Meritocratic lifelong learning: responsibilisation of marginalised adults for their learning as neocolonial contract

ABSTRACT

After the declaration of lifelong learning as the Sustainable Development Goal 4 in 2015, lifelong learning has become a new policy bandwagon. However, whether investment of time and resources needed for it should be the responsibility of marginalised adults or any other macrolevel institutions has remained elusive. Nested in the larger theoretical and scholarly debate on meritocracy, this paper analyses the World Bank’s policy documents and interviews conducted among Nepali educational policymakers. The key findings of this study suggest that under the neocolonial contract foisted by the World Bank’s policy discourses, marginalised adults are expected to take responsibility for lifelong learning and remain competitive in the global job market. They are blamed for their inability to be competitive because lifelong learning policies are guided by a fallacious discourse of meritocracy. The vision shared by Nepali policymakers shows that lifelong learning can be embedded in the sociocultural contexts of the learners rather than merely guided by meritocratic ideals.

KEYWORDS:

• Meritocracy
• World Bank
• Nepal
• lifelong learning
• responsibilisation
• competitiveness

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank all interviewees who shared their experiences and opinions without hesitation. I also acknowledge anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their careful reading. While all the remaining errors, if any, are my own, they deserve respects for providing some critical but constructive suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Geolocation information

Nepal

Ethics Declarations

UBC Research Ethics Board’s Certificate of Approval Number H1500553.