Education Archives

Epistemic (Ir)relevance, Language & Passport Positionality The three hurdles I’m navigating as a UK-based Ethiopian academic

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 October 2025 572 views

In this blog, Eyob Balcha Gebremariam offers a deeply personal yet widely resonant reflection on the invisible boundaries that shape knowledge production in global academia. Drawing from his lived experience, he unpacks how the quest for epistemic relevance often clashes with Western-centric validation systems, how the dominance of English marginalises local languages and worldviews, and how the politics of passports continues to gatekeep academic mobility and belonging.

**Ethiopian – Leaf from Gunda Gunde Gospels from Walters Arts Museum on Wikimedia**

I write this reflection piece to use my personal experiences as a UK-based academic with an Ethiopian passport as a lens to comment on the structural power asymmetries of the academic landscape. I believe I’m not the only one facing these challenges. However, there is hardly sufficient attention, recognition, and space to discuss them. I have no intention of reducing the importance of other challenges by focusing on these three topics. I focused on the three hurdles because I experience them in everyday scholarly work and am determined to engage in critical discussions and reflections.

I often engage with the notion of coloniality when I comment on power asymmetries in academic knowledge production. Coloniality is too abstract for some people, whereas it has become a buzzword for others. However, for people like me, coloniality captures the challenges and obstacles of everyday life encounters. For many of us, it is a daily lived experience. In this piece, I aim to offer a personal reflexive account of coloniality based on the multiple positionalities I occupy.

Epistemic (Ir)relevance

In my academic career, I’m constantly conversing with myself about how relevant my work is to my community in Ethiopia. I was born and raised in Ethiopia. I always want to measure the relevance of my academic career with a potentially positive contribution to policy ideas and practices at least in the Ethiopian context. This means I must develop a strategy to help me reach more Ethiopian audiences. However, the challenge is enormous, and I always need a thoughtful approach to overcome it.

In my field of studies and Development Studies in general, the higher I go in my academic career, the more incentives I have to remain disconnected and alienated from the community I want to serve. I will be more rewarded if I continue to produce academic outputs that target an audience completely distant from most Ethiopians. Even members of the Ethiopian community who may access my work, if interested at all, have minimal access to academic publications. I’m glad most of my outputs so far are open access. However, the fact that the academic outputs are not initially produced to be consumed by the community about whom the research is talking remains a significant challenge. Making academic outputs available free of charge on the Internet is one viable solution. However, this can also have its own layers of challenges, such as the difficulty of accessing academic English for the general public.

One strategy I’ve adopted is to write Amharic newspaper articles that help me translate some of the expertise I acquired in my studies into a relevant analysis of the present-day political economy in Ethiopia. I am unsure to what extent my effort in writing Amharic commentaries can help me be more relevant to my community. These seemingly simple steps of translation can be valuable. But epistemic (ir)relevance is broader than language translation.

Using language as a medium of communication is one aspect. However, language is also a repository of a society’s deep conceptual, theoretical and philosophical orientations. The epistemic irrelevance of my academic work is more manifested in my limitations in adequately and systematically using my mother tongue to explain key issues of development that could be relevant to my community and beyond.

Most of the conceptual and theoretical insights that inform my academic works on Ethiopian political, economic, and social dynamics are alien to the local context. On the other hand, throughout my educational training, I have not been adequately exposed to Ethiopia or Africa-centred knowledge frameworks and academic conceptual and theoretical orientations. Whenever this happened, they were not systematically integrated or implicitly considered less relevant than Eurocentric epistemic insights. I needed to put extra effort into reading widely to educate myself beyond the formal channels and processes of education. However, the impact remains immense. The more I continued to advance in my academic career, the more I gravitated away from Ethiopia-centred epistemic orientations. Hence, most of my academic insight remains less informed by these perspectives.

I want to emphasise that my concern is primarily about the systemic hierarchy of knowledge frameworks and the casual normalisation of marginalising endogenous and potentially alternative epistemic orientations. No knowledge can evolve without interaction with other knowledge systems. However, we can’t ignore that the interaction between knowledge systems is power-mediated. The power asymmetries between knowledge systems do not stop at the abstract level. They also translate into the institutional arrangements of knowledge production, the producers and primary audiences of the knowledge produced.

[Academic] knowledge is power! But not every [academic] knowledge can be a source of power. Most of the time, academic knowledge becomes a source of power if it is produced by the dominant members of society and for the use of the dominant members.

Language

Amharic is my mother tongue. Several languages in Ethiopia have well-advanced grammar, literature, and folklore. Like other places, these languages are sources of wisdom and knowledge for society. However, none are adequately recognised as good enough in the organisation of the “modern” education system, especially in higher education. After primary school, I studied every subject in English. Amharic remained only as one subject. When I joined Addis Ababa University, Amharic became non-existent in my academic training. Only students who studied the Amharic language and literature used this language as their medium of instruction. All other degree programmes were in English. This might be less concerning if a language is not advanced enough to develop fields of studies and disciplinary knowledge with abstract conceptions and ideas. However, I believe the Amharic language can serve as a medium of instruction for most fields of study, especially in the social sciences.

Studies show that the Amharic language evolved over 1,000 years and became a lingua franca of medieval northern and central highland kingdoms in present-day Ethiopia around the 12th century. The earliest literary tradition dates back to the 14th century, including religious texts, historical notes, and literature. (Image: Gee’z Alphbet @Haile Maryam Tadese of Lalibela)

Despite this, the modernist Ethiopian elites that designed the “modern” Ethiopian education system could not envision reaching the promised land of Westernisation without fully embracing English, in some cases French, and systematically disregarding their rich local languages.

