Public Lecture Series: Transforming Global Competence Education in the Universities: Conceptual Development, Epistemological Framework, and Global Delivery

with Qiang Zha

This study examines the status quo and issues of global competence education in North American universities. It starts with introducing the definitions of global competence developed in basic education sector, highlighting their transcendent nature via likening them to the stride from international education to global education. From there, this study goes on to identify a dozen cases of practicing global competence education in the US and Canadian universities. On this basis, it sheds light on the fact that basic education sector is currently leading the way of advancing and defining global competence in an Anthropocene epoch, which, however, is not yet matched and supported by developing and delivering the compatible curriculum; the university sector is more structural in offering global competence education, yet to a large extent utilizes existing inter/cross-cultural competence courses and thus engages rather outdated concepts and knowledge. As such, this study argues that global competence education in the university requires a profound transformation that draws on the progressive conceptualization in basic education sector, and a transformative epistemological framework. It then elaborates how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) could serve as such an epistemological framework.

Qiang Zha is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, York University. His research interests include Chinese and East Asian higher education, international academic relations, global brain circulation, internationalization of higher education, globalization and education, differentiation and diversity in higher education, theories of organizational change, and liberal arts education in China and elsewhere.