Re-imagining and rescripting the future of education: Global knowledge economy discourses and the challenge to education systems

Using critical discourse analysis as a methodologgy for analysis, this paper sets out the nature and form of the challenges directed to the compulsory schooling sector by the knowledge economy that is contained in key policy and related documents put out by the OECD, the World Bank and the UK government. The OECD and World Bank's policy agendas are increasingly importnat in setting policy and programme agendas for the developed and developing countries respectively; however there are important differences between the two institutions regarding how education should be redesigned. The World Bank's redesign of education favours the market and individualism as the means for developng knowledge and skills for the knowledge economy. The OECD, however, while concerned with human capital formation, rejects the market model in favour of an insititutionally embedded liberalism to overcome the problems posed by tacit knowledge. The UK, on the other hand, has promoted the idea of personalized learning. The paper suggests that this idea is particularly problematic for developing a system of innovation for the economy that is dependent on high levels of social interaction.