The relationship between epistemic (ir)relevance and language is profound. To be more relevant to my community, I need to communicate in an accessible language and use language as a source of intellectual insights. This could be the most fulfilling academic endeavour. However, to remain a credible member of the academic community of my field, I must produce more in English, and the target audience should not necessarily be my home country community. To remain relevant to my home community, I need to adopt a different set of epistemic orientations, personal convictions and beliefs, and, sometimes, career and financial sacrifices. The additional burden and financial sacrifice are more prominent because it is doubtful that the current academic excellence and achievement framework in the UK or internationally will recognise academic output produced in non-European languages. I’m glad to learn more if there is anything I’m unaware of.

Passport positionality

My idea of passport positionality evolved through my experiences of travelling for academic purposes both across Europe and Africa. My definition of passport positionality is how academics at any level, primarily those with a “Global South” passport, must navigate various ideological, legal, administrative, financial, and psychological barriers to attend academic events or conduct research in countries other than their own. Understanding the interplay between legal and academic citizenship can help us reflect on the implicit and explicit barriers to belonging, exclusion, recognition, and representation. The legacies and current manifestations of colonialism create some forms of exclusion, favouring mainly Global North passport holders. The exclusion of academic researchers from various platforms and spaces of academic deliberations and decision-making processes just because of the barriers imposed on their legal citizenship is a serious structural problem.

At a personal level, I’ve heard several stories of racial profiling, especially in cases where the global south passport overlaps with brown and black skin colour, humiliating interrogation, and unjustified and unreasonable excuses of mistreatment. I share two personal experiences of how passport positionality shapes my travel experiences by creating tension between my academic and legal citizenship.

The first experience happened when I was contracted to facilitate a decolonial research methodologies workshop for an institute in a European country. The agreement was for the research institute to reimburse my travel expenses and to pay me a professional fee. As an Ethiopian passport holder, getting a Schengen visa to travel from the UK at a minimum includes travelling to privately run visa application centres and paying admin and visa application fees. This is on top of preparing a visa application document, where I’m expected to submit at least a three-month bank statement showing a minimum of £600 in my current bank account.

The most infuriating experience was finding the right appointment date and time because the private company only offers regular appointment options at certain hours. Otherwise, applicants are directly or indirectly forced to pay for more expensive premium appointment options. The company runs the visa appointment service to make a profit, so it has all the incentives to capitalise on potential customers’ demands. If seen from the position of potential travellers like me, it is unfair because the company is making money not by facilitating the visa application process but by making it less convenient and difficult.

I managed to get the visa and run a successful and enriching workshop. However, when I submitted my receipts for reimbursement, the institute refused to reimburse all the costs related to my visa application.

I was told that according to the country’s “travel expenses act, they [the visa related cost] are not costs that can be covered.” Honestly speaking, the visa-related expenses were higher than the travel expenses. I believe there are reasonable grounds for the mentioned policy. However, it is also clear that the policy has a significant blind spot. It does not recognise the challenges that people like me face, jumping multiple hurdles to do their work. Perhaps the people who drafted the policy could not imagine that a visa-paying national would travel to their country to provide a professional service. Hence, no mechanism of reimbursement was set. I used the email exchange with my contacts to highlight the system’s unfairness. Finally, I got reimbursed, and it was a good learning experience.

The second experience I want to share is related to my encounters with border officials at South African airports. Because of my work, I travelled to South Africa seven times over the past three years. Out of these seven travels, I was held at the airport five times for at least one hour or more by border officials who wanted to check the genuineness of my visa. A uniformed officer usually escorts me. When I leave the plane, I will be told they have been waiting for me and will check my documents’ credibility. Often, as I’m told, they’ll take a picture of the visa sticker on my passport and send it to their colleagues in London via WhatsApp to verify whether it is genuine. In the meantime, I will be asked several questions about the reason for my travel, what I do, how I received my visa in London, while I’m an Ethiopian, etc. Some valid and ordinary questions, but some unreasonable questions as well. None of this has happened to me in my travels to other countries.

After some time, I got used to it and plan accordingly. But it never stops being a significant inconvenience to be singled out just because of my passport. On one of these trips, I was travelling with my fellow UK-based Ethiopian academic, and I bet with him that we’d be escorted to a room and interrogated on our arrival. I won the bet. The border official even showed us the screen shot he was sent with our names, two Ethiopian passport holders, who needed to be cross-examined before being allowed to enter the country.

I share these experiences to encourage my academic colleagues to be conscious of their passport positionality and how it helped or constrained them to exercise their academic citizenship. The interplay between legal and academic citizenship needs more reflexive discussions.

Conclusion

I hope sharing these three hurdles of lived experiences can trigger questions, responses, and conversations. There are no simple answers and responses. However, I think it is essential to be aware that some of the buzzwords and abstract ideas we exchange in our academic conversations can lead to experiences far from abstract notions. Hopefully, my moments of internal struggles of questioning relevance, feelings of alienation, efforts of learning and unlearning, and the actual experiences of exclusion, especially when travelling, can contribute to having more grounded conversations when we talk about decolonising academic knowledge production in Development Studies.

This blog was first published by the European Assosciation of Development Research and Training Institute

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Eyob Balcha Gebremariam is an alumus of the International Institute of Social Studies. He is a Research Associate at the Perivoli Africa Research Centre (PARC), the University of Bristol and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town (UCT). He is a Member of Council at the Development Studies Association (DSA) of the UK and of EADI’s task group on decolonising knowledge in Development Studies.

