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Thursday
18
November

Knowledge, Skills and Development

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More information about Michel Carton

This Colloquium offers an opportunity for debate and critical reflection on some of the key areas with which Michel Carton has been associated for much of his academic life. One of these has been the continuing trade-off between the global/international and the local/national trends, priorities, modalities and fashions in higher and technical education. In relation between the more developed and developing countries, development agencies have often been the carrier of this 'luggage' of trends and priorities. This global/local trade-off affects all levels of education and types of training, from early childhood to higher education and from apprenticeship to engineering training but also within these, it affects both the funding and the research priorities. Michel has been particularly concerned with these tensions in the field of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and of higher education.

Though it is not directly linked to the theme of this colloquium, a second enduring theme of Michel's work has been with the potential of international networking. He has applied his commitment to this in different ways.

First, he took a bold decision in the late 1980s that a degree of support to the formalisation of the NORRAG network, and of its bulletin, NORRAG News (www.norrag.org), would be valuable for NORRAG and for the Institut Universitaire d’Etudes du Développement (IUED) with which it would become associated. This is what the Chinese would call a win-win cooperation: people linked NORRAG and NORRAG News to a 'neutral' country, and to Michel Carton and Kenneth King who were advocates of a critical diversity of views. Twenty years later, NORRAG News is reaching more than 3000 members, and many more surfers.

Another aspect of Michel's networking concern was to be prepared, on behalf of NORRAG, to offer to run, at the request of the Swiss Development Cooperation, the Working Group for International Cooperation on Skills Development. From 1996 till 2008, Michel was primarily responsible for the success of this network. It drew together annually a very wide range of donors and “southern partners”, to discuss the latest issues and trends in TVET/Skills Development, under the chairmanship of academics.

Finally, Michel has been very active within the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), not only as the co-convenor with Kenneth King of the Working Group and Sub Committee on Training and Education, but also in the initiatives taken to establish an accreditation system for development studies’ programmes as well as an alternative development research evaluation system.
In these two areas, the global/local or the international/national, and the potential of critical knowledge sharing through networking, Michel has made a permanent mark.

PROGRAMME

13:45 – 14:00
INTRODUCTION
Jean-Luc Maurer, Professor, Graduate Institute

14:00 – 15:30

  • TOWARDS GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE FRAMEWORKS ?

Chair: Ad Boeren, Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFFIC), The Hague

Clubs, Associations and Networks in the Face of Globalisation
Kenneth King, University of Edinburgh and NORRAG

Growing Influence of Private Actors in Higher Education in Brazil
Claudio de Moura Castro, Positivo, Belo Horizonte

The Political Economy of Academic Journals: Writing the "Right" Things, the "Right" Way?
Simon McGrath, University of Nottingham

Facing Local Realities: Some Questions About the Relevance of Global Frameworks
Enrique Pieck, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico

15:30 – 15:45   
Coffee Break

15:45 – 17:15    ‘

  • BEST PRACTICE IN GLOBAL SKILLS AND NATIONAL AGENDAS

Chair: Carlos Fortin, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Brighton

Quality Skills Development in South Africa ? The lessons from 1990-2010
Adrienne Bird, Department of Higher Education and Training, Pretoria

Tertiary Non University Education in Latin America
Claudia Jacinto, Red Educación, Trabajo e Inserción Social en América Latina (RedEtis), International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), UNESCO, Buenos Aires

Basic Education and Skills Development: Challenges in Bangladesh and Way Forward
Manzoor Ahmed, Brac Institute of Educational Development (BU-IED), Dhaka

Skills’ Redistribution and International Mobility
Jean-Baptiste Meyer, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Montpellier 

17:15 – 17:30   
Coffee Break

17:30 – 19:00
  

  • INTERNATIONALISATION VERSUS ADAPTATION IN SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Chair: Kathryn Touré, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Dakar

African Perspectives for Rethinking International Engagements
Abedayo Olukoshi, United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Dakar

Adapting to ‘African’ Realities Versus International Outcomes
Peter Kallaway, University of Cape Town

Are European Frameworks International ?
Henning Melber, European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) and The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala
 

  • CLOSING REMARKS

Michel Carton, Retired Professor, Graduate Institute and NORRAG, Geneva


For more information and registration, please contact: mariejo.duc@graduateinstitute.ch
Auditorium Jacques-Freymond, 132 rue de Lausanne, Site Barton
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