With the globalization of the world, there is a tendency of transposing policies that worked well for developed countries to others, specially underdeveloped ore developing ones. That initiative can raise from world organizations, e.g. Unesco or World Bank, or even from the very country receiving the policies. What is the intention behind it, it´s another story. I want to consider here the issue of the transposition problems that can emerge by mechanically applying policies, specially educational ones, from one country to the other.
One of the main ideas I want to throw attention to here is that many problems are not within the ideas or the policies on themselves, but with the use that is made of them, when transposed.
A classic definition of action is the articulation between means and ends. So action is a movement or change towards an end, it pressupposes coherence. One elects first the end (what one wants to achieve) and after the means (how one intends to achieve it).
Methods are means. They are designed to fit certain ends, to achieve ends.
Education, as action, can be also defined as integration of means and ends. Means make sense considering the ends. Educational methods are means to educational ends. One could apply a method either without a defined end or towards an unfiting end. In both cases consequences will follow what is done.
Passive educational methods aim to form passive citizens to reproduce a passive society. Active educational methods aim to form active citizens to reproduce an active society.
Societies in the modern world exist in countries, most of them ruled by laws and all of them responsible for their own economies. If education forms the citizens of societies and countries, beeing this formation the basic educational end, then educational methods shell aim to what kind of citizen the country want, and most of all, need to form, based on the very concept of what does the country and the society want to become! Means and ends, again.
To define an educational end is a matter of sovereignty or national autonomy, of course considering the international context, but, above all, the country and the society needs.
The international transposition of educational policies regarding mainly educational methods could easilly raise all sort of incoherences. A mean that doesn´t correspond to an end is incoherent. An educational method not tuned with the country needs is incoherent and it can be considered even naive.
For example, entrepreneurship is a philosophy and it has been increasingly adopted in developed countries, constituting educational ends. And as so, it also opens the way to adequate methods. An entrepreneur has to be criative and effective. To form an entrepreneur demands the development of habilities in a competence based approach. A country needs to develop economically and acquire more wealth, in order to distribute it to its population.
A developed country is in an advanced stage of wealth distribuition, so its population has access to material and also symbolic value. A underdeveloped or developing country is on a previous stage of producing and distributing wealth.
Entrepreneurship is directly connected with producing and enhancing wealth. But what is its relation with distributing it? Can entrepreneurship inspire educational ends in a developing country without the risk of inconsistency and, worse, enhancing the lack of distributing wealth? In a developed country, which is embraced by a developed society, business enterprises are considered means to the development of this same society. Society comes first and business is a demand of society, because the mechanisms to distribute wealth are installed and working. But in a developing or non developed country the subjects of business enterprises, or the entrepreneurs, are the ones that concentrate wealth and are not interested in distributing it. By the other hand, entrepreneur habilities are mostly necessary in a country in such conditions.
So, here is the transposition paradox. How to transpose an educational policy, such as entrepreneurship education, without making it inoquous or harmous and, by the opposite, making it an effective tool for the real development of the country and the society within it? The answer should take in consideration the adaptation of the means or methods to the different needs or ends of the country receiving the policy.
It is only one example of problems on international transposition of educational policies. Comparing educational systems and its acts is tricky. What is good to some can become bad just like that, if the tranposition issues are undervalued. I think it is necessary to compare experiences, isolation brings nothing. But this comparison needs to be balanced according to the different realities involved! Transposing policies is not a matter of simple application, but of adaptation and balance.
A tool is not neutral; its utility depends of the user and the user is not neutral, he aims to certain ends. Let´s be aware of the ends, in order to use modern educational methods wisely and effectivelly!
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