Transforming Education through the decades: between rhetoric and substance

• In Event: Educational futures in a global world

Proposal

The call to “transform education” has become increasingly prominent in global discourse, especially in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and in light of the approaching deadline of the Education 2030 Agenda. Most recently, the United Nations’ Transforming Education Summit (2022), building on UNESCO’s Reimagining Our Futures Together report (2021), reaffirmed the urgency of rethinking education systems to address persistent inequities and prepare for uncertain futures. Yet this discourse is not new: since the Jomtien Declaration on Education for All (1990) and the Dakar Framework for Action (2000), the idea of transformation has consistently accompanied reflections on the future of education. By critically examining this trajectory, the paper contributes to the field of comparative and international education by interrogating whether transformation represents a substantive paradigm for systemic change or a rhetorical device that legitimizes continuity, and under which conditions it can translate into substantive change.
Theoretically, the paper engages with Gallie’s (1956) notion of “essentially contested concepts” to argue that transformation, while ubiquitous, remains ambiguous and unclear. Indeed, its meaning has shifted across decades and organizations. For instance, United Nations and UNESCO have mostly framed transformation in terms of equity, rights, and sustainability, while the OECD has emphasized innovation, digitalization, and skills for the future. These diverse interpretations reflect deeper tensions in global governance, where competing epistemologies and political agendas shape the trajectory of education reform (Elfert & Ydesen, 2023).
At the same time, transformation discourse must be read within the wider context of neoliberal governance (Zancajo et al., 2025; Verger et al. 2016). The growing involvement of digital corporations, philanthropic actors, and private providers illustrates how the rhetoric of transformation can serve to legitimize new market-driven logics in education, often exacerbating existing inequalities (UNESCO, 2023). Far from being neutral, the language of transformation can therefore mask continuity or reproduce unequal structures under the guise of innovation. Against this backdrop, the UNESCO proposal of a new social contract for education may represent a crucial opportunity to ensure that this transformation becomes substantive, but only if its guiding principles are clearly defined and embedded in a coherent framework.
The paper adopts a qualitative methodology grounded in document analysis and critical discourse analysis. It examines global declarations, policy frameworks, and flagship reports produced by UNESCO, the United Nations, and the OECD, from Jomtien (1990) through the Transforming Education Summit (2022). By tracing how transformation has been invoked across these documents, the analysis identifies continuities and discontinuities in meaning, and develops a typology of discourses ranging from invocations as short-term responses to crisis, to managerial-technical changes aligned with performance metrics, and to more substantive calls for systemic reconfiguration. This systematization allows a critical reading of transformation not only as a historical thread but also as a contested idea in contemporary educational governance. The paper is complemented by a theoretical reflection on the notion of education as a common good, which provides the normative ground for a new social contract, highlighting its potential to make educational transformation substantive.
The analysis shows that while calls for transformation have been constant, their substance has often remained vague. Jomtien emphasized a “broad vision” of basic education but was soon narrowed to primary schooling, with the focus largely reduced to achieving universal primary education targets. Dakar reaffirmed the importance of promoting an extended vision of education. Particularly in the African Regional Framework for Action, transformation was invoked as essential for addressing entrenched inequities, but in practice implementation prioritized enrollment targets and access over deeper structural change. More recent discourses, especially within OECD frameworks, equate transformation with digital innovation and future skills.
The findings suggest that transformation is frequently used rhetorically, giving the impression of radical change while in fact legitimizing incremental reform. In some cases, the discourse reinforces inequality by paving the way for new private and corporate actors whose presence risks deepening disparities in access and governance. In this sense, transformation may serve as a buzzword that conceals rather than challenging the status quo.
At the same time, the findings also point to the potential for a more substantive approach, particularly in light of UNESCO’s call for a new social contract. This invitation could move beyond rhetorical uses of transformation if grounded in clear principles and collective responsibility.
The concept of education as a common good provides precisely such a framework. Moving beyond the classical understanding of education, conceived as merely a public good, this perspective stresses relationality, shared responsibility, and participatory governance. From a pedagogical perspective, it highlights the intrinsically relational nature of education, recalling the importance of communities in shaping learning and social life. At an epistemological level, it emphasizes the recognition of plural ways of knowing and the need to resist epistemic injustice, moving away from technocratic or universalizing approaches. On the political level, it calls for forms of governance based on shared responsibility among diverse actors and for the strengthening of democratic mechanisms through the creation of spaces where participation can be exercised in genuinely democratic ways. Together, these dimensions can help move transformation from rhetorical invocation to substantive change.
This paper contributes to the scholarship of comparative and international education by providing a critical analysis of how transformation has been framed in global education discourse, and by offering a normative framework for its reframing. It shows that while the discourse of transformation has long accompanied global education debates, its meaning has remained contested and its impact uneven. By situating this concept within the broader shifts in global governance and by interrogating its uses across organizations and decades, the paper exposes both its emancipatory potential and its risks of co-optation. It argues that a new social contract for education – grounded in the principle of education as a common good and framed pedagogically as relational, epistemologically as plural, and politically as democratic – can provide the conceptual clarity needed to move transformation beyond rhetoric and toward substantive change, thereby serving as a genuine paradigm for more equitable and sustainable futures of education.

Author

• Rita Locatelli, Università Cattolica, Milan