As an international organization (IO) working in global education and as a producer of regimes of truth, UNESCO periodically develops major reports to guide the global education agenda. While UNESCO has produced a large body of publications in education in varied forms, its two academic reports have been recognized as foregrounding UNESCO’s vision and conceptualization of global education: (1) Learning to be (the Faure report; UNESCO, 1972) and (2) Learning: The treasure within (the Delors report; UNESCO, 1996).

In 2021, UNESCO launched its next report, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education (referred to in this paper as the Futures report). It was developed by an independent international commission formed by UNESCO in 2019, under the leadership of Sahle-Work Zewde, the first female president of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, who has had a long association with the UN and UNESCO. The Futures report, as UNESCO’s response to current global crises in education, serves as a global initiative to reimagine “how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet” (UNESCO, 2024).

Central to the Futures report is the idea of a new social contract for education that rebuilds “our relationships with each other, with the planet, and with technology” (p. 9), while transforming the future. The report views a “massive commitment to social dialogue, to thinking and acting together” as critical for the new social contract, based on the idea of education as a human right and a common good that would “overcome discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion” (p. 5). While several features about the governance of the social contract are articulated in the report, we pay attention to three that are significant for this analysis.

First, the report specifically advocates for a social contract based on a broadly agreed-upon understanding of education as a common good, calling for explicit consent on matters of common interest through education, and defining reimagining as “working together to create futures that are shared and interdependent” (p. 2). This purpose-driven social contract, at first glance, resonates with Rousseau’s ideal of “an implicit agreement among members of a society to cooperate for shared benefit” (p. 2).

Second, a commitment to a principles-based social contract calls for international cooperation, global solidarity, and a “renewed commitment to global collaboration in support of education as a common good” (p. 132). The report specifically “advocates for the inclusion of diverse non-state actors in global governance through partnerships—a movement away from a top-down” approach towards “multi-centric action—and new forms of regional cooperation, especially South-South and triangular cooperation” (Sayed et al., 2023, p. 520).

Third, while discussing renewal of the social contract, the report calls for global cooperation and solidarity to strengthen complex knowledge ecologies, acknowledging the necessity of drawing upon the diversity of knowledge systems and sources (UNESCO, 2021, pp. 126–127). This conception of multiplicity of knowledge sources advocates for the inclusion of ideas and thoughts that celebrate “a greater diversity of possible futures beyond the present” and legitimize “diverse sources of knowledge to the exigencies of the present and future” (p. 126).

Given the commitment to a social contract as the core element of the report, in this article we explore the underpinnings of how a social contract for education can be renewed in the context of power asymmetries in international cooperation and new forms of global dominance. This exploration is based on Fraser’s (2004) tripartite conceptualization of social justice based on recognition (understood as the affirmation of identities), redistribution (just and fair distribution of resources and goods), and representation (understood as meaningful participation)—the elements of which are already drawn upon in the report. Specifically, we examine the meaning of social contract in the contemporary global education policy (GEP) context, paying attention to the actors in this social contract and how this contract could be formed and transacted. We build our arguments on our broader research on the multilateral nature and intellectual trajectory of UNESCO as an IO (see Sayed et al., 2023).

Unpacking the social contract: Power asymmetries between IOs and the Global North and South

The new social contract proposed in the report is principled and incorporates public, private, non-state, and civil society sectors. Yet, important governance challenges merit consideration in relation to power asymmetries and contestations within and between various parties to the social contract the report proposes. In this section we identify several of these governance challenges, then discuss alternative approaches in the section that follows.

First, the report premises the idea of a social contract for bringing together all actors, including non-state sectors, into a new social contract united in commitment to education as a common good. On one hand, the need to engage with the non-state actors, which would include private actors, in the forging of the social contract is undeniable, especially given their growing presence in education. The private sector plays a key role in education—from provisioning to managing public schools to providing services and support, including digital technologies. On the other hand, such engagement would not be straightforward, particularly as the report argues against the commercialization of and profiteering in education and calls for greater public funding for education. For instance, the report lists one of the principles as strengthening governments’ “capacity for the public financing and regulation of education” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 117).

