Presidential Address - Education and Social Development: Global Perspectives

It is generally assumed that education leads to the well-being of societies and individuals, with the type of education intended here, usually representing the general formal systems of schooling that have been globalized throughout the world in the past 120 or so years. Clearly, such education, which replaced informal forms of schooling via the expansion of European colonialism, is not achieving social development for all. In this paper, it is contended that such platforms of learning are historically, culturally and linguistically decontextualizing, in especially current postcolonial countries, and as such, are not fully conducive to social development. It is therefore, suggested that new educational platforms be philosophically and epistemologically reconstructed, so they pragmatically fit the lived realities of different populations across the globe. In making these and related propositions, the works of such pragmatic educational thinkers as John Dewey, Paulo Freire and Julius Nyerere are selectively analyzed and referenced. It is generally assumed that education leads to the well-being of societies and individuals, with the type of education intended here, usually representing the general formal systems of schooling that have been globalized throughout the world in the past 120 or so years. Clearly, such education, which replaced informal forms of schooling via the expansion of European colonialism, is not achieving social development for all. In this paper, it is contended that such platforms of learning are historically, culturally and linguistically decontextualizing, in especially current postcolonial countries, and as such, are not fully conducive to social development. It is therefore, suggested that new educational platforms be philosophically and epistemologically reconstructed, so they pragmatically fit the lived realities of different populations across the globe. In making these and related propositions, the works of such pragmatic educational thinkers as John Dewey, Paulo Freire and Julius Nyerere are selectively analyzed and referenced