Chapter 14: Technicism and Transformation: Vocational Adult Learning in International Development

Education and training have long been central aspects of international development initiatives. Their focuses have varied widely, from broad-based educational initiatives, such as the Millennium Development Goals’ aim of “universal primary education,” to skills-based training aiming to create a new labor pool for transnational corporations. Underpinning this wide range of educational aims is a disparate set of philosophies informing theorists’, development agents’, and agencies’ understanding of the ultimate aims and most effective approaches to assisting in the education or training of adults in the developing world.

Meanwhile, international development theory, itself host to a wide range of theoretical positions, is seen to have reached an impasse in its attempts to achieve meaningful positive change in the lives of poor and marginalized peoples through its mainstream approaches (Schuurman, 1993). Many theorists and practitioners thus advocate a shift away from the formalized development “management,” frequently controlled by northern agencies and donors and aimed at helping countries in the global south “catch up” with the developed countries of the north, in favor of locally directed initiatives set within the ways of knowing, being, and doing of those whom development purports to help. It is within this shifting context that I examine dominant and critical discourses on vocational education for international development and make the case for a move toward a more critical and transformative conception of adult learning.