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Decolonising international research collaboration requires us to go beyound the ‘Ts and Cs’ apply approach

By ISS Blog Bliss 19 June 2025 756 views

In this blog, ISS alumnus Eyob Balcha Gebremariam, PhD, critiques the superficial ethical framing often used in Global North–Africa partnerships. Through reflections on a UK–Africa research network, he highlights persistent power imbalances, where African partners are relegated to the role of data collectors while institutions exploit student fees and metrics.

In February 2024, I found myself at a pivotal moment in the academic landscape, attending a regional network launching event of “Africanist researchers” at one of the UK universities. The room was a microcosm of diverse academic, cultural, gender, and racial backgrounds, all converging with a common purpose to establish a network of researchers. The organisers set ambitious objectives, including partnering to co-develop research proposals, recruiting more African students to their respective regional universities, and providing capacity-building support for Africa-based partners. This was the backdrop against which I observed the dynamics of coloniality, power and privilege that underpin such collaborations.

As a passionate advocate for decolonial perspectives and a contributor to the development of the Africa Charter, I was not only unsurprised but deeply concerned by the dominant focus of the discussion. It seemed to orbit around how UK universities and their researchers could maintain and even amplify their benefits from the existing power imbalances with their African counterparts. This perspective is a symptom of the deeply ingrained colonial mindset that continues to shape our research collaborations.

The extractivist approach, a deeply ingrained issue, was never questioned. The mood in the room took for granted the colonially crafted relationship between African and UK higher education institutions, where empirical data and information are extracted from “Africa” using Western theories and concepts to be packaged as scientific knowledge. Not only on this occasion, but in most events like this meeting, “Africa” is approached as a supplier of international students. Africa-based researchers are often characterised as research assistants or primary data collectors for their UK-based counterparts.

During the plenary discussion, I shared my concern about the orientation of the discussion in the room. I underscored the urgent need for a more critical orientation that is acutely aware of the colonial designs and structures of research collaborations with African knowledge systems and Africa-based knowledge actors. I was determined to challenge the status quo and encourage my academic colleagues to transcend the normalised approaches to discussing “Africa.”

The subsequent parts of the discussion proceeded smoothly, and I gleaned valuable insights from the conversation with my fellow small group members. It was encouraging to see that everyone shared a deep concern about the issues I had raised. They also expressed their understanding of the challenges and commitment to addressing inequities in their respective capacities. However, the overall atmosphere remained somewhat conventional.

At the end of the inaugural session, concerns about the power imbalances in knowledge production and the need for a historically informed and conscious approach to forging new partnerships or strengthening existing ones were watered down to a mere mention of ‘ethics and ethical procedures’. The overall message was that we are good to go if we are sufficiently ethical in our dealings with “Africa” and Africa-based knowledge actors. There was insufficient time and space to delve into what ‘ethics’ truly entails. I gathered that my fellow participants were willing to move to the next step even though the ethical standards and procedures were not adequately clarified.

I call the above procedure the “Ts and Cs Apply” Approach. In this age of hyper-consumerism, we hear or see endless commercials for goods and services. After the main message, we often pay little attention to the so-called “terms and conditions.” I observed a tendency to approach the current drive of demanding equity, redressing power imbalances, and undoing colonial relations in knowledge production through international collaborations using the “Ts and Cs apply approach.”

In many events, the manifestations of coloniality at the idea, institutional, and individual levels will be raised. However, there is often limited or no time, space, or understanding to discuss them thoroughly. Such ideas and individuals who promote them are almost guaranteed to remain in the margins. The “Ts and Cs Apply” approach has just enough room to raise critical issues but is not good enough to make meaningful steps.

Normalised Coloniality in the UK Universities

Coloniality’s complex and deeply entrenched features in UK universities are too normalised. Hence, some genuine efforts to redress observed problems tend to become instruments of reinforcing injustice and inequities. One of the main reasons is that the strategy of most, if not all, UK universities is similar to the finance sector, where competing for resources through cutting-edge strategy for maximum gain and profitability is at the centre of their operation. In this regard, Africa offers an exciting opportunity.

Financially, the growing young population in Africa is a primary target for recruiting international students. “Overseas students” have already become UK universities’ primary income sources. The UK, in general, is in an advantageous position to benefit from the colonial legacy and the soft power it exerts in shaping peoples’ minds about higher education.

Even UK universities with socially responsible and justice-focused intentions reap unfair benefits from their operations in Africa. Most UK universities now have an “Africa Strategy” to manage their collaborations with the continent effectively. Their continent-wide footprints also count towards the new metrics of university Impact Ranking. The SDGs are the primary framework of the impact ranking. Since the SDGs define Africa through the deficit model, the abnormality of which needs fixing by external actors, UK universities are incentivised and well-placed to play this role. The universities can also benefit financially from the positive image they build from the impact ranking.

Since most quasi-solutions by the UK and other “Global North” universities adopt the “Ts and Cs Approach”, they become part of the problem rather than the solutions. UK universities are entrenched in the colonial game of extraction of data, intellectual labour and credibility. Now, there is a system in place that will reward and glorify them so that they can continue benefiting from their unfair position. Not paying enough attention to the terms and conditions of engagement and its colonial roots, we contribute to the problem.

**Going beyond the “Ts and Cs apply” Approach**

Redressing epistemic inequities and injustices should be the primary concern of efforts to redress the colonially designed power imbalances in international research collaborations. De-centring coloniality from our knowledge frameworks can be the primary step towards “dignified co-habitation” as human beings and societies. This is why the Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations calls for de-centring Eurocentric epistemic orientations in scientific knowledge production concerning Africa.

