Making the Case for Development Education
Development Education is.....
.... a necessity in the age of globalisation and the knowledge society.
Today’s society asks a lot of us. The world has become smaller and yet more complex, we have access to more information than ever before and yet we are left with the feeling that we are drowning in information gasping for knowledge. In other words, the skills required to move around comfortably in today’s globalised world have changed dramatically. We need to be able to translate information into knowledge, deal with complexity and uncertainties, we need to work effectively with others in very challenging environments at work and in our private life and we need to be good communicators in and between different cultural settings both at home and abroad. Development Education is an educational response to those challenges that focuses on active global citizenship which is...
... an entitlement of the Irish public.
In its White Paper on Irish Aid the Irish government has made the commitment to ensure that every person in Ireland will have access to educational opportunities to be aware of and understand their rights and responsibilities as global citizens and their potential to effect change for a more just and equal world. The Irish government has also signed a number of UN conventions (e.g. Universal Declaration of Human Rights) that stipulate a requirement to ensure that all citizens are educated about their Human Rights and those of others, including the right to development through ensuring equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education, health services, food, housing, employment and the fair distribution of income. It is therefore our right to hold the government accountable for that. By promoting this entitlement development education is also…
... a way to address present global crises.
The current global crises need world citizens that have the knowledge and skills to bring about change. This requires a critical and creative mind that is able to read between and behind official lines put forward by politicians, the media and other information providers and that has the capacity to form its own opinion from a multiplicity of perspective. Our survival on this planet relies on people who live their lifes in a responsible and sustainable way. Development Education promotes this by using participatory methods to explore the world in a learner centred way. It promotes a set of values to enable people to be …
... working to eradicate the root causes of poverty.
Development Education challenges global inequalities from many perspectives: It critically examines how our globalised world is still affected by colonial exploitations past and present. It is based on the understanding that the root cause of poverty lie in the inequality of unfair power relations between the global South and the global North and that those need to be challenged in the global North through Education. It promotes a set of values that allows us to engage in a dialogue with strangers from all over the world on equal footing and with a mind-set that values diversity and multiple perspectives over homogeneity and dominion. Development Education does not promote the one right answer but a way of engaging with different perspectives on the world we share.
Interesting advocation for DevEd in Irish Times 22 Jan 2010
The Irish Times Letter Page - Friday, January 22, 2010
Haiti and sustainable development
Madam, – Over the past 20 years I have seen funding grants for development education being furnished by Irish Aid and organisations such as Trócaire. Understandably, they can provide only tiny percentages of their budgets to this vital, challenging and far-sighted work.
However, I have seen little public understanding or debate on the importance of development education. It is somehow seen as a luxury or an “add-on” which we can afford only when times are good.
While many thousands would die in an earthquake as violent as that in Haiti, no matter where it happened, it is now clear that the consequences are far worse for a people who live in poverty in a world falsely divided between rich and poor.
Can anything more starkly show us how much we need our future generations to understand the concept of sustainable development? Those of us who seek support for development education should no longer have to defend our work.
Governments and universities around the world support technological, scientific and entrepreneurial initiatives, and curriculum reform in those areas. Areas such as development education are never accorded the same status.
To the detriment of all of us, the world’s powerful fail to see the importance of being able to develop skills, attitudes and values that will enable us all to live with dignity. In solidarity with the people of Haiti, ar dheis Dé go raibh siad. – Yours, etc,
GERTRUDE COTTER,
O’Donnell Gardens,
Glasthule,
Co Dublin.
Carlos Bruen