Global Education and Learning in the Asia Pacific Region: India.

India teaser.jpg

This blog consists of a short written interview with Aaryan Salman, President and Director-General, Global Citizenship Foundation. It is part of a cluster of blogs that present perpectives on Global Education and Learning in the Asia Pacific Region by prominent figures working in countries across the region, and supports an ANGEL webinar on the 16th of February. Find out more here

************************************************************************

How has the field of Global Education and Learning emerged in your country?

India’s journey in Global Education blends a rich historical legacy with modern challenges. Ancient India with institutions like Nalanda and Takshashila was once considered a global education hub. Today, India has 1.781 million schools, but only a handful of these schools are affiliated with boards like the CBSE, ICSE, and International Baccalaureate (IB), which either focus or are tilted towards developing on global competence and global citizenship aligned with Dublin Declaration’s definition of Global Education.

In the current context, the learning gap is a major concern. For instance, imagine a 14-year-old struggling to read a simple Grade II-level story in their first language, or a teenager unable to solve a basic division problem. This is the struggle faced by every one out of four children in the age group 14-18. This, unfortunately, has had major implications and challenges to advancing global education. So, most folks in education have been focussing on addressing these foundational literacy gaps. 

At the onset, talking about global education in such a context may seem counterintuitive due to the existing gaps. But this is exactly why it’s so important. To thrive, learners need ‘life skills’, and ‘global competencies’ to understand and respond to the world around them, in addition to the basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. Infact, these should be treated as foundational literacies. Bringing them as foundational to learning will invariably improve teacher capacity as well as learning skills and experiences.

Global education is somehow seen as an elite idea — accessible to only a handful of privileged schools. Of the 1.78 million schools, perhaps less than 250 schools affiliated with IB, less than 800 schools affiliated with Cambridge, and less than 2% of schools affiliated to CBSE and other boards that either have global citizenship, global sustainability, global competence or similar themes as part of the formal curriculum.

In this context, the National Education Policy of 2020 is a major step forward for India. It has some really interesting provisions. Perhaps for the first time a national policy explicitly called for the development of global citizenship and global competence. However, the challenge lies in successfully implementing global education and learning such that it reaches every child, everywhere, leaving no one behind.

To what extent have there been partnerships / regional collaboration?

India’s partnership ecosystem in global education is a mixed bag with promising initiatives and disappointments. On the Inter-governmental front, India has forged strong relationships with countries like the US, UK, UAE, France, Canada, Germany, and Japan. Recent policy changes allowing foreign universities to establish campuses in India have further strengthened ties, particularly with the UK and Australia.

India is also an active participant in multilateral education collaborations with organizations like UNESCO, G20, BRICS, SAARC, and the ASEAN. Most notably, India hosts the UNESCO MGIEP, the first and  only Category-1 Research Institute in the Asia-Pacific region, which underscores India’s growing commitment to global education. Regionally, the Nalanda University and South Asian University stand as a testament to regional collaboration, though their potential for diversity and impact are yet to be fully realized — as these institutions, unfortunately, seem to mirror other average Indian institutions in their composition.

Although India has established robust intergovernmental collaborations, regional partnerships remain fragmented, often influenced by historical and geopolitical complexities. Programs like ERASMUS have facilitated valuable international exchange opportunities at an institutional level, fostering cross-cultural understanding. However, these opportunities are often limited to well-resourced institutions, leaving many schools without access to such initiatives.

Another area of cooperation is with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) which are often at the forefront of educational innovations and change. CSOs in India operate in an environment of  regulatory limitations and challenges concerning funding, cooperation as well as operating at a global level. Despite this regulatory environment that can often be challenging for most organizations to have deeper partnerships and collaborations, informal collaborations have flourished. Take for instance, the Global Citizenship Foundation, in its formative years, benefited greatly from informal global partnerships and knowledge exchanges. Furthermore, such transnational partnerships also enabled the Global Citizenship Foundation in its efforts to re-headquarter in the European Union.

Interestingly, collaborations and partnerships with institutions 10,000 kilometers away have been a lot easier and acceptable than fostering such connections with institutions a few hundred kilometers away in regional countries. There is also a noticeable preference for partnerships with major transnational education provider countries in the Global North, often at the expense of engagement with countries in the Global South. There is a need for more South-South collaboration.

