Challenges to sustainable knowledge transfer in cross-cultural teacher education

The policy of transferring international educational knowledge across cultural and geographical borders has become a common practice for the international community, especially after the 1990 Education for All (EFA) agreement. Egypt is complying with this policy by relying on teacher education to transfer international knowledge to more traditional sectors, in an attempt to bridge the quality gap in its national (Early Childhood) education system. However, according to many scholars, knowledge transfer is not a straightforward process, as educational settings and knowledge are autopoietic, value-laden and idiosyncratic. At the same time, constructivist and reflective models of teacher education, which claim to foster sustainable knowledge transfer, are becoming increasingly popular. ‘Sustainable transfer’ is defined here as the process by which international knowledge is successfully accommodated within local educational settings. This study investigates the circumstances which may hinder or facilitate the transfer of international knowledge to local developing realities within the framework of constructivist and reflective teacher education, in order to understand the sustainability of this international policy.