The regulation of education by the government in contexts where there is significant private interest in the sector is essential in ensuring equity and quality in education. Thus, the key governance issue to be addressed in any social contract for education is how the private sector might be effectively regulated, given its self-interested motives. Research (e.g., Wulff, 2021) has pointed to how private sector actors—often in overt or tacit alliances with powerful funding IOs, advocacy groups, and other actors—have long pursued agendas that are likely to contradict the principles delineated in the Futures report. The benign and well-intentioned motivation for a broad-based social contract is not feasible alone. This is especially notable because the capacity of the state as guarantor and provider of the right to education in several Global South countries is weak, and in many instances, the state operates in alliance with the private sector.

Furthermore, broad-based social contracts often frame “states and the private sector … as being equally important” (Wulff, 2021, p. 80), eliding fundamental differences of interest and constitution. For example, democratic states are accountable to the citizenry, whereas private actors are accountable to specific self-selected interest groups in the form of shareholders or members. In this context, the new social contract for which the report argues would require translating the principled position adopted into a concrete and practicable strategy (as is discussed later in this article) for converging actors—including governments, international organizations, civil society organizations, and nonprofit actors—to strengthen education. This means thinking about the problems of the current regimes of power in the global governance of and international cooperation in education and about the capacity of states to regulate. In particular, more work is needed to develop strategies that empower national-states to effectively regulate the non-state sector, and in particular, private actors to harmonize their efforts and contributions in support of state-directed public education systems.

Second, some notable silences in the report negatively impact the idea of the social contract. One is the role of the currently omnipresent supranational system of educational governance, which has strongly influenced GEP discourses (Robertson, 2012; Sayed et al., 2023). Critiques of the GEP note contestations between IOs on key substantial matters, including who leads on the global education agenda, which body is responsible for monitoring education progress, and who sets the agenda (and how). Such contestations reflect the self-interest of such IOs and their ideological proclivities and agendas. The twin track of Education for All and Millennium Development Goals of education that predate the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 education framework is a testament to the competition and contestation between IOs and the adverse effect such actions have on the control and ownership of the education agenda by national governments (Sayed et al., 2023). In muting contestation about the competition for dominance of the intellectual agenda, and specifically the tension between IOs (e.g., the World Bank Group [WBG] and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]) with whom UNESCO has competed and collaborated over the years, less attention is paid to strategies to harmonize the work of multiple and competing IOs with differing ideological impulses and orientations.

Third, chapter 5 of the report critically engages with conditions of teachers and the teaching profession, arguing for various constituencies in education (schools, administrators, families, universities, and political entities) to work in solidarity to enable teacher success. It argues for strengthening teacher autonomy and teacher voice in public discourse on the future of education, which have been long-standing issues in teacher governance globally. It is thus noteworthy that the report identifies teachers as key agents for realizing the social contract for education. However, teachers have not only remained marginal to global education discourses and absent in determinations about the global education agenda; they have been subject to a negative and derisory positioning, especially in the work of some IOs, such as the OECD and the WBG. This has resulted in the undermining of teacher agency and the imposition of narrow scripted pedagogy, scripted professional development, and anti-democratic forms of teacher accountability (Pesambili et al., 2022; Robertson, 2012).

The governance of the social contract would be enhanced if teachers were empowered as professional agents, in contradistinction to their subjugation within neoliberal global teacher governance measures, as exemplified in the new public management approach of some IOs (see Pesambili et al, 2022). This would necessitate including teachers in policy determination, consistent with the principles of social dialogue articulated in the ILO-UNESCO (2016) recommendations. Governance of the social contract would require recognition of how the current global discourse on teachers and on the “learning crisis” limits teacher professionalism (Biesta, 2019), and how a discourse of derision will stunt teacher involvement and agency in realizing the envisaged social contract. The agency of teachers at all levels and their involvement in the governance of the social contract is critical as, for example, has been the case in the National Education Collaboration Trust in South Africa, which formed a tripartite alliance between government (the Ministry of Basic Education), private sectors (e.g., the Black Business Alliance), and teachers’ unions (e.g., South African Democratic Teachers Union).

