Global Skills- Framing the Issues

Dr. Douglas Bourn Development Education Research Centre, IOE

Aims of Presentation
Impact of globalisation on learning and practices in higher education Ways in which institutions can and are responding Global Perspectives and Global Skills Framework for Global Skills

Context
Globalisation
Pressures on universities to compete in global market place Needs and agendas of key stakeholders on society

Globalisation
Interdependent World (Giddens,1991) Flat World (Freidman,2005) More than just new technology and instant communications (Castells, 2000) Social, cultural and economic dimensions
(Harvey,2003)

Examples
Dislocation from our traditional moorings
I am from nowhere When do we turn the lights out Everyone needs to learn Mandarin

Globalisation and Global Skills

Context of globalisation and rapidly changing world Equipping learners to make sense of, and have the skills, to engage in a global society Skills needs for a global economy Making connections between the local and the global

Global Perspectives and Global Dimension

Understand our situation in a wider context
Make connections between local and global events and scales Develop skills and knowledge to interpret events affecting our lives Learn from experiences elsewhere in the world Identify common interests and explore wider horizons (Bourn,MacKenzie, Shiel, 2006)

Skills for Global Perspectives

Self Reliant where global awareness heightens self-awareness, confidence, the ability to respond positively and pro-actively to personal and professional change in today's globalised world. Connected - global citizens work well as part of a team, recognising the value and role of each member, inspiring others and developing cross-cultural capability and sensitivity to others. Well-rounded - a graduate's range of skills can only be considered as well-rounded when they reflect the global environment in which we all operate. Critical reflectors a global perspective requires a student to challenge knowledge, reflect on the economic, social and political contexts that shape experience and adopt a critical perspective in analysis and decision-making, reflecting on self and others. (Shiel, Williams and Mann (2005

Complexity and Uncertainty

We ourselves argue that the challenge for learning in relation to sustainable development is to confront learners with competing accounts of human and environmental reality wherever complexity and uncertainty mean that it is possible for competing rationalities to yield competing versions of the truth. (Scott and Gough,2005)

Changing Perspectives
Equipping Learners to Participate in a globalised world requires:
Moving from fixed content and skills to conform to a predetermined idea of society to concepts and strategies to address complexity, difference and uncertainty Moving from absorbing information, to reproduce received knowledge, to accept and adapt to existing structures and models of thinking, knowing and being to assess, interrogate and connect information, to generate knowledge, to live with difference and conflict, to shift positions and perspectives according to contexts Moving from structured, ordered and stable, predictable, comprehensible as a whole, universal meanings and interpretations to complex and changing, uncertain,

multifaceted and interconnected, different meanings and interpretation

Global Skills
Key message is demonstrate skills for a global economy need to recognise global and culturally diverse nature of society and that the skills needs for today and tomorrow need to recognise complexity and uncertainty.
www.lsis.org.uk/Libraries/Documents/GlobalSkills%20Nov08_WEB.sflb

Features of Global Skills

An ability to communicate with people from a range of social and cultural backgrounds An ability to work within teams of people from a range of backgrounds and other countries Openness to a range of voices and perspectives from around the world Willingness to resolve problems and seek solutions Recognition and understanding of the impact of global forces on peoples lives Willingness to play an active role in society at local, natural and international level.

GLOBAL ENGINEER Why global issues are critical to engineering education What global skills look like and the alignment between different initiatives How the global dimension can be
embedded: looking at examples of current practice

Global Health
We aim to enable medical students to Challenge attitudes towards patients, individuals, communities and health care delivery systems. Recognise factors contributing to global health inequalities. Identify the role of governments, international companies, international organisations and NGOs. Recognise the factors underpinning global inequality and access to health care services. Acknowledge the interdependence within a global health system.
(www.skillshare.org/buildingawareness_health.htm)

Thoughts for the Day

A global institution does not impose one view, one way of life, or form of knowledge on the rest of the world. It creates a space in which the rest of the world can examine what we hold to be important and true in a safe, enjoyable and productive relationship of equals. Only once we have created such spaces will we be able to claim that we are becoming global. (Tormey, 2006).
Educations main contribution should be to familiarise learners with perspectives other than their own (Professor Bill Scott, Centre for Environmental Education Research, University of Bath

Thanks

d.bourn@ioe.ac.uk