This article examines Western and Chinese discourses of education, sustainable growth and development. Education is increasingly considered as a means to fuel economic growth, especially since the 1980s, when conservative economic values became predominant in Western development thought. Despite a discourse on sustainability favouring ecologically sound and equitable growth, education is increasingly economy-centred. Through analysis of China’s market-based socialism, its development path, and the expansion of its Africa cooperation, this article seeks to demonstrate that the China-proposed development and education models are very similar to the Western growth-based development paradigm, although the discourse is different.