Structure, Direction and Rigour in Liberating Education

Abstract

Paulo Freire's discussion of ‘banking education’ and ‘problem‐posing education’ in Pedagogy of the Oppressed has exerted considerable influence among educators in both the Third World and the First World over the past two decades. This paper acknowledges the importance of this segment of Freire's work, but argues that it ought to be read alongside subsequent publications which flesh out many points of detail in the Freirean view of liberating education. The author focuses on Freire's emphasis, especially in later books, on structure, direction and rigour in liberating education. Freire's pedagogy, it is argued, can best be understood not as a ‘method’ but as a distinctive approach to the theory and practice of education. Thus conceived, Freirean liberating education stands opposed to the shift, in many countries of the Western world, toward technocratic and ‘market‐driven’ systems of education and assessment. The development of a national qualifications framework in New Zealand provides one manifestation of this trend, to which a Freirean critique can usefully be applied.