Presented at Conference of National Council on Rehabilitation Education, Los Angeles, California in April 2016.

1. Facing a Globalized
Future:
Rehabilitation International
Competence through Networked
Citizenship
Dr. Alan Bruce
ULS Dublin
NCRE
Spring Conference
Newport Beach, California
April 2016

2. Understanding linkage
• Critical role of partnerships, linkage and strategic joint
ventures in global higher education and rehabilitation
• Opportunities and challenges in global rehabilitation
• Changing role of rehabilitation professionalism in global
operation
• Moving to rights based approaches
• Operating internationally - three key issues:
• strategic planning
• business model of partnership/mutual learning
• importance of capacity building
• What do we need and how do we get there?

3. Partnerships
• Partnership characterized universities from the beginning
• Linkage for shared common interest
• Research strategy often demands partnership
• Student and faculty exchange
• Pervasive change now driving this
• Education and learning and economies of scale
• Innovation and technology
• Need for quality linkage
• European dimensions

4. Global dimensions of
rehabilitation structures
• International Labor Organization (1919) – promotes rights at work,
encourages decent employment and social protection
• Rehabilitation International (1922) - worldwide network of people with
disabilities, service providers, government agencies, academics, researchers and
advocates working to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities
• World Health Organization (1948) - useful forums for the development
of rehabilitation and disability related best practice
• United Nations (1949) - Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
2008

5. UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities
• Both a development and a human rights
instrument
• A policy instrument which is cross-disability
and cross-sectoral
• Legally binding
• Ratified 2008
• US has not ratified

6. Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities
A Paradigm Shift
• The Convention marks a ‘paradigm shift’ in attitudes and
approaches to persons with disabilities.
• Persons with disabilities are not viewed as objects of
charity, medical treatment and social protection - rather as
subjects with rights, who are capable of claiming those
rights and making decisions for their lives based on their
free and informed consent as active members of society.
• The Convention gives universal recognition to the dignity of
persons with disabilities.

7. Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities
What is Disability?
• The Convention does not explicitly define disability
• Preamble of Convention states:
Disability is an evolving concept, and that disability
results from the interaction between persons with
impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers
that hinders full and effective participation in society
on an equal basis with others
• Article 1 of the Convention states:
Persons with disabilities include those who have long-
term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory
impairments which in interaction with various barriers
may hinder their full and effective participation in
society on an equal basis with others

8. United Nations High Level Meeting on Disability
General Assembly, 23 September 2013
• First ever UN General
Assembly high-level
meeting on disability
• Commitment to global
disability inclusive
development agendas
• Urgent action to
improve health care,
rehabilitation, and
strengthen data

9. Global situation
• Around 150 million adults
experience significant
difficulties functioning
• Disability prevalence is
increasing
• Disproportionately affects
vulnerable populations:
women, older people and poor
households

10. Global learning links: threat or
opportunity?
• Defining policy goals and aims – shaping strategy
• Strategies for connection
• Standards, quality and assessment
• Balancing academic excellence with new needs
• Addressing adaptability and curiosity
• Responding to the digital universe

11. Disabling barriers: widespread
evidence
• Inadequate policies and standards
• Negative attitudes / discrimination
• Lack of provision of services
• Problems with service delivery
• Inadequate funding
• Lack of accessibility
• Lack of consultation and involvement
• Lack of data and evidence

12. Resourcing innovation
• Talent management initiatives
• Accurate forecasting of future skill needs
• Linkage with leading universities
• Human Capital
• Organizational Capital
• Network Capital
Transfers of economically useful scientific knowledge from universities
to industry generates substantial economic growth as the experiences of
classical high technology regions (e.g. Silicon Valley) and emerging new
technology centers around the world demonstrate
Listening
Linkage
Leading

13. EU Contexts

14. EU thematic Objectives (2014-20)
• Research and innovation
• Competitiveness for SMEs
• Employment and labour mobility support
• Social inclusion and combating poverty
• Education, skills and lifelong learning
• Institutional capacity building.

15. Additional Funding
• Community Initiatives (operated by EACEA)
• NOW – addressing needs of women in the
labour force
• HORIZON and INTEGRA – addressing needs of
citizens with disabilities
• Leonardo da Vinci – vocational training
• ADAPT – enhancing change, upskilling and
learning in workplaces
• EQUAL (2001-07).

16. ESF Priorities
• Improving human capital
• Improving access to employment
• Increasing adaptability
• Improving social inclusion of disadvantaged
people
• Strengthening institutional capacity
• Advancing reforms in regards to employment
and inclusion.

17. Framework Programmes for RTD
• Advanced ICT support
• Innovation and sustainable research
• Budget of FP7 (2007-13): €50,5 billion
• Budget of FP8 (2014-20): over €80
billion

18. Europe 2020
The five key priorities now are:
• Raising the employment rate of adults
• Improved investment in research and development
• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
• Reduction of early school leaving and increased
rates of completed third level education
• Reduction of poverty levels by 25%.