I personally feel there is immense potential and opportunities for deepening regional cooperation — this is one of the areas that needs much attention. There is so much one can learn from an exchange of regional experiences and insights given the similar challenges faced in this part of the world.

What are your hopes for the future of GEL in your country, and in the wider region?

Here are my five hopes for the future of Global Education and Learning in India and the Asia-Pacific region:

1. Countries in our region, including India, must either adapt or adopt a vision of education that captures the essence of the Dublin Declaration. For India, the National Education Policy has paved a way for such an integration. Infact, in the drafting process of the Dublin Declaration — we had some interesting debates and conversations around critical ideas such as decolonized perspectives on global education etc. India, and countries in the wider region, can deliberate and arrive at a vision that is reflective of the social and historical realities of the region.
2. I hope we can view our students as global citizens and not just as consumers or passive recipients of knowledge.
3. So as long as we do not build the capacity of educators — the transformative power and potential of global education will remain a distant dream. So, there needs to be a heavy focus on building the capacity of educators, and education leaders to advance global competence and global citizenship. This is also critical to sharing thriving education systems, spaces, and experiences. 
4. Next, there is an urgent need to rethink and reimagine assessments — no measure of policy or discourse can change the current state of affairs if we do not rethink and reimagine assessments. By necessity and design, teaching in formal spaces focuses heavily on what can be measured. So my hope is to see us move in a direction where assessments are designed to focus on both cognitive and noncognitive domains of learning.
5. Lastly, as a first generation learner, my hope is to drive global education as a global public good and not an internationally traded commodity accessible by a privileged few. I fervently hope that quality  global education becomes a basic human right available to every learner, irrespective of their socio-economic status, or the kind of school they go to. 

How could ANGEL, or other international educational communities, help to support those aims?

I believe our hopes and aspirations to advance global education cannot be achieved by any one individual or organization. This is why networks like ANGEL, Educational Leadership Forum, and others are such inspiring and important avenues — bringing together organizations, researchers, practitioners, and other actors — to engage and drive critical discourses and establish formal and informal collaborations to drive systemic change.

ANGEL and similar initiatives can support in three ways:

1. Fostering global North-North, North-South, and South-South exchanges and opportunities amongst researchers and practitioners.
2. Building stakeholder capacity to advance Global Education as outlined in the Dublin Declaration on Global Education 2050.
3. Develop an accessible collection of region-specific research, case studies, and evidence-informed practices through collaborative and action research opportunities.

How successfully are indigenous voices included in initiatives in your country or region?

This is such an important question. How many of us ask this question when designing our initiatives or promoting programs? There is so much we can learn from traditional and indigenous knowledge systems. Yet, there is a proclivity in many to “civilize the indigenous” through our so called “modern education”.

The good news is there is a growing recognition of a need to include indigenous voices and knowledge in educational and developmental initiatives in India and the region. However, the bad news is that, indigenous voices and knowledge are heavily underrepresented. Perhaps, this is one area that is often neglected when it comes to both policy and practice within formal education.

What are you currently working on?

Currently, we’re involved in a few exciting projects. We’ve just wrapped up a desk review to help shape a Global Teacher Development Framework to support educational institutions in enhancing teachers’ continuous professional development efforts. We’re also working on developing a Global Learner Profile, building on our previous work around global citizen attributes. 

This year, we’ll be taking these frameworks forward with a Delphi Study. As a part of this effort, we have recently set up Education2050 (education2050.org), our platform to forecast the futures of education. We look forward to engaging with members of the ANGEL network towards consolidating these frameworks and to engage in such efforts. 

On top of that, we’re excited to be gearing up for the 28th edition of the Educational Leadership Forum. This year, we’re redesigning the Forum experience by moving away from the intensive 2-3 day event per quarter and instead creating a light- experience across the month. The goal is to offer a more immersive yet bite-sized experience for everyone involved.

Biography

Aaryan Salman Photograph.jpg

Aaryan Salman is the Director-General of the Global Citizenship Foundation in India and the EU. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of Dublin City University’s Educational Disadvantage Centre and is a Youth Leader for UNESCO MGIEP on Preventing Violent Extremism and UNESCO-APCEIU on Global Citizenship Education. Previously, Aaryan served as an MAIDP Strategist at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. His career also includes roles as Program Development Officer at Verbattle, Sub-Editor at Outlook Magazine, and Foreign Policy Analyst at World Focus Journal. He is currently based in Berlin, Germany.