Global Education Policy and International Development: New Agendas, Issues and

Policies
By Antoni Verger, Mario Novelli and Hulya Kosar Altinyelken (2012) Bloomsbury Academic,
London, http://www.bloomsbury.com.uk, 240pp, ISBN-10: 1441143904

Global Education Policy and International Development: New Agendas,

Issues and Policies tackles the reason behind educational policies, educational
reform and their processes behind globalization of education. This book focuses in
developing world due to extreme influence from global community. Developing
countries, especially less-develop countries, are often highly dependent on foreign
expertise, information and financing (Rose, 2007).
It is a compendium of the case studies from various international
organization in regards of globalization in education and its effect on educational
governance. India, Brazil, Kenya, Turkey, Uganda are some of the countries that
the case studies have been develop and sampled.
Antoni Verger is Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology of
the Universitat Aut noma de Barcelona, Spain. H lya Kosar Altinyelken is Lecturer
and Researcher at the Department of Child Development and Education,
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Mario Novelli is Senior Lecturer in
Education and International Development and Deputy Director of the Centre for
International Education at the University of Sussex, UK (www.amazon.com).
Verger et all. (2012) book is compelling. Their style is comprehensive and
professional. They give ideas and issues backed with evidence and studies.
This book talks about globalization in education and its effects to the local
policy in developing countries. It surveys the implications of globalization,
education for sustainable development especially in less-developed countries
where there is only few data to show its effects and how the local government
cope for this changes.
Contributions to the book provide an in-depth theoretical and empirical
understanding of educational change and education reform in an increasingly
globalizing world.
One thing that I really love the book because it focuses to the core of
globalization. We all know that globalization of education will put our educational
system in one roof but we forgot to know its implication to the local. The book
shows us the result of its case studies from Africa, South America, Europe and
Asia. According to the author there are two main macro approaches that address
the nature of the effects of globalization in education. We refer to, on the one
hand, neo-institutionalist approaches, represented by the World Society theory,
and, on the other, international political economy approaches, represented by the
Globally Structured Agenda for Education.
I can relate what Verger et.al (2012) arguments that we need to understand
current educational policies of a certain local government before we go to the
global context because we need to consider their readiness for the massive
change of educational system especially in the less-developed countries like
Philippines. We are now preparing our teachers to embrace the globalization but,
the question is, are we prepared for this kind of changes?

Do we have a resources to finance the trainings and seminars of our educators?

Or, we are just relying to the help other rich countries
According to Chinnammai (2005), globalization is a process, which has
affected many areas of human life, one of those being education. In the twentieth
century, many developing countries have experienced growth in the educational
facilities available to them due to the entry of institutions from the West. Some
believe that this process is an invaluable opportunity for the people of the
developing countries to raise their skills and standards of education. Others fear
that it is merely a modern version of cultural imperialism that will lead to the
creation of a universal, ultimately Western society. One aspect of the globalization
of Education has been the creation of twinning projects between one Western
and one non-Western university (www.ssn.flinders.edu.au).Through globalization
of education, which is being knowledge transfer from the Western countries into
developing countries, is intended to improve the skills and capabilities of the
people receiving it.
Globalization in education has a noble purpose. It makes us learn beyond
limit. Through this, we can now appreciate the good practices from the different
nations. Making us more sensitive in other culture and also more competitive in
terms of jobs landing.
It is really hard to not like this book. But as always, there is no such thing as
perfect work, there is always room for improvement. Some ideas are too broad
and the authors often used words that I can consider as jargon since not all the
readers have a background in education, there are some technical terms and
acronyms that I dont know sad fact! Although the authors answers many
questions but they also open a new one. Nevertheless, though this book has flaws
but one thing I can say is, this is really an informative book. This book open our
minds in better understanding about globalization and how does it works. It also
awake us in the possibility that even we are that excited in embracing the change
in our educational system or going to borderless education but we need to
consider how prepared we are and what are the things that we need to consider in
order us to experience the beauty of globalization.
_______________
References:
Chinnammai, S., (2005, November 19-23) Effects of Globalization on Education
and Culture.
Retrieved from https://www.guidedresearchwriting.pbworks.com

Rose, P. M. (2007), Supporting Non -state Providers in Basic Education Service Delivery,
paper commissioned by DFID Policy Division. Brighton: Consortium for Research
on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE). Research Monograph
4/2007.
Verger, A., Altinyelken, H., Novelli, M. (2012, November 15) Global Education

Policy and International Development: New

Retrieved from
https://www.amazon.com

Agendas,

Issues

and

Policies.