EDUCATING FOR PARADIGM CHANGE

In this Focus article, Peadar Kirby examines the challenges for social change posed by the current financial crisis locally and internationally. The article particularly focuses on the deeper, underlying causes of the crisis while drawing attention to the kind of paradigm change which the crisis demands of us. He specifically considers the challenge to education provision posed by the crisis and considers its readiness to support the process of paradigm change. The article then discusses the emergence of the left in Latin America and the role of education and social movements in leading action for paradigm change. It concludes by debating the larger challenges of paradigm change that now confront us and the need for development education to become a space for debate and new thinking.