Rethinking Economics (RE), a national student movement pushing for reform of the way in which economics is taught in higher education, launched their report ‘Is Economics Education fit for the 21st century?’ on 5 November at UCL with a keynote speech given by Professor Ha-Joon Chang.
RE researchers looked at over 500 modules taught across 20 universities which included Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and Warwick. Using module and programme descriptions as well as interviews with students, RE assessed the extent to which module content covered thematic areas including ecological sustainability, inequality, economic history, ethics, socio-economic power, and slavery and colonialism.
Findings for the economics discipline as a whole were disappointing - the majority of programmes lacked significant coverage of critical issues such as the climate crisis and inequality, and failed to take decolonisation seriously. However, the University of Greenwich was one of two universities highlighted by the report for providing an undergraduate economics education which was considered “critical, climate-conscious and fit for the 21st century” .
Placing Greenwich jointly with another university in the top category, the report said:
The economics education at the University of Greenwich and SOAS is pluralist, includes significant discussion of issues of ecological sustainability and is embedded in the real world across the vast majority of mandatory and optional modules. … Economics students at these universities are able to engage with the discipline through the lens of contemporary socio-economic challenges and in a critical manner. The economics programmes in this category stand out in this research as proof of what a reformed economics education looks like. They should act as an inspiration for institutions looking to improve their teaching and as a source of hope to students campaigning for change.
The report's authors called for all economics programmes to decarbonise, decolonise and diversify economics learning; reform teaching, learning and assessments to encourage debate, discussion and critical thinking; and democratise the decision-making over economics education, engaging with students in dialogue over their concerns.
To find out more about, and read, Rethinking Economics’ UK National Report - "Is Economics Education Fit for the 21st Century?" - click here.
To find out more about Greenwich’s undergraduate and postgraduate Economics courses, click here.