Fourth, any discussion of the social contract at the global level needs to recognize power asymmetries and contestations, such as between nations, between governments and IOs (as noted above), and between and within IOs that comprise member states with varying interests and politics. The increasing number of global actors in education and the asymmetries between them add to this complexity. The political economy of international aid, development, and cooperation is key to understanding the conditions under which a global social contract seeking to maximize common good benefits might work. To unpack these conditions, we take as an exemplar UNESCO’s work as part of multilateral aid and development networks. UNESCO’s literacy agenda, for instance, was challenged by the dominant member states in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the in the United States and other countries in the Global North, as “promoting communism during the Cold War” (Sayed et al., 2023, p. 521). This led to the retraction of funding for UNESCO’s literacy agenda, calling into question the organization’s position as a leader in the global governance of education. This tension became amplified in 1974, when the United States froze its funding to UNESCO, because the latter “granted recognition to the Palestine Liberation Organization” (Sayed et al., 2023, p. 522). In the 1980s, “the USA, followed by the UK and Singapore, withdrew membership and funding due to UNESCO’s adoption of the MacBride Report, One World, Many Voices” (p. 522). Such constant withdrawal of funding and membership from UNESCO (and rejoining) by the United States, including most recently in 2011 through 2023, and its allies highlights the broad “geo-politics of the global governance structures” and the “tension and contestation between speaking for all members and speaking for the powerful states of the Global North”, pointing the challenges in securing consensus and agreement (p. 520).

There are asymmetries within the Global South as well. The dominant regions and countries of the Global South, such as Africa and India, have historically had more control over shaping the global education agenda of UNESCO. The example of UNESCO illustrates the power politics play, which underlies the process of imagining and realizing a social contract united around education as a right and public good, and illuminates the challenge of organizational self-interest and competition. It is this very tension between self-interest and common ground and consensus that must be addressed by the international community and that all actors must confront if the idea of the social contract is to be realized.

Fifth, the Futures report argues that UNESCO acts as an “evidence broker and an advocate for strengthened data and accountability […] while maintaining its unique role in fostering global dialogue for a new social contract for education” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 138). The report describes UNESCO as having a “distinctive character” as “an intellectual organization in the broad sense, less subordinate than others to a purely economic view of the issues… As a moral authority and a setter of international standards, it pays as much heed to human development as to purely material progress” (p. 187). The report thus could be interpreted as abrogating to UNESCO the power to convene (Sayed et al., 2023) and the power to monitor and hold nations and people to account, while positioning itself as ideologically distinct from others. The report imbues UNESCO with the positionality of a broader and non-instrumental view of education. This could be seen as replaying the debate about the Education for All (EFA) goals and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) representing differing ideologies for GEP and governance.

We have discussed the tension within and between IOs and illustrated this in relation to UNESCO in particular. While the Futures report is from an international commission, its sponsorship and secretariat function closely identify it with UNESCO, as we have shown elsewhere (Sayed et al., 2023). In this context, the report rightly asserts that UNESCO “will need a clearer sense of its comparative advantage within the complex ecosystem of global and regional actors involved in educational norm setting, financing, and knowledge mobilization” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 138) and the reconfigured global educational governance space. This will involve considering, given the shifts in its own intellectual trajectory, how UNESCO as a key player in a new social contract for education might assume a leadership role to convene the diverse stakeholders. The report only partially answers the question of how UNESCO may leverage “its unique capacity to convene and mobilise people and institutions around the world” (p. 138) for the purpose of building a social contract. This question also applies to other IOs. The successful implementation of a social contract relies on the clarity of roles and expectations of different IOs and their commitment and willingness to collaborate rather than compete. Given the history of IOs, this collaboration cannot be taken for granted (Mundy, 1999; Robertson, 2012).