Coloniality of knowledge normalised the hierarchisation of knowledge systems. In this hierarchy, non-European knowledges are often labelled as “Indigenous,” whereas Eurocentric epistemic orientations, values, and principles are universalised. The universalist claim by Eurocentric knowledge systems is an antithesis to the realisation of conviviality. Conviviality thrives by recognising the limitations of our knowledge frameworks and valuing other knowledge systems. Most UK and Global North universities are vectors of the universalist claim of Eurocentrism. If we are conscious of the incompleteness of our epistemic orientations, our transboundary research initiatives will have room for epistemic humility – the openness to learn from others.

In a system where the coloniality of being is normalised, non-Whites/non-Europeans have less value as humans and less credibility as knowers. They are often portrayed as faceless or nameless enslaved beings, captives, colonial subjects, drowning migrants, influx or wave of illegal aliens, collateral damages of imperial wars or terrorists, especially if they dare to resist colonisation and colonialism. A university system and a research collaboration that does not recognise the human and epistemic dignity of the ‘other’ reinforces coloniality.

Going beyond the “Ts and Cs Apply” approach requires intentionally disruptive actions, thought provocations and arguments that can bring the business-as-usual lifestyle to a grinding stop. Colonial relations sustain societies’ current affluent and luxurious lifestyles, mainly in the Global North. Coloniality of power conceals the blood, tears, and sweat of societies that produce our daily consumables (tech, food, cloth, oil, jewellery, etc). If our pursuit of knowledge through international research collaboration takes this for granted, we are culpable either by omission or commission.

This blog was first published by the Development Studies Association of the UK

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author

Eyob Balcha Gebremariam is Research Associate at the Perivoli Africa Research Centre, University of Bristol, UK, Visiting Fellow at the University of Cape Town (2024-2025) and Member of the Council at the Development Studies Association, UK. He graduated from the International Institute of Social Studies in 2009.

What has been happening to higher education in Laos?

By ISS Blog Bliss 5 November 2024 5534 views

In August 2024, the Laotian Times alarmingly wrote about a ‘record low’ in candidates registering for the entrance exams of the National University of Laos (NUoL). It attributed the decline to rising living expenses (over 2023 there was a 31.2 % increase in consumer prices in Lao PDR) and low prospects of finding gainful employment in the domestic labour market following university graduation. Without dismissing these reasons, in this blog piece Roy Huijsmans puts the current ‘record low’ in broader perspective by asking what has been happening to higher education in Laos and in relation to whom?

Laos’ higher education landscape is relatively small and young. Following the establishment of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) in 1975, the communist regime prioritised basic education for the masses because tertiary education is relatively costly and a much less egalitarian public investment. For (re)building a tertiary educated professional class the newly established, yet cash-strapped, Lao PDR largely depended on its socialist allies.(1) In the period 1976-1980, more than half of the in total 4,603 Laotian students pursuing education beyond secondary level did so abroad in countries part of the, then, Soviet Block.

An education reform paved the ground for the (re)establishment (2) of the National University of Laos (NUoL) in 1996. There was also an increase in Laotian students pursuing higher education domestically; partly forced due to the collapse of the Soviet Block and associated scholarships. Over the period 1996-99 the number of Laotian students in higher education nearly doubled (15,634, compared to 8,635 in 1991-95) whereas those doing so abroad increased only marginally (from 995 to 1,101).

At present, NUoL has remained Laos’ most prominent university despite the establishment of additional public universities, and the rapid growth in private higher education institutes. Total enrolment in Laos’ public universities stood at 45,677 in 2008 (36,706 enrolled at NUoL). By 2008, 86 private higher education institutes were active in Lao PDR, enrolling a total of 20,000 students in 2007 (up from 4,000 in 2000). Still, enrolment at tertiary level has remained low at 12 per cent in 2021 (1.14 gender parity) following an all-times high of 19 per cent in 2012.(3)

In Laos, seats available for university enrolment are set top-down. Once announced, secondary school graduates can register for entrance exams. Registration can be done online, yet the actual exam must be taken in person. Because of quota set for several groups (women, ethnic minority groups), some students enter university regardless of taking (or passing) the entrance exam.(4)

Piecing together various data sources , Table 1 shows that the number of candidates taking the 2024 NUoL entrance exam was indeed very low and even lower than 2021-22 Covid affected year. Table 1 further shows a gradual decline in the enrolment quota since 2020-21. Whereas the drop in ‘demand’ has received ample attention in Lao media, the opposite is true for the apparent reduced ‘supply’. It is also unclear if this NUoL trend is also reflected in enrolment trends of private higher education institutes in Lao PDR, or alternatively whether we see a shift from public to private higher education or into other forms of public education.(5)

Table 1: NUoL student figures 2015-2024

Pursuing higher education abroad has remained common in segments of the Laotian population. Yet, destinations and conditions have changed remarkably since the revolutionary days. Lao PDR ranks second on the list of international students studying in China (and many doing so on a Chinese government scholarship), others pursue higher education in Australia, the USA, Japan or in Europe, sometimes on scholarships of the host-country but not-uncommonly also self-financed reflecting the presence a class of super-rich. This latter group is relatively unaffected by the rising cost of living.

For 2023, the World Bank calculated a 31.2 per cent increase in consumer prices in Lao PDR, following a 23 per cent increase for 2022. This has contributed to putting higher education out of the financial reach of the (lower) middle class in particular. In fact, increasingly Laotian students are leaving formal schooling prematurely. The total number of students taking the secondary year 4 exam dropped from 83,544 in 2022 to 68,850 in 2023 (-18%), while for the final secondary school exam (year 7) the number declined from 55,828 in 2022 to 50,276 in 2023 (-10%). Additionally, there is low prospects for gainful employment in Lao PDR following higher education graduation. This has been a challenge for long, including large numbers of young Laotian working across the border in Thailand. Perhaps what has changed most profoundly is the rise in technology related earning possibilities in the Lao PDR, ranging from platform-mediated food-delivery and ride-sharing work to using social media platforms for commercial activities, including in rural areas.

In sum, the ‘record low’ in NUoL entrance registrations is likely because of young people of (lower) middle class background (including ethnic minorities) discontinuing their studies confronted by two intersecting realities. First, due to rising cost of living completing secondary schooling and pursuing higher education has become a substantially larger financial challenge. Second, there is easily accessible migrant work and a rise in domestic income earning opportunities. Both do not require higher education and contribute to reducing some immediate financial pressures. Against such a background, a call for more scholarships to ensure that Laotian higher education remains accessible also for those with fewer financial means is unlikely to make much of a difference.

Endnotes

During the 1970s about 10 per cent of the population of what is now Lao PDR fled the country, among them many of the higher educated elite.
Following the communist take-over in 1975, Sisavangvong University in Vientiane (established in 1958 by the Royal Lao Government) was dissolved into various colleges.
World Bank data show a gross enrolment rate for primary schooling of 97 per cent in 2022 (0.97 gender parity) and an all-times high of 122 per cent in 2012. For secondary education, the gross enrolment rate was 57 per cent in 2022 (0.95 gender parity) and an all-times high of 66 per cent in 2017 and 2018.
Note also instances of cheating or side-stepping exams, e.g. https://laotiantimes.com/2016/09/14/students-to-resit-nuol-entrance-exams-after-questions-leaked/
Government resolutions seek to channel students into shorter, and cheaper ‘courses at vocational training schools’ in ‘priority fields’ (Vientiane Times, p2, 28 July 2023). Yet the scale of these initiatives is unclear.
From the academic year 2020-2021, there are more than 16,700 students who registered for the online exam, but more than 14,000 people came to the real exam, among which the university plans to enroll more than 9,000 students in all system.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author:

Roy Huijsmans is a teacher and researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research focuses on the role of young people in processes of development and change.

Is Liberia’s illiteracy problem linked to absent fathers?

By ISS Blog Bliss 10 September 202414 December 2024 4796 views

The prolonged civil war that brought life in Liberia to a standstill for over a decade has left deep wounds that the country is still working to heal more than twenty years after the conflict ended. While significant interventions have been made in the country’s education sector, low literacy rates persist — but the war and its aftermath may not be the only reasons, writes ISS MA graduate Christo Gorpudolo.

Liberia has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, with an adult literacy rate of 48.3% in 2017 (the global average is 84.7%) and a youth literacy rate of 77.46% (the global average is 91.68%). The country scored 177 out of 193 countries and territories on the 2022 Human Development Index (HDI), a composite statistic used to measure and rank countries’ levels of social and economic development according to the level of education, life expectancy, and standard of living.

But while the country’s low adult literacy rate has been linked to civil war and resulting poverty, a lack of infrastructure, and inadequate teacher training, recent research I conducted in central Liberia revealed another possible explanation: absent fathers. This observation is important because it is a factor that is not directly attributable to the civil war but that may have a potentially significant impact on efforts to address the persistent low adult literacy rate.

Understandings of Liberia’s low literacy rates

Much of Liberia’s education-related backlogs have been attributed to the civil war that ravaged this low-income country between 1989 and 2003. The long-standing impact of the war, including the destruction of much of the country’s trained workforce, has led to a struggling educational system still recovering from many challenges, including those related to access to education, the quality of instruction, and a lack of human and financial resources.

The absence of fathers hitherto has not been cited as a factor contributing to illiteracy, although it has been marked by scholars as an important factor positively affecting the growth of school –going children in Liberia. A report by the 2024 World Education network on Liberia’s education system moreover states that fathers’ involvement in children’s education means a lot to children, who eventually tend to perform better.

Conversely, non-profit organization All For Kids states that children who grow up without fathers are more likely to experience unemployment as adults, have low incomes, remain on social assistance, and experience homelessness. The organization also states that absent fathers is a factor consistently co-occurring with a wide range of mental health disorders and related problems, particularly anxiety, depression, and increased suicide risk.

An unexpected observation

My observation that the absence of fathers could be linked to low literacy levels among children came as I was conducting research on another topic. In March this year, I was hired by the CERATH Development Organization to research how young Liberian adolescents view the Liberian food system. This research is intended to help CERATH understand Liberia’s food security and what children’s visions are for a food secure Liberia. I spoke to 50 young adolescents between the ages of 9 and 17; of these children,19 were not attending school and the remaining 31 children were attending school.

During the research, while interviewing the children who were not attending school, I made an unexpected observation: all the children I spoke to who were not in school faced absent fathers at home or in their lives. Some of them live with mothers, aunts, or grandmothers who work to some extent; others live with mothers, aunts and grandmothers who are physically able to but do not engage in economic activities.

One of the children (aged 16) stated that his father died in 2020 in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. Because of his father’s death, he and his mother had to move back to Bong County in central Liberia; he has not been enrolled in school since 2020. Another participant aged 16, also without a father, has never been to school. Yet another participant aged 9, also without a father, has also never been to school.

Thinking outside the box

Given their ages, all of these children were born after the Liberian civil war and were not actively involved in the war. Most of them also live close to schools and don’t necessarily have to walk miles to school. The country moreover has a free and compulsory primary education policy, which was introduced in 2003. Yet, despite these factors that may facilitate (or at least do not hinder) school attendance, these young adolescents are not currently in school. Could absent fathers be a reason for this and, thus, for Liberia’s low literacy rate?

Speaking with these young children, I observed that they are increasingly concerned about possibly never going to school. Others hope that their mothers and guardians would secure funding to send them to school. It is clear that the children I interviewed do want to attend school, but do not foresee the possibility of doing so. This is why it is important to examine all possible reasons for children’s failure to attend school.

The World Literacy Foundation states that in developing and emerging countries, the number of children and youth with no basic foundational and literacy skills is continuing to rise by an estimated 20% per year. Without any effective intervention, these young people face a lifetime of poverty and unemployment. Thus, further investigation is needed to ensure that children can attain quality education. Investigating the possible link between school attendance and the absence of fathers is an important place to start.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Christo Z. Gorpudolo is a development practitioner with over 9 years of work experience in the development sector. She is particularly interested in research areas that cover peace and conflict, children rights, humanitarian aid and gender. She has a Masters of Arts degree in Development studies, Social Justice Perspective from the International Institute of Social Studies.

ChatGPT can be our ally when conducting scientific research — but academic integrity must guide its use

By ISS Blog Bliss 18 April 2024 2710 views

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1592900783478{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1592900766479{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-left: -10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Several papers that have recently been published in peer-reviewed journals display obvious signs of having been written by the AI tool ChatGPT. This has sparked a heated online debate about the transparency of research communication and academic integrity in cases where AI is used in the academic writing process. In this blog article, Kim Tung Dao discusses the ethical implications of using AI for academic writing and ponders the future impact of AI in academic research, urging for a balance between the efficiency of AI tools and research integrity.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”28106″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]

Used for everything from streamlining everyday tasks to revolutionizing industries, artificial intelligence (AI) has come to profoundly affect our lives in the past few decades. The emergence of new forms of AI in recent years has led to a heated debate in academia about whether students should be allowed to use AI tools — usually large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT — in their writing. And if they are permitted, a related question is to what extent they should be used, especially in higher education.

A new issue related to the rise of LLMs is now rearing its head within the realm of scientific research: the publication of LLM-generated content in peer-reviewed journals. This worrying trend reflects not only the rapid advancements in LLMs’ ability to replicate human work but also gives rise to discussions on the ethics of research (communication) and research integrity.

More and more researchers are attempting to leverage generative AI such as ChatGPT to act as a highly productive research assistant. It is very tempting to have an LLM compose content for you, as these AI-generated pieces often exhibit sophisticated language, conduct statistical analyses seamlessly, and even discuss new research findings expertly. The line between human- and machine-generated content is blurring. In addition, these LLMs work tirelessly and quickly, which can be considered highly beneficial for human scholars.

However, beneath the surface of effectiveness and efficiency lies a complex labyrinth of ethical concerns and potential repercussions for the integrity of scientific research. Publishing academic research in journals remains the most popular way for many researchers to disseminate their findings, communicate with their peers, and contribute to scientific knowledge production. Peer reviewing ensures that research findings and truth claims are meticulously evaluated by experts in the field to sustain quality and credibility in the formulation of academic theories and policy recommendations. Hence, when papers with AI-generated content are published in peer-reviewed journals, readers can’t help but question the integrity of the entire scientific publishing process.

There is a big difference between receiving assistance from generative AI and allowing it to generate entire or significant parts of research texts without appropriate supervision and monitoring. These can entail smaller tasks such as proofreading AI-generated content before its distribution/publication but can also play a much more critical role in ensuring the originality and significance of AI-enhanced research. This is why this article seeks to reflect on the abuse of AI in the writing of academic texts by researchers and provides commentary on the insufficiency of the current peer-review system. I also try to initiate a thoughtful discussion on the implications of AI for the future of research.

Falling through the cracks

The latest volume of Elsevier’s Surfaces and Interfaces journal recently caught the attention of researchers on X (Twitter), as one of its papers has evidently been written by ChatGPT. The first line of the paper states: “Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic: […].” Any ChatGPT user knows that this is the typical reply generated by the LLM when it responds to a prompt. Without any expertise in AI or other related fields, a common ChatGPT user with normal common sense can therefore tell that this sentence and at least the following paragraph, if not many others, has been generated by ChatGPT.

But this paper is certainly not the only one in this new line of LLM-generated publications. ChatGPT prompt replies have been found in other papers published in different peer-reviewed journals and are not limited to any specific fields of science. For example, a case report published in Radiology Case Reports (another Elsevier journal) includes a whole ChatGPT prompt reply stating “I’m very sorry, but I don’t have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model. I can provide general information about […], but for specific cases, it is essential to consult with a medical professional […].”

Hallucinating information

What is more worrisome is the quality, integrity, and credibility of scientific research conducted by these LLMs, as ChatGPT has the tendency to hallucinate information and draws on seemingly non-existent citations and references to support the texts it generates. For example, in a forum discussion where contributors talked about detecting AI-generated content in academic publications, one contributor pointed out that they could not find the references cited in a paper titled “Automatic Detection of Coagulation of Blood in Brain Using Deep Learning Approach”. Several other cases are mentioned in the discussion thread.

