Education Reforms Worldwide: Incoming Tide for Comparative and International Education

Overview & Synopsis

The aim of this paper is to map the tide of education reforms worldwide and to spell out the implications thereof for the field of Comparative and International Education -- the field of scholarship tasked with assessing and guiding the global education project. In the field the notion of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) has gained currency. In this paper the deficiencies of that concept are identified. These include its non-exhaustiveness, its lack of a theoretical underpinning, and its lack of a normative dimension. It is argued that the field of Comparative and International Education, with its theoretical construct of the education system, its basic theorem of education systems being shaped by societal contextual forces, and the comparative method for approaching education issues and challenges, appears most promising in providing a theory as well as a method for a scholarly as well as a public discourse about education. The most salient societal trends of the twenty-first century world are enumerated, as well as how these have precipitated in changed education objectives, educational management and administration, teachers and students, and curricula.