In this context, contestations for hegemonic financing and epistemic leadership require a principle-based value commitment without overlooking the differences between and within IOs. A new social contract based on the idea of education as a human right and a common good could be meaningfully pursued within the realities of the international cooperation sector. This could be a feasible option but would require taking into account and directly addressing the fact that UNESCO, unlike other IOs (e.g., the WBG and the OECD), is not a funding agency and depends significantly upon external funding sources. The extensive funding and technical capacity of these IOs (compared with UNESCO) has ultimately furthered UNESCO’s displacement as a leading agency in GEP. Edward et al. (2018) and Mundy (1999) discussed this narrowing role of UNESCO as it began rebranding its identity from “lead agency in education globally” to “global intellectual forum” during the 1990s. Nonetheless, the consensus emerging about the SDGs and a value-based commitment, as discussed, might pave the way forward, recognizing that the SDG 2030 Agenda is also not without problems; it is also part of the new forms of global governance destabilizing local frameworks of action, thereby controlling from a distance the panopticon of GEP making (Sayed & Moriarty, 2020).

Discussion: Exploring alternatives to current GEP trends

Notwithstanding the critique above, an important contribution of the Futures report is that it challenges the techno-managerial discourse prevalent in the global governance of education. Like previous UNESCO reports, the Futures report unequivocally supports publicly funded education as a fundamental human right. It also highlights critical contemporary issues facing education. Yet, its notion of the social contract at many levels remains fuzzy and opaque, and (particularly with regard to issues of global governance and international cooperation) ignores power asymmetries. In this section, we aim to identify and refine the ideas embedded in the report that can strengthen global governance in ways that address rather than overlook power imbalances.

An important starting point for developing a new social contract could mean taking a reparative approach to the contestations and asymmetries between and within organizations, governments, and agencies. This involves clearly articulating what a principled social contract means, identifying the underpinning values and ideals, and fundamentally addressing “the political stance inherent in the notion of the social contract” (Elfert & Morris, 2022, p. 41). This necessitates a discussion about the politics of collaboration, while clarifying why such a contract is necessary at this juncture and on what basis the parties will work together. Recognizing the privileges and inequities between and within parties and taking a strong reparative approach to who should be represented and how and why foregrounds such discussions. This implies the development of a powerful political critique of historical tensions and asymmetrical power relations between global and national actors. Only by engaging historically and conjunctly with the obstacles that hinder formation of a collectivist and solidaristic commitment, based on recognition of the inequities between and within actors and agencies, can the international cooperation move toward a desirable social contract that tackles how such a contract might be governed, and which actors are to be engaged. Articulating the set of principles as a way of knowing the social contract moves the discussion of a contract and partnership beyond the platitudes of previous global goal-setting exercises, such as in the Education for All goals, the Dakar Framework for Action, and the SDG framework for revitalizing the “global partnership” for sustainable development.

We argue that while the Futures report offers a much-needed critique of the direction of global development, it is important to clarify the need for solutions to emerge from outside the same regimes of power, ways of knowing, alliances of actors, and global governance mechanisms that are the drivers of these trends. Analyzing the call for a new social contract for education in the contemporary context, Toukan (2023) articulates the need to “move away from contractarian, adversarial, individualist, and transactional origins” (p. 11) of the concept, based on an atomistic ontology. A paradigm shift to a relational ontology to understand human development within which education is interwoven is essential for such reconceptualization of a new social contract. Our analysis similarly indicates that while the report calls for the decolonization of knowledge and cites several postcolonial, anti/non-capitalists, and critical intellectuals (e.g., Julius Nyerere, Mahatma Gandhi, Paulo Freire, and bell hooks), its own idea of social contract, though vague, is not radically decolonial. We recognize that the report is committed to “reparative justice and solidarity” and does seek to “focus on an expansive solidarity” and empathy which it argues to be “integral to justice”. The report further states that “learning to heal past injustices needs to be a critical component of pedagogies of cooperation and solidarity” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 55). While this is important, we argue that without an analysis of power and drawing upon critical approaches based in a decolonial social justice framework, the risk exists that the notion of a social contract may be difficult to realize, if not weak, in practice. In this sense, engaging with such alternative frameworks could potentially pave new directions and pathways for action.

