Education for Social Change: The Global Learning Programme in the North of Ireland

The Global Learning Programme (GLP) is a four-year initiative funded by the UK government that aims ‘to support schools to teach about global poverty and international development, with a particular focus on upper primary and early secondary school’ (DfID, 2013). The overarching outcome for the project in Northern Ireland is ‘increased and improved delivery of development education in 50% of grant aided primary, secondary and special schools’. It seeks ‘to embed development education and global citizenship as regular practice across curriculum subjects and through whole school initiatives’. The GLP in the north of Ireland is managed by the Centre for Global Education and this article outlines the programme of support provided to schools including Continuing Professional Development (CPD), twilight training, senior leadership seminars and a designated website. The article will also describe the mixed methods approach used to evaluate the impact of the GLP on schools and, in particular, its effectiveness in implementing global learning in the classroom. The article will summarise research findings to date and what they reveal about how teachers have perceived the value of the support provided. The article will conclude by considering the positive impact of the GLP on the wider global education non-governmental sector in Northern Ireland