Abstract:
The article questions the feasibility of the universalist discourse on academic drift in
vocational education from the perspective of the Global North-South configuration. We
will discuss examples from Finland, Bangladesh, and Kenya, aiming to understand the
relationship between vocational and academic education within a planetary environmental framework. The conceptual frame is the planetary crisis understood as workmediated disrupted metabolic relations between human and nonhuman nature;
epistemic rift as an indicator of the crisis; and the responsibility of academia in
addressing the crisis as both researcher and educator.
We start with mainstream interpretations of vocational and academic education in
the Global North and South, then discuss a study of conceptions and expectations of
university curricula in promoting sustainable livelihoods through vocational and adult
education. We continue by reflecting on another study that questioned the possibility of
connecting environmental care with social progress in adult, vocational, and higher
education. Reflections lead us to conclude that knowledge production and education in
academia remain disconnected from vocational education and work-life realities and
ignore asymmetric power relations between the Global North and South. In tackling
disrupted social metabolism and epistemic rift, we suspect the arrogance and ignorance
of academia are more problematic than the academic drift in vocational education.
Keywords: academic drift, planetary crisis, social metabolism, epistemic rift, global
north and south
