Education, education, education - Tom Wilmot

When the current UK Prime Minister launched his first election campaign back in 1997, his memorable testimony was that the three highest priorities in government were ‘education, education and education', and almost a decade on all three are still political hot potatoes.

Of course, education plays a vital role in society and in our individual lives. In the highly qualified UK population, those who leave education early or have relatively few qualifications are ever more likely to be tied to low incomes. Meanwhile, the drive to increase the proportion of people moving into higher education seems to have contributed to increasing productivity and promoting economic growth.

But as a society we need to be aware that our preoccupation with economic growth may be narrowing or distorting what education should be. The fixation with quantitative outputs from education means that we may well be neglecting the cultural, moral and intellectual purposes of education.

Fortunately, the National Curriculum now incorporates subjects such as citizenship, which are supposedly now taught in all schools; a step towards development education. However, in engaging young people in local and global sustainable development issues, we still have much to do.

Development in Action is just one example of an organisation working towards an awareness and a deeper understanding of global development in education, both in this country and abroad.

In this way, volunteers who travel to India are encouraged to understand, and cultivate, the link with education in this country. Education, that is, in the more holistic sense, rather than ‘having the right qualifications'.

Volunteers who have the privilege of working with our Indian partners, experience first hand the vital importance of even a basic education for the disadvantaged. But crucially this is relevant to us all, since India is, to the rest of the world, a huge economic player, a beacon of diversity, an illustration of morality, a lesson in spirituality, and a nation with that all important tag of democracy.

Politics aside, this issue of Development in Action concentrates on our volunteers' experiences of education in India , and how these relate to us as global citizens.

After the tsunami, rebuilding bridges

Laura Hughes describes learning approaches appropriate to children who live lives of almost incredible adversity. Nayna Wood examines the barriers to education in both India and Thailand , drawing on her first hand experiences in both countries. Kate Hall, a volunteer who has returned to the UK and is working towards a Masters in development studies, goes on to discuss the roles of state and market in the provision of education.

We also have a special report from our current India correspondent, Nabeela Ahmed, who takes a look at reconstruction in southern India one year on from the tsunami. Even in this chaotic context, we see that education is part of the way forward.

Development education is often seen as a nebulous concept. Our contributors here allow us to experience some of the reality of the challenge we all face. Weapons of mass destruction aside, it was Nelson Mandela who said that ‘education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world'.