Earlier this spring Professor Qiang Zha spoke at the University of Toronto’s 12th annual Munk School Graduate Student Conference. Zha participated as a member of a panel discussion on the Unexpected Impacts of Intervention. More specifically he spoke to elements of his own research titling his talk The Trajectory of Educational Intervention in the International arena within a Canadian context.
Pictured left to right: Dr. Paul Cadario, Dr. Qiang Zha and Dr. Jon Lindsay
Zha’s talk focussed on what he defines as being the four stages of educational intervention within the international arena as observed in Canada and elsewhere: 1) International education for national political interest; 2) International education for a global knowledge-based economy; 3) Internationalization for the global public good; and, 4) Global education for a global civil society.
“Canada suffers from a deficiency of global education, with the notion of global education now being framed by perspectives and ideas associated with human capital needs in a globalizing economy,” said Zha. “All four stages of educational intervention are necessary and controversial. Each stage has various challenges to the overall solution being a shift from international education to global education in order to practice effective educational interventions within the international arena.”
Zha plans to publish a few articles on this topic in the near future to further explore and discuss some of the solutions to this problem.