Problematizing Human Capital Development in English Language Education in Bangladesh

Abstract

This article draws on a framework based on Bernstein’s three-message systems of schooling and Ball’s notion of policy cycle to examine how the human capital development goal incorporated into the Bangladesh secondary English curriculum has been translated into pedagogy and assessment practices. Data were collected from classroom observations and teacher and principal interviews and document analysis. Findings indicate that while the curriculum has emphasized human capital development as an important English language education policy goal, pedagogy and assessment appear to be pursuing divergent goals and are mediated by local structures shaped by the colonial past and the current political economic context. The article highlights how human capital development is inadequate for substantive pedagogical and assessment practices and contributes to comparative education policy enactment studies by revealing how neoliberally oriented global education policy trends of human capital development unfold locally in schooling contexts in developing societies, namely, Bangladesh.