Internationalisation of the Curriculm: By Professor Betty Leasak
- divini9
- Sep 5, 2012
- 2 min read
The International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) recently set up a Special Interest Group (SIG) on the Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC). The purpose of the IEASA SIG is to stimulate discussion on what internationalisation of the curriculum means in a South African context. As a researcher and a practitioner working in Australia I established the IoC SIG there and have been working to explore the meaning of IoC in that context. I have been exploring a range of questions with academic staff here including:
How aware are their graduates that world society is not one in which global resources and power are shared equally, that globalisation is experienced as a discriminatory and even oppressive force by many around the world?
How accepting are they of the dominance of Western educational models in the developed world and the way in which they define what is taught (whose knowledge is valued), what research questions are asked, who will investigate them and if and how the results will be applied in the developing world?
Are these issues they should be addressing as they work through the process of IoC? How might they do that?
I think there is a need for those working in education in both the developed and the developing world to be aware of the consequences for individuals and world society of delivering a curriculum that presents only one view of the world – especially if this view of the world does not challenge the neo-liberal construction of globalisation and produces graduates in the dominant developing world who, in pursuing their own economic goals, create even greater inequality in the economically less developed world.
What does this mean for IoC in South Africa?
