First Past the Post – Education for Adults in a Post-pandemic, Post-colonial, Post-modern Globalised Higher Education Sector

Abstract

The Asia-Pacific is becoming the most expansive higher education region for adult based education services, ranging from New Zealand in the south to the border of the Russian Federation, and including the growth regions of China, India, and the Middle East. Professional education in the sciences, IT, health, social work, and wellbeing disciplines are expanding rapidly in this region and across the globe. The globalization of health and social issues is challenging professional education and accreditation processes to adjust to producing higher education graduates who are global professionals, that is, multi-lingual, culturally responsive, able to work at diverse community contexts and network with local and global organizations and resources to create social and economic change. This paper outlines the development of new curriculum frameworks for post-modern, post-colonial, and now post-pandemic international education sector that attempts to meet the challenges of intercultural learning and skills development for this new plurilingual context. The ethnographic study reveals that in the Asia-Pacific region, education organizations and educators are developing globalized, internationalized curriculum when motivated and supported to do so. The COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated a new level of understanding, motivation, and context to designing globalized curriculum for adult-based lifelong learning content, processes, and outcomes in higher education.

Presenters

Rob Townsend
Managing Research Director, Social Work, Naturally Gifted Research & Associates, Victoria, Australia

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Pedagogy and Curriculum

KEYWORDS

Globalization, Diversity, Plurilingualism, Higher Education Curriculum, Lifelong Learning