Politics and Policy
Is Transformation Beyond Politics?
GELP Learning Lab 3 – April 21, 2015
Building Future Learning Systems:
From Exceptional Innovations to Systemic Transformation
Valerie Hannon and Al Bertani, Innovation Unit
A Global Event jointly hosted by GELP Global, GELP South
Africa and OECD CERI and supported by MIET and the
Ellen Koshland Family Fund
“so much reform:
so little change”
Charles M. Payne, 2008
“The coming decades will see an era of
the most radical changes in education
since the appearance of national
education systems. And the source of
the most radical changes will not be the
educational system itself, but rather it
will be driven primarily by industries:
digital technologies, healthcare, and
finance”.
Global Education Futures Forum 2014
the industrial model of education struggles
with: o Learner dissatisfaction/disengagement
o Growing costs
o Frustrated workers
o Little impact on inequality
o Mismatch to societies’ needs…….
To take but one example: work
o 43% of jobs in the US will be done by
robots within the next 20 years Oxford
University, Martin School, 2014)
o 50% of all jobs are estimated to be
freelance by 2020
But within GELP, a different view?
o the ed-tech revolution won’t solve all
problems and is unpredictable
o public institutions (‘schools’) can and should
be transformed
o the role of teacher can and should be reimagined
o key is the emancipation of learner agency
o public servants can play a part in reshaping
this learning world
in short…….
The field (of transformation)
should not be left to the
onward march of
technophiles, privatisation
and the market!
GELP has focused on system
transformation and its professional
leadership
But political power determines the
speed, direction and sustainability of
change - or stasis.
“so much reform… so little change”
• The limits of political discourse: the
ubiquitous mantra, ‘school reform’=
perpetuation of the existing paradigm
• The poverty of the dominant narrative
The Political Context Is Critical
A context
shaped by:
 media
 unions
 lobbies
‘public opinion’

employers/busine
ss
Allocation of
Scarce
Resources
Catalyse
action,
regulate or
deregulate
Mobilization
Of
Stakeholders
‘Reform’ and improvement are
not the same as
transformation and innovation
The old objectives for
education are no longer
adequate.
What job do we want organised
learning to do?
Iron Triangle of Reform
Access
Quality
Efficiency
OTHER PLAYERS INFLUENCING POLICY
Unions
Media
Public
Opinion
Employers
Business
Think Tanks
Philanthropy
Lobbyists
‘Leapfroggers’ vs established
‘industrial schooling’ models: both are
in need of a new, credible, accessible
discourse
How can we assist policy makers to
construct and communicate a new
narrative, tuned to the realities of
citizens’ needs and wants?
GELP’s (implicit) Theory of Change
Without a guiding vision of the
broader societal goals for
education which politicians can
articulate convincingly, then the
existing taken-for-granted frame of
schooling remains unchallenged.
From a Theory of Change to roadmapping….
How to select an agenda for action?
Key, perhaps, are:
• The degree to which political power
is concentrated, or distributed;
• The culture of innovation
(weak or strong?)
Where is your jurisdiction?
How should energy be directed?
A menu for political action (which is
not tantamount to hari-kari….)