Introduction to Education and Development in Contemporary Asia (bonus series):

In a new initiative, the Asian Education Podcast is releasing an MA module on 'Education and Development in Contemporary Asia'. Designed for hybrid delivery, this provides a historical overview of education’s role in the political, social and economic development of contemporary Asian societies. Each episode features a conversation between the presenter, Edward Vickers, and an invited expert, with episode notes providing a brief outline, guiding questions and recommended readings (as well as links to further materials).

The series/module begins by critically considering the educational significance of legacies of colonialism and imperialism across the region, while emphasising the need to acknowledge indigenous agency and the salience of non-Western forms of ‘hegemony’. A central theme concerns the importance of politics to any understanding of education, in Asia or elsewhere. The role of schooling in national identity formation in post-colonial or post-revolutionary societies is crucial here, but so too is the wider function of ‘political socialisation’ in inculcating values of meritocracy, hierarchy and justice. The module traces these and related issues - of inequality (as it intersects with divisions of gender, class, residence and ethnicity); multiculturalism; collectivism (or individualism); educational intensity and credentialism; and the prevalence in public discourse of narrowly instrumentalist conceptions of education’s purposes. Asian societies are often presented in the West today as educational models - but if Asia is seen as offering answers, what are the questions being asked of education, and are they the right ones?