3.4 Quality and learner-centred education

As you have just learned, international education agendas today call for ‘quality’ education – not just enrolment of children in school or, to put it bluntly, ‘bums on seats’. If children are enrolled in school, what kinds of experiences are they having there? What does ‘quality education’ actually look like in reality? In the quality classroom, what are children and teachers doing?

In the global agendas such as SDG4’s aim to promote and ensure quality education for all, there is increasing focus on pedagogy: the visible act of teaching and the discourses (ideas, theories and debates) which inform and make sense of teaching. National and global education policies often refer to learner-centered and child-centered pedagogy as an aspect of quality education.

In the next section, you will read about the core elements of learner-centered education.