Socio-ideological reproduction in Filipino workers exportation : a view on sustainability education

This paper examines the Philippine education context, in particular the K to 12 curriculum and its related education reforms, with reference to the ideas of UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and sustainable education by Stephen Sterling (2001). This paper explores the argument that ESD, being part of a market-driven curriculum, seems to make curriculum offering heavy in a way that it focuses on themes and concepts rather than fundamental skills needed in achieving sustainability, and thereby becomes a contributor on the problem of achieving sustainable development. Moreover, this paper posits that educational atomism occurs as learning content and experiences becomes isolated based on the context and needs determined in a market-driven curriculum and therefore induces the case of job mismatch and contributes to reproducing the condition for Filipino workers exportation. Thus, gearing away from the partial and accommodatory market and labour driven curriculum and focusing on a sustainable education curriculum is needed to emphasise on fundamental skills that would capacitate individuals to achieve sustainability. This paper aims to contribute to the on-going discourse on sustainable education and reforms.

© 2019 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved.