The Millennium acim Development Goals (MDGs) have unquestionably been highly successful in bolstering governments’ commitment to poverty reduction, achieving basic education and health, promoting gender equality and environmental sustainability, and bridging the gaps in human development.
In spite of these progresses, globalized education is still a requisite and the primary tool in achieving the Post-2015 Global Development Agenda – the continuation of effort to achieve prosperity, equity, freedom, dignity, peace and respect in a world of cultural and linguistic diversity after 2015.
The complexity of today’s globalized world has made development challenges interlinked. Peace cannot be achieved and prosperity cannot be sustained without finding unified, common and general solutions and without all nations contributing unanimously and with a sense of shared responsibility.
The Millennium Development Goals which will be succeeded by the Post-2015 Development Agenda at the end of 2015 (United Nation’s 70th Anniversary) has framed sustainable development as a universal project. The post-2015 development agenda includes issues that are of common concern to all and pose challenges at national levels. Moreover, they define objectives to be achieved at the global level.
Before we delve deeper into the role of globalized education in achieving the post-2015 agenda, it will be apposite to have a proper understanding of the concepts that underpin the subject. Suffice it to say that education is both essential and indispensable for sustainable development. Globalized education fuels sustainable development as nations seek to transform their visions for the world into reality.
“Globalization,” as observed by Chang, “is the integration of national economies, culture, social life, technology, education and politics. It is the movement of people, ideas and technology from place to place.” Globalization affects all facets of life universally, scientifically, and technologically. Its effects are felt in world’s culture, economy, environmental, social and human disciplines. In its broadest sense, globalization refers to intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.
Education has been recognized as a fundamental human right for more than half a century now. It is the endless process of bringing up people to know themselves, their environment, and how they can use their abilities and talents to contribute in the development of their society. Education improves the mind of the student for ethical conduct, good governance, liberty, life and rebirth of the society the student finds himself.
Education, as an agent of change, empowers its recipient to be creative. It is a form of learning in which the knowledge, skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the next through teaching, training and research. Any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational.
