National education policy constructions of the ‘knowledge economy’: towards a critique

Abstract

A rediscovery of the economic importance of education has been fundamental to understanding the new global knowledge economy (Papadopoulos 1994). The Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development (OECD) and the World Bank have stressed the significance of education and training as keys to participation in the new global knowledge economy for the development of ‘human resources’; for upskilling and increasing the competencies of workers; and for the production of research and scientific knowledge.

Drucker (1993) and Porter (1990) emphasise the importance of the economics and productivity of knowledge as the basis for national competition within the international marketplace. Thurow (1996, p 68) suggests that a technological shift to an era dominated by man-made brainpower industries is one of five economic tectonic plates that constitute a new game with new rules: ‘Today knowledge and skills now stand alone as the only source of comparative advantage. They have become the key ingredient in the late twentieth century’s location of economic activity’.