A Critically Informed Teacher Education Curriculum in Global Citizenship Education: Training Teachers as Field Experts and Contributors to Assessment and Monitoring of Goals

A global market of education development has grown since the 1990s. As the circumstances and contexts of education change globally, there is both a need for shared references in teacher education as well as good reasons for contesting unitary efforts to implement policy goals. Specifically, shared global references for teacher education that can be used by teacher education programs, NGOs and civil society for responding to target 4c. of SDG 4.7 are needed. Accordingly, this article proposes guiding principles and outlines a teacher education curriculum for Global Citizenship Education (GCED) that can be adapted to low-income country contexts as well as high-income contexts. Some of the challenges, possibilities and limitations in the preparation of teachers with the skills needed for supporting the development of the next generation of global citizens are described. The analysis presented draws on data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the OECD teacher survey, indicators developed by the World Bank, and policy efforts to develop a definition of global competence, among other sources. The concluding discussion proposes that an important possibility presents itself in efforts to involve teachers in the monitoring and evaluation of education development goals.