Decolonizing UNESCO's post-2015 education agenda : global social justice and a view from UNDRIP

Abstract

As education actors gather to review the failure of the 1990 – 2015 global Education for All (EFA) agendas to achieve their goals of universal delivery and access to education, there are few new ideas being submitted on how to change directions. This study brings together the two worlds of UNESCO’s Post-2015 Education Agenda and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights on Indigenous People (UNDRIP) in a policy encounter that not only highlights the colonial legacies present in global education policy but suggests how renewed efforts for EFA might be a decolonizing contribution if UNDRIP was taken as a starting place for policy development. It is my objective, in this article, to provide a de-colonial and anticolonial lens on the processes, objectives, and aims of Post-2015 EFA, as well as to propose some alternatives that could enhance global education goals of equity and enhanced citizenship and democracy.