The OECD and Global Shifts in Education Policy

Abstract

In 1994, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published an important account of its work on education. The author of this account was none other than George Papadopoulos, the highly regarded deputy director responsible for education in the then Directorate for Social Affairs. Although celebratory in tone, Papadopoulos closely examined the planning and implementation of the organization’s educational activities between 1960 and 1990, situating them within the context of the OECD’s broader interest in economic policies. He suggested that this period was characterized by much debate and various shifts in policy focus. In the 1960s, for example, quality in education and human resource development were the major issues, replaced in the 1970s with concerns of equality of educational opportunity and the democratization of education (Papadopoulos, 1994: 202). At the end of 1980s, however, Papadopoulos sensed further changes occurring within the OECD, with educational policy again becoming more closely aligned to economic imperatives. He noted that: the exponential growth of knowledge and rapid technological change; economic restructuring and changes in labor markets; changing attitudes to the role of the state in initiating and funding public policy; the emergence of new concerns about social equity and cohesion; and a market-driven and consumption-oriented society and the growing political, economic, and cultural interdependence of countries inevitably demanded some shifts in the OECD’s policy work in education. Little did Papadopoulos realize in 1994, however, how extensive and profound these shifts were likely to become, both in relation to reshaping the context within which the OECD works and to the ways in which the OECD would interpret and respond to this context. The issue of “globalization,” for example, does not feature in Papadopoulos’ analysis; and “a new humanism” he regards as an integral part of contemporary culture does not even appear on the organization’s current agenda. Although the concepts that were central to the OECD’s educational work during 1960–1990, such as educational equality and social cohesion, have not been abandoned, they have been thoroughly rearticulated, given new meaning, becoming instruments of economic policy associated with a new vocabulary of the knowledge economy. And although the OECD remains concerned with issues of educational reform, accountability and social