Governing Education: International Organisations, Populism and the Pandemic

This paper looks at the work of International Organisations (IOs) in governing education, focusing on the work that they do in the preparation and promotion of data-based knowledge that supports the global adoption of standardised practices of assessment, regulation and learning. These governing practices reflect the contemporary interdependency and interaction of governing and knowledge. As governing has changed to become less nationally bounded, and more networked and transnational, so too has knowledge changed. Epistemic governance has emerged as a governing form that is linked directly to the recent growth of knowledge technologies, especially those that enable rapid movement and transfer of information, as well as its presentation as an objective and reliable guide to best practice. Epistemic governance also promotes the growth of knowledge brokering, by agencies such as IOs, that is needed to translate complex evidence into policy advice. This paper considers the knowledge work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), looking at how its advice has changed over time, and at the recent governing strategy of combining data-based work with persuasive strategies of incorporation of national actors into the project of global modernisation and economisation of education. Finally, the paper asks if, following the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence of growing inequalities, along with a decline of trust in expertise and the related rise of right-wing populism threatens the position of IOs as knowledge brokers par excellence.