Session Information
23 SES 01 A, Policy Formation in a Globalised Setting
Paper Session
Time:
2010-08-25
09:15-10:45
Room:
M.B. SALI 5, Päärakennus / Main Building
Chair:
Palle Rasmussen
Contribution
Many scholars of education policy have drawn attention to the ways in which a global education policy agenda for education appears to be developing, driven by the needs of the knowledge economy, and producing a shared emphasis on competitiveness, skill development and employability, linked to extensive use of monitoring of performance and target setting. This global education policy field is said to be dominated by major transnational interest and organisations, among which the OECD and the European Commission (EC) ―organisations that are the focus of this paper― are two of the most significant.
These two organisations have had rather different histories of engagement with education. The EC has had an interest in promoting a shared European culture and identity through education, but in indirect ways, with emphasis on the autonomy of national systems in relation to education, expressed in the principle of subsidiarity. More recently, in response to knowledge economy pressures, the EC has become more active in steering education policy in the member states, but through particular kinds of intervention, for example the use of benchmarks and indicators, that have had a considerable impact in shaping and directing policy towards the Lisbon objectives.
This shift seems also to signal something of a departure from the European social project, and closer alignment with neo-liberal policy directions, as expressed, par excellence, by the OECD. That organisation has also taken a stronger interest in education policy, and steers education through its monitoring of performance through such activities as the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). The development of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) ―which moves the focus on from schooling to adult education― provides a specific case through which the extent of policy learning and teaching between the EC and the OECD may be scrutinised and evaluated.
Therefore, using it as an example, the paper will examine the development of PIAAC in order to discuss processes of problematisation and normalisation of the notions of ‘skills and competences’ by the two IOs (OECD and EC). It examines the ways both concepts have turned into a significant policy problem (Dale 1986), in need of soft governance through new data, standards and new policy solutions (Lawn 2003). The paper focuses on the nature of the problem, its contours, characteristics and shifting qualities. It discusses the ways that policy problems can be transformed into public issues with all-pervasive and all-inclusive effects. It suggests that in order to understand the ‘problem’, one has to move behind it, since the very process of its creation already carries the seeds of its solution.
Method
The paper will use policy texts, interviews and the development of network analysis to see how the patterns of interaction between the two organisations are played out. It will thus provide insights into how transnational organisations operate in an increasingly significant policy field.
Expected Outcomes
This paper argues that the knowledge and policy relationship that has emerged between the OECD and the European Commission is neither superficial nor temporary; rather, it is becoming deeper and relates to wider questions about how one does education governance in Europe today. Policy problems are hard to isolate and examine as they constantly move and change. They have to adopt and adapt. Policy problems are multidimensional, as they have to fit every country’s ranking position and its politics. They are temporal, as they always change and adjust to the wider societal and political sphere (for example, the centrality of skills as a policy priority has been strengthened due to the financial crisis). They are spatial, as they have different effects and re-confirm arcs of prosperity (Scandinavia) and arcs of poverty (the Mediterranean). Above all, problems are both moral (the equity discourse is always present in policy texts around these issues) and economistic (knowledge economy is the major driver behind these shifts).
References
Dale, R. (1986) ‘Perspectives on Policy making’, in Module 1: Introducing education policy: principles and perspectives, Milton Keynes: The Open University Press. Lawn, M. (2003) ‘The “Usefulness” of Learning: the struggle over governance, meaning and the European education space’, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 24 (3), 325-336.
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