104

Session code: 5-3-A203

Title: International Policy Convergence in Teacher Education: An analysis from the periphery

Contributer/s: Katarina Tuinamuana

Abstract : The emergence of a technical form of rationality in educational policy documents is part of a general global tendency towards the 'economising of education', and a corresponding internationalising of higher education. This global tendency is examined here by considering how it might be manifesting itself in periphery contexts of higher educational policy development and implementation. Taking Fiji secondary teacher education as a case study, a number of policy documents are reviewed and analysed. It is argued here that the new educational discourses evident in these documents, and emerging out of the broader macro socio-economic context, have the potential to contribute to the 'redefining' of the 'reality' of higher education in Fiji, a 'reality' that perpetuates the techno-rational assumptions underlying much of the new current policy directions. This will aggravate an already difficult situation. If accepted uncritically, the new internationalising discourses underpinning technocratic forms of policy articulation will provide the ideological underpinnings to proposed reform movements. Importantly for Fiji, if the new policy proceeds to underpin the introduction of educational reforms, as they are being introduced elsewhere in the world, the particular problems surrounding teacher education may unwittingly become masked in policy innovations.