Can epistemic ‘de-linking’ rectify ongoing crises of education in the Global South? A critique on Abebe & Biswas’ work

Abstract

No one doubts the paramount role of education in overall development. There have also been various attempts to enhance the quality of education worldwide and in the Global South in particular. With this in mind, global mottos such as education for all have been adopted and implemented worldwide. In the Global South, in particular, there have been continuing attempts to support the realization of this motto by global agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and others. The logic behind this and other related mottos of education are foregrounded in the human capital approach to development. Yet, researchers of both the Global South and the Global North have questioned the success of such attempts. In this article, we reflect upon a strategy, an epistemic ‘de-linking’ with global capitalism, suggested by Abebe & Biswas in an article published in Fennia, 2021. They have suggested this strategy to rectify the ongoing crises of education in the Global South. We, however, question, whether "de-linking" the Global South from global capitalism brings opportunities for schoolchildren and young people, on the one hand, and the very possibilities and impossibilities of de-linking in the current world which has been more incredibly interconnected than ever, on the other. In other words, we question whether or not the de-linking of education from the capitalist world market helps to realize attainable aspirations and "epistemic justice" in the Global South, and if such de-linking is even possible. In attempting to answer these questions, we reflected on the ongoing debates on the benefits of education in the Global South and the remedies suggested by Abebe & Biswas to address the problem. To this end, this article begins by conceptualizing education and schooling and then proceeds to a description of formal education through a historical lens. Then, it presents the nexus between education and development. From there, it unfolds the critiques of the human capital approach to education and examines the epistemological shifts from ‘rights to education' to ‘rights in education' in the repacking and retheorizing of the local-oriented educational system in the Global South. By extension, this section questions how far "de-linking" would benefit the crises of schooling and attempts to provide a pathway to address the crises in the Global South. Our conclusion thereof is that (1) in the current global world order where partnership is propagated as one of the best strategies for sustainable development, the strategy of de-linking not only contradicts this global motto but also brings no convincing ground to suggest so; (2) the strategy may also leave the Global South to be politically and economically more powerless and marginalized; (3) the suggested strategy hangs upon a mere de-linking which takes binary opposition to global cooperation without trying to deal with the issue within the interconnectedness of global countries, systems, and processes; and (4) the authors conceptualized epistemic injustice in a very narrow manner. Therefore, we suggest a relinking strategy that duly considers and reinforces the current global scenario of almost unescapable interconnectedness that proactively and continually reacts to balancing the gaps in global partnership processes, systems, and participating institutions and scholars.