Historicising the geopolitics of education and the SDGs: From Western hegemony to a multi-polar world?

This paper seeks to take a critical and historical look at the rise and fall of the SDGs, with a particular focus on education. At the core of the argument is that the SDGs (2015–2030), their predecessor the Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015), and the Education for All movement (1990 onwards), were the product of a post-Cold War, neoliberal, development agenda whose framing and logic were constructed in a moment of uni-polar, US-led, Western hegemony, which today is collapsing around us. Geopolitics and global power are changing in important ways and we need to recognise this, and think through ways to ensure that we can support this in the interests of the marginalised global majority, in education and beyond. 'Pax-Americana' needs to be replaced with a 'Pax-Pluralis' that can underpin new global models of security, development and growth that can better address the massive global challenges that we face. • The SDGs, the MDGs, and the EFA commitments were the product of a post-Cold War, neoliberal development agenda. • Pax-Americana needs to be replaced with a Pax-Pluralis that can underpin new global models of security, development and growth. • As the 'economics of education' continued its hegemonic rise in our field, market logics governed education decision-making. • Education as a public good has been replaced by education as a commodity, to be bought and sold in the global education industry marketplace. • The world in 2023, looks radically different from 2015 when the SDGs were launched, and from the 1990s and the heyday of Western triumphalism. • A reckoning with the West's colonial and imperial past (and present), and an openness to recognise – and respect - plurality of thought, culture, identity and polity is needed. • The "we" in the international community was always too small, too myopic and needs a radical overhaul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]