ABSTRACT
Currently, global educational policy is centered on economic growth and preparation of workers for the world’s labor market. Economic growth is considered the measure of social progress. But these policies are increasingly criticized because of their negative effects on the quality of life. For instance, Nobel economist Amartya Sen is concerned about development policies that focus solely on economic growth. In Development As Freedom, he uses longevity rates as a guide to the quality of human life.1 Sen stresses that
Criticizing modern development plans for failing to improve the quality of life in Africa, Paul Wangoola, leader of Uganda’s African Multiveristy argues that modern development plans attempt to discard traditional ways of life for industrialization, urbanization, and large-scale commercial farming. The results for the quality of human life, he argues, are disastrous. Against a background of an Africa mired in the consequences of European colonialism and postcolonial development plans, Wangoola complains that “the modernization development paradigm … tended to regard comfort, well-being, and material and capital acquisition as the central goals of life. Thus poverty was perceived to be the central enemy, and development its antidote.”3
