Institutional Dependence

1. Institutional Dependence Dannebrog falling from the sky during the Battle of Lyndanisse, June 15, 1219. Painted by Christian August Lorentzen in 1809. Conference on education – Nuuk - November 2006

2. Main topics • Perspective: • General aims of education and learning • De-colonisation • Institutional dependence • Learning and education • Ways to undermine institutional dependence

3. General aims of education and learning • The interests of the individual • Work related skills • Social and communication competence • Culture capital • The interests of society • Generalizing equal opportunities • Minimizing social exclusion • Building work related skills for present and new industries of the future • Nation building

4. Nordic colonialism

5. Independence struggle and the rise of autonomy movements • Independence struggle started in the colonies in the 19th century • The number of new nation states increased fast after the Second World War • In 1945 there where 51 member states of the UN, now they are 191 • Some are very small • Tuvalu has 11636 inhabitants • Nauru has 13048 inhabitants • Palau has 20303 inhabitants • 40 states that are microstates, i.e. states that have less than 1 million inhabitants

7. Autonomous areas have increased in number since the 1970s • Autonomous regions with different levels of home rule have been established in Spain, Britain, Faroe Islands (1948) and Greenland (1979) to name but few. Some counties in Sweden have been granted regional parliaments in order to increase their economic and political independence following Sweden’s membership of the European Union and the introduction of the principle of ‘subsidiarity’. • This development is part of the new regionalism in Europe

8. The process of de-colonization

9. Export income per capita in Danish kronas (DKK) 1990-2004

10. Export income per capita 1979-1994

11. The problem of institutional dependency – the case of Greenland • Despite formal autonomy/homerule, former colonies tend to be dependent on institutions of the colonial power long after autonomy or sovereignty is implemented. • Institutional dependence appears e.g. in financial dependence, expertise and knowledge dependence, entrepreneurial dependence and cultural dependence or domination. • Institutional dependence often develops into a vicious circle in which cultural values, social networks and trade relations reproduce and strengthen the dominance of institutions of the former colonial power over the formally autonomous countries or sovereign states. • The labour market is dominated by Euro-centric criteria that hinder Greenlanders to have jobs in the higher circles of the administration and corporations. The reason is that those who hire people for such jobs emphasise formal educational degrees rather than work experience or ‘learning-by-doing’. As a consequence, as the educational level of the native Greenlandic people is lower than that of Danish people, there are always many more Danish persons than Greenlandic that “are fit” for the jobs

12. The problem of institutional dependency… • Furthermore, the corporate sector is organised on the basis of western ideas of economies of scale and Taylorism, although the work culture of the native Inuits is team based and fits better small scale industry • A related problem is the criteria upon which investment strategies of the commercial banks in Greenland tend to be based. Investment in large scale production with high profitability or margins is emphasised rather then small scale projects based on native or local skills, know-how and culture. • The local Inuit work culture as it appears in their traditional way of hunting is based on collaboration, team work and cooperation. In Greenland the economy is not based on this tradition, but on state and private organisations. As a consequence, cooperative companies have not developed. This is very different from the experience of Iceland where coops played substantial role in the development of the economy • The structure of foreign trade is unusual in Greenland as the emphasis is trade with Denmark. Around 95% of import comes from Denmark and almost all export goes to Denmark. • Finally, the university of Greenland is predominated by Danish staff, but the bulk of university students (around 85%) study in Denmark and 40% of them do not come back*. Greenland suffers from serious brain-drain in this respect. * Direktoratet for Kultur, Uddannelse og Forskning (1995) Rapport om nyuddannede grønlandske akademikers beskæftigelsessituation, KIIP: Nuuk.

13. The way out of institutional dependence • In this situation, strategies that undermine institutional dependence are important in terms of the process of decolonization. • Fostering alternative cultural capital and developing proper social capital is important in this respect. • The education system can play a crucial role in this respect, alongside labor market strategies and industrial policies that optimize work and management experience of the local population through learning by doing.