Macedonia: Policy Disjuncture between Global Education, Ethnicity and Conflict

With the increasingly complex nature of violent conflict today, there is renewed interest within the international community over the ameliorative role education can potentially play (Novelli et al. 2014). Hence, Western organisations export education and development projects to non-Western countries, which have significantly different socio-historical contexts, but share in common a struggle to balance diversity and unity in efforts to counter the danger of ethno-religious
conflict engulfing the nation. A case in point is the postcommunist and post-conflict states of the former Yugoslavia, and primarily the small and troubled state of the Republic of Macedonia, the site of this study.
Following the armed insurgence in 2001 involving the country's two largest ethnic groups, the state's education programme was significantly altered. Driven by Western intervention a number of liberal multicultural policies were adopted: to actively encourage Macedonia to employ education as a tool to manage its diverse populaces in constructing a secure form of national unity. Nevertheless, this appears to have faltered and has only reinforced existing ethnic divides and contributed to the escalation of tensions and political controversy in recent years. This is mirrored by an increasingly segregated education system (ECRI 2016; Unesco 2009).
Therefore, the central thrust of this research is to question the logic and impact of Western intervention on the education system of the Republic of Macedonia since 2001 and in what ways has this contributed to sustainable peace building?
What underscores the importance of this research is the lack of sufficient data concerning supranational education agenda setting, its legitimacy, and its ability to address the needs of conflict-affected societies. Greater analysis is needed concerning policy disjuncture between the powerful multilateral institutions involved in these interventions in Macedonia. As while they may represent Western modernity, under closer scrutiny they not only hold conflicting and competing education agendas, but also often overlook the contextual indicators concerning 'difference' in the way they handle 'the Other' (Boulden and Kymlicka 2015: 14). This has a significant impact on the success of such initiatives being realised,
particularly in contexts affected by armed conflict and its legacies. As Macedonia well illustrates, such disconnect and oversight can actually contribute to creating a more ethnically entrenched and segregated education system (Shuayb 2012).
By combining an ethnographic approach with the theoretical tools of political economy, scalar analysis, and critical globalisation theory it problematizes the State's changing relationship with education in a global setting. This determines the need to move beyond simple 'policy discourse' to an approach more able to forge and trace connections between the designs and directions of policies within a multi-scalar and multisited terrain. Within this a mixed method strategy will
be devised, comprising detailed semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, a discourse analysis of key policy documentation, an systematic literature review, and a quantitative analysis of data retrieved from official sites to define recent structural trends.
The aim is not only to help bring about a transformation in Macedonia's education system but to map the contours of global education policy and its limitations when applied outside the Western mainframe in fragile conflict affected regions. It calls for a broader consensus, greater commitment and inclusivity, bound by a cross disciplinarily approach within governance and academic circles to develop a sustainable, integrated, and high functioning conflict resolving education system.