Besides likely contributing to the publication of false or unevidenced information, the use of LLMs in the writing up of scientific research also highlights the failure of peer reviewers to catch or question these practices, showing either their carelessness or their irresponsibility. The peer-review system has long served as the gatekeeper of scholarly knowledge, aiming to uphold high standards of quality, integrity, and credibility that are part and parcel of academic research and publishing. But with obvious evidence of LLM-generated content being included in papers published in peer-reviewed journals, it might be time to start questioning the transparency and accountability inherent in the peer-review process. When a peer-review publication starts with a ChatGPT’s typical prologue, it’s reasonable to wonder how such article was reviewed.

A call for responsible use

AI is not all bad. Clearly, it can be a powerful assistant to researchers in the research process, used for anything ranging from brainstorming, developing research strategies, coding, analyzing empirical results, and language editing to acting as a competently critical reviewer to provide useful and helpful feedback for excellent improvement. But to work with this powerful assistant, researchers still need to have a solid knowledge of the research topic, make significant decisions on the research strategy, and, most importantly, ensure that the research is an original contribution to the literature and can be applied. Relying heavily on AI to finish a research project without understanding the foundation and the essence of the research is plainly ethical contamination and fraudulent behavior.

AI is not a scientific researcher — and might never be

Beyond the immediate finger-pointing at the peer-reviewed system and research practices, the increasing influence of AI in research outputs carries broader implications for the role and integrity of human researchers, the nature of scientific discovery, and the social perception of AI. Even if the potential for deception and manipulation is ignored, AI-generated research outputs might still lack genuine insights, critical analysis, and might fail to take into account ethical considerations without human guidance. Moreover, in order for research outputs to be meaningful for human life and society, they need to be validated by human researchers.

We don’t necessarily need to fear AI; we do need to fear the improper use of AI, and we need to play an active role in preventing this from happening. Thus, instead of fearing being replaced by AI, human researchers should start acknowledging its abilities and using it to shape our projects. Let’s board this technological advancement ship to escalate our research efficiency and accelerate the speed of scientific discovery. But let us remain cautious. We are responsible for ensuring that AI contributes to instead of compromises scientific knowledge production.

Writing this post with the help of ChatGPT 3.5 (which I used to improve my language), I can’t help but recall the question I was asked when receiving my doctoral degree: “Do you promise to continue to perform your duties according to the principles of academic integrity: honestly and with care; critically and transparently; and independently and impartially?”

I promise.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” accent_color=”#a80000″ css=”.vc_custom_1594895181078{margin-top: -15px !important;margin-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1713430703942{margin-top: 0px !important;}”]

About the author:

Kim Tung Dao is a recent PhD graduate of the International Institute of Social Studies. Her research interests include globalization, international trade, development, and the history of economic thought.

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Development Dialogue 19 | Why we need alternatives to mainstream education — and how the ‘Nook’ model of learning can show us the way

By ISS Blog Bliss 4 April 2024 2373 views

Contemporary education models continue to reflect and perpetuate colonial educational priorities and by virtue are intricately tied to goals of shaping ‘children as future adults’ and creating a ‘productive’ workforce through education. In the process, they exclude marginalised groups of people, denying them the opportunity to learn and thrive. Alternatives to mainstream education models have been sought all over the world and are gaining traction. In this blog article, Anoushka Gupta discusses ‘Nooks’, alternative community learning spaces that non-profit organisation Project DEFY has introduced in several Asian and African countries, and shows how they are transforming the way in which people approach learning.

Learners working on projects during the design phase. Source: Project DEFY.

Situating systemic challenges within mainstream education models

The outdatedness of several mainstream education models in their failure to enable individuals and communities to respond to emerging challenges have long been recognised. Yet, not much has been done in terms of questioning the foundational principles of these models and in finding enduring alternatives. Such alternatives are needed particularly in Asia and Africa, where several systemic challenges confront educational systems.

It is well known, for example, that the founding principles of schooling systems rest on the assumption that child development is a linear process — it is thereby assumed that a child of a particular age must learn certain skills and competencies before progressing further^[1]. As a result, as children move through school, their worth is increasingly tied to their performance in standardized examinations, placing immense pressure on them to do well and limiting opportunities to explore interests or enjoy the process of learning. Metrics to understand what constitutes ‘success’ over the years (through assessment results or further educational trajectories) have standardised experiences and divorced education from its local context^[2].

Moreover, differences in material wealth and social location play an important role in understanding variations in ‘success’ defined through assessment results. For example, Dalit and Adivasi communities in India who were historically excluded from economic resources and formal educational systems face challenges in meeting the uniform testing criteria, which puts them at a disadvantage in many disciplines and professions even today^[3]. In Uganda, high rates of teenage pregnancy and associated stigma reproduce exclusion and drive girls to drop out^[4].

These instances demonstrate that mainstream schooling is built on rigid eligibility rules and criteria for success that fail to secure an environment where learners feel safe and heard and where they can explore their interests instead of sticking to uniform curricula, often detached from their own realities. In the next section, I will show how the Nook learning model seeks to contend with such hegemonic education models and creates safe spaces in which learners can thrive without excessive pressure to perform.

Questioning why we learn

First conceptualised in 2016 by Abhijit Sinha, founder of the India-based non-profit organisation Project DEFY,^[5]Nooks are physical community learning environments located in under-resourced places that are accessible to learners irrespective of their age, gender, marital status, and socio-economic background. These spaces are built on questioning the fundamental purpose of learning, which for mainstream models often is creating a productive workforce by teaching them standardised knowledge and skills instead of centring interest as the main driver of learning.

