Towards a new set of global educational goals

The global community has been working to goals -- the Millennium Development Goals and the Education for All goals. In both cases 2015 is a magic date and the question comes up as to which if any targets should be set for what period following 2015. In my seminar last week we discussed the education goals following 2015. Some thoughts from that discussion seem worth sharing.

Plans are not worth the paper they are written on.
Planning is a critically important function.

Goal definition is a standard element of planning. In the case of the EFA and MDG goals, they will not be met, and perhaps it was recognized from the start that they would not be met. It seems futile to complain that these goals were not met. It seems impossible to judge whether the world would have made more progress without these goals or with other goals. Still, the discussions that went into the process of defining these goals and the efforts to program actions to achieve these goals and to monitor goal achievement may have been very important.

Not everything that is measured is important.
Not everything that is important can be measured.

My co-coordinator of the seminar believes that the most important aspect of the Jomtien meeting that first produced the EFA goals was that it changed the way people thought about education in developing nations, moving it away from public schooling as the be all and end all, towards a view of lifelong learning involving entire communities both as learners and as facilitators of learning.

How would you go about measuring such a change in attitudes, much less measuring the impact of that change on educational outcomes? Not only don't I know how to measure those things, I doubt that they can be measured. That does not mean that they are not important!

For people who have little education and less schooling, what would be the most valuable educational opportunities? Would they be those which help them earn a better living, take better care of themselves and their families, participate more fully in the social and political lives of their countries, or some combination of these. It would be nice to measure the degree to which educational programs and policies empowered people to live good and productive lives. I don't see how to do so, but lack of means of measurement does not mean that the objective is not fundamentally important.

Goals are means towards larger objectives.

I think students simply assume that the EFA goals are defined simply to assure that at least minimal educational services are made better and more available globally. In that respect, should goals be so challenging that they are likely to be met? Should they be realistic, or indeed so conservative that the vast majority of countries are likely to achieve those goals? Frank points to the advantages of Big Hairy Ambitious Goals as mobilizing forces to maximum efforts. On the other hand, practice in donor agencies, which hold staff responsible for actually achieving goals set forth, would suggest that their culture favors realistic, achievable goals.

Who actually pays attention to the EFA goals? Most developed nations do not, at least domestically, since their educational systems already surpass the stated goals. Is it reasonable to believe that China would not have revolutionized education with or without the EFA goals? I suspect that the recognition of the advantages of education was more than sufficient to convince the Chinese to make heroic efforts. How about failed states? Do their leaders care about UN goals, and would they have the power to more toward them if they did? Perhaps goals should be set to meet the needs of those who would be likely to actually pay attention to them. These might be the governments of some developing nations, donor agencies, and non-governmental organizations.

Of course, different stakeholders have different educational concerns. The donor agencies may be focusing on poverty alleviation, while governments may deal with a wide variety of goals. Environmentalists, public health officials, the military, and others may seek educational services that help them to meet their needs, such as those for sustainability, the control of population growth and communicable diseases, and a supply of trainable soldiers. Indeed, agencies may seek goals that can be used in their parochial battles for resources and survival. Thus the setting of goals is a political process involving compromises and coalitions to find a set that satisfice all stakeholders.

Frank points out that the next round may seek to have a variety of sets of goals. Nine nations represent more than half of the world's population and these EFA9 might find it appropriate to set their own goals. There might be goals for higher education, secondary education and vocational education which differ by the economic level of the countries for which the goals are set.