Crossed looks: globalisations and curriculum in Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

This article focuses on education in Guinea-Bissau in the context of globalisations, examining the concept of globalisation and its relation to education and the curriculum. It focuses on the relatively neglected area of national education policies in Guinea-Bissau, comparing differences and common points of interference/influence of multilateral (international and regional) and bilateral organisations in these policies. Data collection was based on content analysis of a corpus of documents – the Education Act, the document of Portuguese Cooperation Programme, the Education Sector Policy Paper, the Education for All National Plan of Action, and Policy n. 3/2007/CM/UEMOA – and field notes collected from 2009 to 2012. The article argues that there is a tendency for the homogenisation of curriculum policies, at least at the macro-level, due to the different types of pressures coming from international/regional organisations.

Keywords:

• globalisation
• curriculum
• Guinea-Bissau
• global agendas
• international organisations

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Dr. Anna Magyar and Dr. Kimberly Foulds for their insightful and helpful comments provided in the Compare Writer's Workshop online on an earlier draft of this article and BAICE.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In a search in the Web of Science, the Web of Knowledge, in JSTOR and in the reference international journals like Compare, International Journal of Educational Development and Comparative Education Review we can find only the following articles with specific reference to the Guinea-Bissau education system: Carr-Hill and Rosengart (1983), Daun (1997), Benson (2002), Hovens (2002), Portugal and Aveleira (2009) and Benson (2010).

2. Bamboo.

Additional information

Funding

Part of this work was supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal (Program POPH/FSE – grant number SFRH/BD/85561/2012).