Sinha’s experiment started in a small village in Karnataka, India. Disillusioned with his own educational experiences in one of India’s top engineering colleges, he envisioned a space equipped with basic tools and without strict instructions or rules that would push learners to really explore their interests and would encourage resourcefulness, teamwork, and innovation. These spaces later expanded, went through several iterations, and became the ‘Nooks’ they are today. And they continue to be adapted to new conditions and the needs of learners and communities. Since 2016, 41 Nooks have been set up and 32 are currently operational through partnerships with local organisations across Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, India, and Bangladesh.

The freedom to choose how (and what) to learn

Nooks follow ‘self-designed learning’ as the pedagogical orientation where the core belief rests on learners defining and designing their own educational goals in an enabling environment. Each space is equipped with basic tools, raw materials, the internet, and laptops and has two fellows who act as mentors.

The Nook follows a cycle-based structure comprising four stages:

Exploration — fellow-guided sessions that introduce learners to diverse learning areas (from robotics to art to storytelling).
Goal Setting — the identification and articulation by learners of a specific learning goal based on their interesteither from areas in the exploration stage or something totally different, as well as their definition of the steps and resources required to translate the goal into a project.
Design — the execution by learners of the project, which they spend approximately three to six months on (the length of the cycle differs depending on the Nook).
Exhibition — the presentation of their work at an event known as an ‘external exhibition’, which is used as a platform for showcasing learner projects to community members and external stakeholders.

Conversations, reflections, and enjoyment

In each cycle, beyond working on projects, learners gather twice a day in opening and closing circles to discuss any troubles they have faced, be it related to their project or something that bothers them in general. Reflections during these designated discussion hours are meant to build a sense of community in the Nook. Many learners have chosen to take up problems in their community – for instance, learners are trying to tackle environmental pollution in the Barishal Nook in Bangladesh. This approach to learning allows individuals to share challenges without judgment and allows them to flexibly explore their interests without assessments or pressures of completion. It intends to recentre the role of learners’ agency and to foster an understanding of individuals as part of a larger collective.

An opening circle in one of the Nooks. Source: Project DEFY.

The Nooks have also had a wider impact. First, self-designed learning naturally implies that projects differ across and within Nooks. A common thread, however, is that learners tend to pick up problems they see in their surroundings or delve deeper into an area they were curious about. In the Bulawayo Nook in Zimbabwe, for example, a learner articulated his desire to build an artificial limb, explaining, “Personally, I need it. I would also want to help other people in my community who are disabled once I achieve this goal. The cost of artificial legs is very expensive in the country so that is why I decided to make a cheaper and innovative one”.

Several learners also revealed that their goals challenged normative gendered ideas of learning and work. For instance, in the Gahanga Nook in Rwanda, a female learner spoke of how she intended to learn tailoring initially. However, with exposure to different areas, she discovered her interest in welding despite initial resistance from her family. With time and through encouragement from peers and fellows, she created a hanger and a garden chair, ultimately convincing her family to support her.

Lastly, Nooks foster a community identity. Before Nooks are set up, a community mapping exercise is carried out to understand how the space potentially adds value to the lives of community members. The eventual goal of each Nook is for learners to drive the concept independently. While Nooks are still young and learners running the Nook independently are yet to be located, several seeds of leadership from within Nooks have been sown. Beyond taking on day-to-day responsibilities, steering opening and closing circles, and mentoring fellow learners, the transition of several learners to Nook facilitator roles is encouraging.

Expanding the ‘idea’ behind and beyond Nooks — some final takeaways

Globally, enhancing access to schooling is hailed as a marker of development. Yet, the exclusion and disempowerment that are part of both the design and implications of such beliefs are rarely questioned. In contexts where disempowerment stems from wider socio-economic barriers that trickle down to schooling, Nooks demonstrate the value of learning spaces that allow flexibility to explore one’s interests without imposing restrictions on what to learn. In turn, the emphasis on contextual learning and engagement with community challenges as part of the learning journey seeks to upturn individualised notions of education.

Finally, while ‘community-led development’ is increasingly used as the go-to buzzword among development practitioners and donors, very few are truly willing to let go of predetermined criteria to measure the ‘output’ and ‘outcomes’ of education interventions. Truly recognising the agency of the learners and communities means first questioning our own metrics of what constitutes ‘success.’

This blog article draws on a recent working paper published by Project DEFY that can be accessed here

References:

[1] Prout, A. & James, A. (1997) ‘A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood? Provenance, Promise and Problems’ in Prout, A. & James, A. (ed.) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. Second edition. London: Falmer Press. pp. 7-32.

[2] Ydesen, C. and Andreasen, K. (2020) “Historical roots of the global testing culture in education,” Nordic studies in Education, 40(2), pp. 149-166. DOI: 10.23865/nse.v40.2229

[3] See Ch2 ‘School Education and Exclusion’ in India Exclusion Report 2013-14. pp.44-75. Available at: IndiaExclusionReport2013-2014.pdf (idsn.org)

[4] Study-report-on-Linkages-between-Pregnancy-and-School-dropout.pdf (faweuganda.org)

[5] For more on Project DEFY, see https://hundred.org/en/innovations/project-defy-design-education-for-yourself

About the author:

Anoushka Gupta is a researcher based out of India. Her research interests include child and youth wellbeing, understanding social exclusion, and utilising participatory methods in community-based research. She has worked extensively with non-profit organisations primarily in India on educational quality and community-based learning models. She previously majored in Social Policy as part of the MA in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam and holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.