Conference Agenda

Background

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009 (known as the Right to Education Act or RTE) symbolises India’s commitment towards providing learning for all children. The RTE’s enactment means a statutory framework is now in place for the first time to ensure all children between the ages of 6 – 14 receive a compulsory education (Maithreyi and Sriprakash, 2018). This policy has so far been instrumental in increasing school enrolment (Bhattacharjee, 2019) while reaffirming India’s recent drive towards becoming a nation which embraces inclusive education.

The RTE is also striking for acknowledging the role of the private sector in realising an education for all. RTE Section 12(1)(c) is an innovative public-private policy instrument which mandates unaided private schools allocate 25% of school places to economically weaker / disadvantaged children (Sarin et al., 2017). The clause therefore echoes the sentiment of UNESCO’s recent Global Education Monitoring Report, “Non-state actors in education: Who chooses? Who loses?”, which highlights how meeting shared education goals may require close collaboration between state and non-state actors (UNESCO, 2021).

Yet in spite of the huge growth of the private sector and an increasing number of children accessing school places, whether the Section 12(1)(c) reservation (hereafter, the 25% provision) is universally applied and supportive of disadvantaged children remains in doubt. Although the provision applies nationally, only 17 out of 36 states are currently admitting children under its remit (Indus Action, 2021) and many elite private schools have resisted admissions or attempted to evade the system by contesting the constitutionality of the clause through the Supreme Court (Sarangapani et al., 2014).

Aims and Research Questions

The present qualitative study aims to evaluate how private schools under RTE Section 12(1)(c) support disadvantaged children with their learning, and the extent this learning can be deemed inclusive. It seeks to investigate this issue by exploring the views and experiences of different actors connected to private schools, namely pupils, parents, teachers and non-teaching staff.

Research in this area is needed because there remains a paucity of qualitative studies examining learning under Section 12(1)(c), particularly regarding the concept of inclusive education. Furthermore, given the absence of evidence regarding children’s experiences of the 25% provision (Lafleur and Srivastava, 2019), it would be interesting to explore this topic through the perspectives of child and adult actors experiencing the policy in their daily lives. This PhD project therefore assesses whether disadvantaged children under the 25% provision are treated and taught in the same way as their peers, or instead experience forms of discrimination or segregation. The following main research questions will aid this inquiry:

• What is the current role of India’s RTE 25% provision in enabling inclusive education for disadvantaged children in private schools?

• How is the RTE 25% provision experienced by various actors in private schools (students, parents, teachers and non-teaching school staff)?

Theoretical frameworks

The project relies on two frameworks to evaluate inclusive education elements under the 25% provision: Bronfenbrenner’s ‘Bioecological systems theory of human development’ (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2007) and Save the Children’s ‘Quality Learning Framework’ (QLF) (2022). Bronfenbrenner’s theory depicts the role of individuals, their activities and interactions across different levels of an ‘ecological system’, namely the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem. Thus, the framework provides the possibility of mapping, exploring and understanding the connections and interconnections that influence inclusive education (Anderson et al., 2014). The QLF is distinctive due to its incorporation of widely-accepted elements of inclusion in relation to education for all. It provides detailed guidance on crucial features of inclusive education, such as access to learning, teaching, community involvement and school leadership issues.

Critical thinking - the educational ideal of higher education - has become a mandatory objective that academics and educators seek to develop within their students as a crucial skill for their academic success, in the university setting and even beyond in the workplace (Davis, 2011). Critical thinking has become increasingly prominent in language education in the 21st century (Li, 2016).

With the demands of the twenty-first century, many countries in the world – in addition to western countries - have initiated educational reforms trying to ameliorate the students’ learning experiences, along similar lines (Bell, Stevenson and Neary, 2009). However, in Algeria, critical thinking has not received the same attention as other basic skills (Melouah, 2017; Kheladi, 2019). It has not been seriously supported by the educational system, and there is little evidence of it being infused into the curriculum (Benmati, 2008). Djamaa (2016, p.252) claims: ‘. . . critical thinking, however the cornerstone of higher education worldwide nowadays, seems lost in the shuffle in Algeria, particularly in the EFL classroom’.

