Global change and educational reform in Ontario and Canada

Abstract

Canadian education has been responding to global change for many decades. Over the last 30 years, two global paradigms have dominated debates about education in Ontario and in Canada. The first paradigm, global economic competitiveness, maintains that knowledge has become the competitive advantage of industrial nations in the global economy and that utilitarian principles should guide our educational reforms. The second paradigm, global interdependence, holds that we should acknowledge our interdependent global needs and responsibilities and that this should guide our educational reforms. I argue that to prepare students for the global challenges of the new century, excellence in education should be defined as meeting the requirements of both paradigms and as including the study of all major global change-economic and technological-as well as the study of world cultures, politics, ecology, and humanitarian issues.