Book Review: Learning as Development: Rethinking International Education in a Changing World

Abstract

Daniel Wagner’s Learning as development is an important contribution in this area and, as Marlaine Lockheed of the World Bank points out, the volume “humanizes and broadens the discussion of education and development”. Wagner’s book calls for rethinking education and defining its relationship with international development. It calls for moving towards “an agenda that puts human development closer to the center of global ambitions and prioritises learning as the thread that binds each phase of human life into a coherent whole”. // The world has come together and has agreed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be realised by 2030. According to Wagner, the shift from the “economic growth” models to a human and sustainable development approach has necessitated a need to rethink education in the context of international development, particularly with reference to equity vis-à-vis poor and marginalised communities. While lamenting the siloed approach in education, Wagner offers a four interconnected and overlapping quadrant learning framework vis-à-vis learning contexts and learning practices. This framework covers the entire gamut of learning: structured non-formal education, less structured non-formal learning, structured formal education, less structured in-school learning. The conventional educational policies and programmes offered at educational institutions in many developing countries are sectoral and focus exclusively on structured formal education.