Therefore, this study aims to explore the real state of critical thinking in the the Algerian university, nowadays, from different dimensions to identify where the actual problem lies. More specifically, this research aims the explore the extent to which critical thinking is integrated in the policy documents communicated by the Ministry of Higher Education. It aims also to explore EFL teachers’ conceptualisations of critical thinking, whether or not they have a deep understanding of the concept, how they view the significance of incorporating critical thinking in different subjects, and what teaching approaches and potential practices they employ to infuse it in their pedagogy, if there are any, highlighting the obstacles and challenges that prevent them from implementing critical thinking in their classes. Lastly, this study aims to investigate whether critical thinking has moved from the educational agenda to actual educational practices.

This paper aims to assess the trade unions’ alignment with the European Union (EU)’s skills strategy and the priority that trade unions give to the promotion of lifelong learning across all segments of the Belgian (future) workforce. Trade Unions hereby find themselves in competing social dialogues regarding Education, Employment and Social policy-making. The leading research question of this article is: how do trade unions contribute to promoting lifelong learning in Belgium?

For the last two decades scholars and policy-makers, knowledgeable in the disciplines of (Adult) Education and Social Sciences, have addressed the diversity of (adult) learners, and have warned for the risk of creating a dual society, between ‘those who know’ and ‘those who don’t know’ (Boeren, 2009; Desjardins & Ioannidou, 2020). Possessing agency to participate to (adult) learning in the new Information Society, is not an equal challenge for all (Boeren, 2017; Eynon & Malmberg, 2021; Iñiguez-Berrozpe & Boeren, 2020).

The EU’s Pillar of Social Right urges social partners, including trade unions, to put equal access to lifelong learning higher on the collective bargaining agenda (CEC, 2021; CEDEFOP, 2020) while Adult Education Surveys tell that employers distribute investments in adult learning unequally across their groups of employees. Vulnerable employees, are likely to participate less in learning in an unfavourable learning climate (Boyadjieva & Ilieva-Trichkova, 2017; Fugate, Heijden, Vos, Forrier, & Cuyper, 2021; Vansteenkiste, Kimps, Penders, Deschietere, & Van Cauwenberghe, 2022; Vansteenkiste, Verbruggen, Forrier, & Sels, 2014).

Policy-makers and business practitioners introduce upskilling and reskilling measures against the contested paradigms of full employment, and the imperfect matching of skills (de Beer, 2022; B. E. Kaufman, 2010). They blend concepts such as 21^st century skills, STEM education, lifelong learning and employability in contemporary work-of-the-future-narratives, and push educational curricula and teaching methods into reforms to modernise economy on the Industry 4.0 highway (Bughin, Lund, & Hazan, 2018; Federal Government, 2018; Krajcik, Sahin, & Mohr-Schroeder, 2019). The EU’s positioning of adult learning goals in economic competitiveness strategies, and the increased focus on quantitative benchmarking, tend to narrow down lifelong learning to lifelong earning goals (Boeren & Íñiguez-Berrozpe, 2022).

Educators often see their role with a humanistic scope, and fear that the social function of education is crowded out under business needs (Rasmussen & Lolle, 2022) while employers complain that school leavers lack a lifelong learning mentality and skillset to transit smoothly from school to work, and to adapt quickly to changing skill demands in the workplace (De Rick, 2010; Hvinden et al., 2019; K. Kaufman, Sahin, & Mohr-Schroeder, 2019).

Scholars find that growing effective lifelong learners before they enter the world of work, requires an integrated approach, and diverse learning experiences and diversity interactions from teachers (Loes, Pascarella, & Umbach, 2012). Goodman et al. recommend that instructors obtain training and support to adapt their teaching approach, and integrate diversity in view of improving learning for all students (Goodman & Bowman, 2014). Culver et al. have found -especially for students with lower grades when starting college- that a combination of in-class rigor and intellectually challenging assignments for first-year students benefits their critical thinking skills in the fourth year of college and throughout their careers (Culver, Braxton, & Pascarella, 2019).

Providing diversified education curricula demands considerable efforts from teachers, and leads to teachers’ trade union opposition (Barrett, 2020). Trade unions experience paradoxical tensions between debates of educational modernisation on one hand, and implementation of citizenship education frameworks, boosting equal access to 21^st century skills’ provision on the other hand. This research will describe and explain the pathways and instruments that trade unions in Belgium use to implement emerging lifelong learning legislation.