19. Open Discovery Space
Largest single project ever funded by the European Union
Creation of a vast digital repository of OERs

20. Themes of
UDL
1. Inclusive learning environments (assistive technologies/interventions,
mobile environments, access, ergonomics)
2. Resources (educational resources, development of inclusive school,
accessible educational resources, Universal Design of Online Courses)
3. Teachers' and school leaders' competences (curriculum design, applying
UDL to Lesson Design, inclusive teaching strategies - game based
approaches, independent living principles)
4. Examination of barriers and identification of opportunities (learning
difficulties/needs of students - learning styles, barriers/challenges in
classrooms of all types, UD policy and legislation, raising awareness)

21. Authentic global learning
• Creating shared meaning in uncertain times
• Providing support and inclusion
• Valuing difference as a critical advantage
• Maintaining creative evidence
• Demonstrating research capacity
• Breaking out of boundaries
• Learning: emancipatory not a supply chain
• Shaping futures not reacting to them

22. Education: from Newman
to Kerr
John Henry Newman (1873) The Idea of the University
1. Primary purpose of a University is intellectual and pedagogical
2. Range of teaching within University is universal; it encompasses all
branches of knowledge, and is inconsistent with restrictions of any kind.
3. The University prepares students by allowing them to learn about "the
ways and principles and maxims" of the world
4. True education requires personal influence of teachers on students.
Clark Kerr (1963) The Uses of the University
1. Modern university is diversified – a multiversity
2. Serves needs of society, economic and cultural
3. Think tank – essential to progress
4. Master Plan for Higher Education (1960) in California

23. Education as business
• Terry Eagleton: The Slow Death of the University (April
2015)
• Packaging knowledge
• Destroying arts and the humanities
• Teaching less vital than research – research brings in he
money
• Vast increase in bureaucracy, occasioned by the flourishing
of a managerial ideology and the relentless demands of the
state assessment exercise
• Professors are transformed into managers, as students are
converted into consumers

24. Towards Global Citizenship
Education must fully assume its central role in
helping people to forge more just, peaceful,
tolerant and inclusive societies. It must give
people the understanding, skills and values
they need to cooperate in resolving the
interconnected challenges of the 21st century.
United Nations: Global Education First
Initiative (2012)

25. Contested citizenship
• Membership of a political community
• Belonging and engagement
• Rights and entitlements
• Duties and responsibilities
• Constrained by legacy of nation-state
• Cultural minorities and migrants
• Disputed access

26. Post-national citizenship
• Shaped by globalizing process
• Greater access to knowledge, information and
values
• Digital media
• Mobility and migration
• Climate change
• International governance bodies
• Accelerated interdependence
• Respect for pluralism and diversity

27. UN Thematic Learning Outcomes
• Awareness of the wider world and a sense of own role
both as a citizen with rights and responsibilities, and as
a member of the global human community.
• Valuation of the diversity of cultures and of their
languages, arts, religions and philosophies as
components the common heritage of humanity.
• Commitment to sustainable development and sense of
environmental responsibility.
• Commitment to social justice and sense of social
responsibility.
• Willingness to challenge injustice, discrimination,
inequality and exclusion at the local/national and global
level in order to make the world a more just place.

28. A Global Citizen… (Oxfam 2006)
• Is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world
citizen
• Respects and values diversity
• Has an understanding of how the world works
• Is outraged by social injustice
• Participates in and contributes to the community at a range of levels from
local to global
• Is willing to act in order to make the world a more equitable and
sustainable place
• Takes responsibility for their actions

29. UNESCO Global Citizenship
Education (2007)
Transformative education requires transformative pedagogy that:
1) encourages learners to analyze real-life issues critically and
to identify possible solutions creatively and innovatively
2) supports learners to critically revisit assumptions, world
views and power relations in mainstream discourses and
consider groups systematically underrepresented or
marginalized
3) respects differences and diversity
4) focuses on engagement in action to bring about desired
changes
5) involves multiple stakeholders, including those outside the
learning environment in the community
6) educators need additional training and support to implement
and deliver such pedagogy.

30. Future directions
• Training of trainers and CPD
• Multilingualism
• Developing skills – competence transmission
• Developing attitudes – securing motivation
• Developing buy-in – loyalty and commitment
• Autonomous learning
• Risk taking
• Review, evaluation and research

31. Responding to change
• Flexibility
• Digital learning
• Learning outcomes, added value
• Sustainability
• Sugata Mitra:
Comprehension/Communication/Computation
• Social capital and inclusion
• Visions of excellence

32. Policy opportunities for Global
Learning and Citizenship
• Engaging with diverse communities
• Developing massive outreach to sectors
• Community empowerment
• Legislative foundations
• New technologies – mobile telephony
• Shared learning and linkage to other universities
• Linking disability and rehabilitation to other rights
based issues
• Developing an emancipatory mosaic

33. Crisis impact: system change

34. Conclusions
• Rehabilitation education at a crossroads: both
structure and process
• Global focus is on mobility, skills and innovation
• Global citizenship model offers significant
opportunities
• Transnational action is the only viable method in a
globalized world
• All rests on vision and passion for community needs
• Innovative learning demands imagination and vision
• Moving from advocacy to action

35. Thank you
Dr. Alan Bruce
ULS Dublin
abruce@ulsystems.com
Associate Offices: BARCELONA - HELSINKI - SÃO PAULO - CHICAGO