One example of a more cohesive approach can be located in Fraser’s (2004) tripartite conceptualization of social justice based on recognition, redistribution, and representation that is founded on an understanding of “difference” and equality. Evolving a social contract from this perspective involves three elements that are reflected in the various recommendations of the report but are not cohesively unified for advancing a new social contract.

The first element is thinking beyond the global scale and recognizing the existence of legitimate regional formations and organizations, for example, the African Union. There are also sub-regional cooperation and networks (e.g., the South African Development Community [SADC], South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation [SAARC], and Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN]), whose place and role in global and regional educational governance merit greater consideration and engagement as alternatives to a homogenized monocultural global governance discourse. The Futures report reflects this element in its suggestion for “new forms of regional, South-South and triangular cooperation” to facilitate multi-centric action (UNESCO, 2021, p. 137).

The second element is balancing recognition with redistribution to counter maldistribution and social inequalities resulting from capitalism, while establishing a strong commitment to social welfare. This principle is sufficiently reflected in the report. However, redistribution also involves leading financially strong IOs into dialogue among themselves and exploring a politico-economic restructuring of global governance of education, based on the principle of devolution powers, both in terms of decision-making and geospatially, by having delegated regional offices, for example.

The third element is rethinking representation of the priorities and needs of the Global South within most IOs—for example by expanding and diversifying the governance of the IOs (e.g., the WBG and UNICEF)—along with reimagining the principles on which representation and voice in these organizations are based. Even when IOs are country-membership based, such as UNESCO, the power asymmetries between countries of the Global South and Global North in determining policy and programming are a challenge that needs to be addressed. This also raises fundamental questions about the dominance of the international aid and development sector, which is heavily dominated by organizations and individuals in and from the Global North and does not allow for meaningful and robust engagement and involvement of the excluded and marginalized in the working of the social contract. The action of agents of individual IOs and the development community is infused by the idea of “saviorism”, in which such IOs save the Global South. The Paris and Accra Declaration of Aid made it clear that the international development system and disbursement of aid should be aligned to national government priorities and systems and requires the cooperation and harmonization of IOs’ efforts. Any social contract that seeks to synergize partnerships needs to ensure that it is underpinned by a vision of international cooperation that supports, enhances, and nurtures such principles. Thus, we propose that in the current GEP context, rethinking the power dynamic of international cooperation needs to be integral to the framing of new futures of education.

Conclusion

We therefore propose that GEP power imbalances could be addressed in a new social contract for education through the application of Fraser’s (2004) framework for social justice. That is the recognition of regional and subregional formations of educational governance, the redistribution of resources by IOs to repair the injustices of colonial and capitalistic exploitation, and the more equitable representation of the Global South within and among IOs. Addressing and centrally locating these three elements may make possible more effective and long-term mechanisms for a social contract that addresses ongoing education crises and partly overcomes historically asymmetric formations comprising vested interests, unequal actors, and coalitions.

Rethinking the global governance architecture in this way offers a frame for a principle-based social contract that is feasible and implementable and that begins to tackle power asymmetries between the Global North and South and between and within IOs, as highlighted in this paper. A principled social contract based on social justice affirms education as a public and global good, redistributing power and privilege to those who are most marginalized and rendered marginal. This is necessary to realize the report’s call for recasting “the role of regional and international education development organizations in shaping the type of international cooperation and solidarity we will need as we look to 2050” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 119). Such a recasting, we argue, must fundamentally address the power asymmetries by centering the Global South, and its institutions and states, thereby decentering the hegemonic power of the Global North. In this way, the report’s idea of a social contract can become more than symbolic policy positioning and can become a laudable vision for the future.