Education

This course examines education as a dynamic social institution shaped by historical, cultural, economic, and political forces. It encourages students to critically analyze mainstream education systems alongside alternative and parallel forms of learning. Through discussions, readings, and reflective assignments, students explore changing delivery mechanisms, emerging priorities such as climate change and AI, and persistent challenges including inequality and marginalisation. Emphasising critical inquiry and humility, the course enables learners to question established practices, contextualise educational reforms, and reflect on their own educational journeys within a rapidly changing contemporary world.

This course explores the philosophy of education, encouraging students to critically examine its aims, processes, and outcomes across historical, cultural, and socio-political contexts. It engages with foundational and contemporary thinkers to problematise simplistic solutions and consider ethics, aesthetics, identity, and democracy in education. Students analyze how education addresses current and future societal challenges, including decolonization, gender, climate change, and economic transformation. Through readings, discussions, projects, and reflective exercises, learners develop the ability to evaluate curricula, assess the effectiveness of educational systems, and envision meaningful, socially just approaches to teaching and learning.

This course explores the policy and governance of education across public and private institutions, from schools to higher education. Students examine how political, legal, and socio-cultural contexts shape educational provisioning, study key national and international policy documents, and evaluate governance frameworks. Through analysis of debates on enrollment, quality, language policy, and global education models, learners develop critical insights into the functioning and reform of education systems. Activities include case studies, group debates, and project reports, enabling students to frame informed policy and governance aspirations aligned with 21st-century skills, global standards, and equitable access to education.

"Education as a set of philosophies and practices exists within and because of society’s intention to persist through time. Education exists not only to contribute to and inform its social and cultural milieu, it also draws from it and reacts to it. Formal education has always functioned as a pipeline, training the untrained to participate in society in certain acceptable ways, promoting its own role as survival training for the individuals and social groups who adapt to its means and ends. For the 21st-century educator, it is important to critically inspect the status quo from the perspectives of the individual and social groups and human society and culture as a unifying phenomenon across time and space before either challenging it entirely or making suggestions for it to persevere with thoughtful changes. Using learnings from the fields of psychology, anthropology and sociology, this course aims at equipping students with a plethora of lenses for analysis and creating lasting change."

"The teaching-learning environment is a complex system that is home to more than just the transfer of information. It is the site of negotiation of complex knowledge spanning the factual to complex behaviours selected to thrive in a range of situations. In the light of such complexity, those who design educational spaces—physical or virtual; pedagogical, administrative or as incubators for growing knowledge—need to be able to analyse it and make provisions for even affective and physical needs of the stakeholders. Educational goals represent ideals, what should be. It takes messy, human processes, full of uncertainties of input and outcome that need to be put into action and evaluated to determine the real worth of the space and its functions. This course trains students to think about space, curriculum and assessment and evaluation as processes negotiated by a mix of head (cognitive), heart (affective) and hand (physical) actions because good intentions are not enough for positive output."

"While education around the globe has been heavily defined by local experiences of colonisation, emerging philosophies, practices and institutions are challenging the status quo. Even in the light of decolonisation, the analysis of philosophers such as John Dewey, education “must be framed with reference to what is to be done and how it is to be done” and for this very idea of decolonisation must be problematised especially within the specific framework of education as a formalised set of philosophies, institutions and practices. Although there are a variety of actions through which it appears that colonial oppressions are shaken off, it is only through critical reflection that it can be evaluated whether the practices that replace colonial underpinnings are relevant and valid to achieve the desired ends for all the stakeholders in the system at various levels."

"At the heart of the human experience is a constant search for kin and kindred. Over the millennia of the development of human cultures, detailed and nuanced categories of exclusion have emerged through this exercise of finding and maintaining our own “tribes.” The history of exclusion shows that there is always a group that is forced to live under the burden of a vast system of interlinked inequalities as a consequence of the creation of these in- and out-groups. Such inequalities are often unexamined and, much more frequently, defended on the basis of flawed foundations. The perpetuation of exclusionary practices has a range of social, political, economic and cultural gains for the hegemony. Education is the site where such a perpetuation can be systemically challenged and replaced with justice-based policies and behaviours. Diversity, equity, inclusion and justice take place everywhere from the design and architecture of the physical or virtual space, to the curriculum, to even the administration, management and leadership of education at various levels."

"The nature of education as an economic activity is complex and multifaceted. It represents a site for investment by stakeholders at various levels from the individual and the household on the one hand to the state and large corporations on the other. Education is commodified as both a public and private good. Because the outcomes of education have far-reaching effects across society, it becomes a site of competing forces and tensions. The quality of education is often oversimplified through economic metrics, reinforcing a meritocratic construct that tightly links educational achievement to economic outcomes. Employers often view workforce education through a risk lens: the more time required to train employees in complex or high-stakes environments, the less immediate value they perceive. Anxieties mount across all sections of stakeholders as artificial intelligence and machines are able to more effectively imitate human capabilities with fewer to no checks and balances needed to regulate their exploitation. Educational institutions—from vision to leadership—must approach this challenge head-on and with optimism rather than anxiety. An understanding of the economics will help create a robust system from which capable, resilient and indomitable citizens emerge."

"Continuous and limitless innovation, for better or for worse, is one of the defining characteristics of our humanness. While non-human species make use of tools to meet their needs, human beings seem to be the only known species in the observable universe who create intricate and persistent systems of thought and tangible technologies. In education, using technology has a dual use: (1) it eases the labour of teaching, learning, assessment and administration and (2) it is the site of learning and training of individuals who will have an increasing impact on society. Innovators respond specifically to the needs of the education system but also lead the way, predicting how general applications can be modified to assist in the specific context of education. This does not mean, at all, that the relationship between education and technology exists without conflicts or problems. As technology is a reflection of its creators, there is strong evidence that it mirrors many of the flawed patterns of interaction within society. There is also an increasing anxiety about the economic, environmental and human impact of the increased deployment of technology. The debate surrounding the most visible or newest technology often focuses on the immediate outcomes of using a particular new tool. This confounds the matter that it is the philosophy directing innovation that needs critical inspection and responsible checks and balances rather than the tools themselves for its healthy survival in human civilisation."