ABSTRACT
Educational development policy discourses position the ‘poor child’ in aid-receiving countries, via her formal schooling, as the central hope for national development and growth. In this chapter I demonstrate this with respect to the ways that globally engineered policy discourses have circulated in the postcolonial contexts of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. These discourses – and the processes that drive their transmission – have shaped two major and current development initiatives: the United Nations’ Education for All (EFA) initiative established in 1990, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000. Both of these global development campaigns promote the universalisation of primary schooling and gender equality, with the aim of achieving these two goals by 2015. Importantly, EFA proffers four additional education goals, for: early childhood care and education, adult literacy, quality of education and life-long training opportunities. The six policy areas included in EFA promote a holistic approach for education beyond formal primary schooling, and are founded on understanding education as a human right. However, they have been elided with the two MDGs in pursuit of access to formal primary schooling, with a focus on girls. This narrowed emphasis has been translated into aid-receiving, postcolonial contexts by many donors and governments, with civil society organisations (CSOs) advocating the wider programme.
