M. Obaidul Hamid

Global tests of English such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) offer lucrative promises in an increasingly competitive, neoliberal world. For example, IELTS is described ...

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly embedded in doctoral research and writing, raising important ethical debates on plagiarism, authorship, and the boundaries of permissible use. This article develops a reflexive account of sustained GenAI use, principally through ChatGPT, to examine how the ethical and epistemic significance of GenAI is constructed through practice. Drawing on social constructionism and a capability-oriented understanding of technology, it conceptualises GenAI as an interaction-dependent epistemic environment in which generated outputs function as knowledge potential requiring human evaluation rather than being considered authoritative answers. The analysis develops an integrated process architecture linking epistemic negotiation with intellectual sovereignty and proposes framework-guided GenAI use, illustrated through the Integrated Human Flourishing Model, to support theoretically and normatively informed evaluation of generated possibilities. It further distinguishes verification of factual accuracy from conceptual verification and develops an epistemic audit trail to make consequential interactions, revisions and judgements more traceable. The analysis also identifies a doctoral-writing-specific productivity paradox in which efficiencies in generation and reformulation coexist with intensified evaluative, verificatory and interaction-management labour. Overall, GenAI is shown to reorganise rather than replace intellectual work, with its scholarly value depending on critical, theoretically grounded and accountable human engagement that supports intellectual agency and human flourishing.

Global tests of English are usually used globally and local tests locally. However, this global–local dichotomy has been challenged by test localisation, globalisation and glocalisation. An emerging critical question in this regard is whether local tests of English can be used locally and globally at the same time. This article addresses this question, taking the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) as a potential ‘glocal’ test and seeking to explore its relevance for use for academic purposes outside Malaysia. A set of five criteria together with the relevant kind of evidence for each is developed from existing scholarship to guide the examination. We argue that MUET's comparability with the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), alignment with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, inclusion of local and global features of English, reasonably positive test impact and the growing use of English as a medium of instruction in higher education suggest the potential for using MUET scores outside Malaysia. Challenges for the global ambition are identified, noting that MUET's glocal potential and ‘image’ can be further enhanced by research and collaboration between local examination authorities and testing agencies in Inner, Outer and Expanding Circles.

While Gaokao, the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), has been extensively discussed outside the Chinese academic circle, the retake policy of the test has not received much attention. Moreover, Gaokao research in China has predominantly examined the effectiveness of the retake decision in relation to students' demographic characteristics. Qualitative research that examines the impact of the Gaokao retake policy on the lives of test‐takers, specifically on current‐year as well as retake students, is rare. The present study aimed to fill this research gap by investigating the social impact of the Gaokao retake policy. Specifically, we examine how the impact is manifested as the discursive process of ‘self’ and ‘othering’ by current‐year and retake students. We associate Gaokao retake with global educational change to illustrate how neoliberalism in Chinese education has normalised competition, leading current‐year and retake students to the process of ‘othering’ in which self is elevated over the other, perpetuating social divisions between them. We also foreground the question of socioeconomic inequality between the two groups as it plays out in Gaokao as a national, large‐scale assessment influenced by neoliberalism.

In this article, we explore the preliminary stages of the adoption of a new digitalisation platform to aggregate and monitor student progression data. Specifically, we explore how a specific data p...

Although contemporary language-in-education policy (LEP) in developing societies often represents English as a panacea for poverty and a key tool for empowering people from socioeconomic disadvantage, not much is known about how this development potential unfolds for disenfranchised people. Motivated by social justice, and drawing on a framework that construes development as an ideology and utilises social theories from Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, and Sara Ahmed, this article interrogates how English-in-education for individual and social development relates to students and parents in low socioeconomic status contexts. We focus on one school located in such a context in Bangladesh, and engage with the school principal, English teachers, parents, and students using interview and focus group discussion. Thematic analysis of the data reveals that while English-in-education policy creates neoliberal subjectivities among students and parents in relation to a transformative social imaginary and better economic futures, LEP misrecognises how the acquisition of the linguistic capital of English is conditioned by their human and social experiences of living. We highlight how education, including English learning, is grounded in parents’ and students’ everyday life experiences and struggles, and argue that by misrecognising these key dimensions, LEP hides the systems of marginalisation and uneven provisions for linguistic human capital development. The study offers new perspectives to critique development ideology in relation to LEP and contributes to language policy around the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for inclusive and equitable provision for language education to ensure inclusive social development in developing societies.