Thread by @wmnjoya

I'm up looking at materials on the origins of competence based approaches (CBAs).

The more I read, the more I get shocked. I thought I had seen it all.

CBAs have been pushed by @OECD on virtually all countries on behalf of international business interests. #CBCMustfall

OECD created a competency arms race in Europe. It used PISA rankings to tell European countries how badly their education systems were, and then European politicians, without thinking, used those rankings to scare their populations into accepting CBAs. #cbcmustfall

Basically, it's psyops that operates like a bandwagon fallacy:
1. Rank country education systems,
2. Politicians panic that their country is not no 1
3. They ask "what should we do to be no 1"
3. Poof! Give them competency based approach! #CBCmustfall oecd.org/pisa/

And it's a racket. They get consultants to run round the world like education hitmen, writing policies of small countries that have no clue what's going on. When teachers resist, they're told they're obsessed with subject based education.
#CBCmustfall

One interesting case was that of Scotland. They were given an education council of "international experts" to reform the curriculum, but these "Sceptics" investigated the profiles of the so called experts.

Juicy details. #cbcmustfall
sceptical.scot/2017/02/4771/

The experts were not Scots. They were also friends of the top politicians. Their costly travel expenses and consultancy fees were being paid by Scottish taxpayers. The consultants just made flowery speeches that hardly reflected the reality on the ground.

#cbcmustfall

Another one that will surprise Kenyans is China.

China is drinking the cool aid of Anglo-American corporate education reform in ways that are surprising. Chinese elites take their kids to the soul-draining British boarding schools. #CBCmustfall

So China has adopted the OECD reform project, which distorts basic Chinese philosophy and introduces a colonial, Euro-centric idea of "competence." This author calls it a form of epistemicide (killing people's knowledge to subdue them).

Yes. China. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

Basically, CBC is a fad that was started through what wazungu do best: hype something and infect countries with FOMO (fear of missing out), then give them some shoddy curriculum and hope that it sticks.

#CBCmustfall

And the reason it spreads so fast is because civil servants and governments across the world in this era have become dumb. They accept policies just because they have the stamp of a transnational organization like UN, EU or OECD.

#CBCmustfall

Citizens of the world need to pay more attention to what their governments do. But most of all, we need education system that are bigger than schools. Euro-America is dictating education is because its system be the only one for knowledge transmission and social promotion.

Citizens around the world should reject education reforms in their countries driven by OECD and PISA rankings. It really is a major achievement for OECD to create its own education rankings, then be the one to give us the curriculum to do better in its own rankings. That's fraud.

In 2014, a group of prominent educators, including SJ Ball (UK), Diane Ravitch (US) and Henry Giroux (US and Canada), wrote an open letter to OECD expressing concern about the havoc PISA rankings were having on national education systems.

The letter said: "As a result of Pisa, countries are overhauling their education systems in the hopes of improving their rankings...Pisa has led to declarations of crisis and "Pisa shock," followed by calls for resignations, and far-reaching reforms according to Pisa precepts."

The letter is here. theguardian.com/education/2014…