in some Asian countries. Another, related topic is the fascination with quantitative metrics in the form of rankings and impact factors. Where does this fascination come from, and what do these metrics do to educational debates and academic research, particularly in Asian contexts? It is also intriguing to discuss meritocracy, which is today at the forefront of educational debates in the Anglophone scholarly community. Very little reference is generally made to Asia when meritocracy is discussed in ‘the West’, and Asian perspectives can shed new light on this debate. Last but not least, we will discuss patriotic education which is a prominent feature of the educational landscape across Asia, critically examining the relationship between nationalism and education’s role in political socialisation.

Dimitar Gueorguiev (ed.) New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia (Association of Asian Studies)

UNESCO-MGIEP (2017). Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century: The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia. New Delhi: MGIEP.