Lesson 20
Globalization of Education
LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. define education;
2. discuss various global issues in education;
3. provide examples on how globalized education takes form in the Fourth
Industrial Revolution; and
4. discuss the case of the ASEAN Qualification Framework.
Definition of Terms
Education - the process of teaching and learning; the discipline
concerned with facilitating transfer and exchange of knowledge, skills,
and belief and value systems
Equivalency - process of gauging whether one's level of achievement
is commensurate to the expected requirement for an academic degree
Qualifications framework - a set of standards and competencies
that serve as basis in evaluating educational qualifications between
and among nation-states
INTRODUCTION
If there is a sphere of life which is greatly interlinked to globalization, it is
education. We mentioned that cultural, economic, and political flows are
observable in the age of globalization, and while education, itself, is
diversely defined, we can say that one of its roles is to serve as a channel
through which flow of knowledge and information is done. Unlike other
channels of cultural flows, education plays a rather direct function in
imparting beliefs and values to people. When people go through the
educative process, they are presented with content and provided with
experiences that are aligned with what is deemed important by a particular
society. In the family, parents teach their children knowledge and skills that
they believe their children would need to survive and succeed in the larger
world beyond the confines of their homes. In school, teachers teach their
students based on a curriculum developed to hone graduates that are
adaptable to changes in their environment, particularly in the world of work.
In workplaces, employees are taught and trained to be able to meet the
demands of economic and political flows that are circumstantial to the
existence and survival of an organization. In different ecologies, therefore
education serves as a container of knowledge.
Trends in Education amidst Globalization
Transnational Education
Studying abroad is not new, but with the advancement in transportation
technologies and the evolution of international policies on migration, it is
becoming more possible for learners in a territory to receive formal
education in a different country. According to UNESCO (2015), there were 4.1
million international students between 2005 to 2013, rising to as high as
almost 4.9 million in 2016 (Migration Data Portal, 2019, citing UNESCO 2018
data).
Many academic institutions would also have linkages and partnership with
those from other countries, and opportunities for scholarship abounds. Some
of the scholarship programs for international students are as follows:
Monbukagakusho (MEXT Japan) http://www.mext.go.jp
Newton Agham Program (British Council)
https://www.britishcouncil.ph/ programmes/newton-fund/phd-
programme
Erasmus Mundus Programme (European Union)
https://eacea.ec.europa. eu/erasmus-plus
Fulbright Scholarship https://fulbright.org.ph/scholarship-programs/
In the Philippines, for instance, it is not anymore shocking to observe
multicultural classrooms comprised of learners who come from different
nation- states. It is also not surprising to hear of local Filipino students going
abroad to study or taking some units from foreign universities. There are
mainly three different types of international students:
Internationally mobile students - "individual who has physically
crossed an international border between two countries with the
objective to participate in educational activities in a destination
country, where the destination country is different from his or her
country of origin" (UNESCO, 2015)
Foreign students - non-citizens who are currently enrolled in higher
education degree courses (usually moving to another country with
their families)
Credit-mobile students - not necessarily moving into another
country but are taking some units from a foreign university (Van Mol
and Ekamper, 2016)
Open and Distance Education
Another affordance of technology that are made available to us in the
modern times is the possibility for open and distance education. Unlike
before when receiving formal education necessitated attending classes in a
physical classroom, learning can now take place in the virtual world. Some
courses are now offered in part or in full through computer- and/or web-
mediated classrooms.
Equivalency and Qualifications Frameworks
In previous lessons, we discussed that ASEAN integration is one of the recent
developments in Asian regionalism. One issue in ASEAN integration is how to
ensure that the educational attainment of the labor force is aligned with the
expectations and requirements across SEA countries. If the flow of labor is
going to be open, then the trainings and qualifications of individual citizens
of the member states should be comparable to that of others so as to ensure
fair and equitable human resource processes.
Concern about levelling off of educational training among people in the
international labor market has been addressed through the process of
equivalence and recognition process. Before the K to 12 curriculum was
implemented in the country, teachers from the Philippines who wish to teach
in a K to 12 curriculum, say for example in the UAE, need to secure
attestation from the government that the academic training they received
from their home country is comparable to the required training to perform
the role of a teacher in the host country.
Another approach is to develop a qualifications framework-a set of
standards and competencies that serve as basis to say whether educational
qualifications among nation-states are comparable to one another. An
example of this is the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework, aligned
with the ASEAN Economic Community 2015 Blueprint and the ASEAN Socio-
Cultural Blueprint 2025.
Figure 2. Objectives of the AQRF
The AQRF acts also as a guide among ASEAN member states ( AMS ) toward
developing their own national qualifications framework:
Figure 3. AQRF and NQF
