ABSTRACT
After gaining independence in the 1960s, many developing countries embarked on Education for Development strategies in which educational structures were geared toward meeting development needs. Paradoxically, the expertise for this new path was provided by international aid agencies from the same metropolitan countries that caused problem of development in the first place. This chapter analyzes the activities of some of these agencies against the narrative of what it calls the “paradigm paradox”—the rhetorical commitment to a new paradigm but the continued pursuit of an old one. Under normal circumstances, the shift from one paradigm (inherited or hybridized) to a newer one (development-partner oriented, ‘global’) should address current problems in more effective ways, leading to growth and development. As this chapter shows, however, in most cases it does not.
