Tag Archives: Futures of Education

COVID-19: ‘Every crisis is an opportunity’

Posted on by
1

As the world marks the defeat of Nazism and the end of the Second World War, Paul Stanistreet asks what lessons we can learn in our current crisis from the mass programmes of social reconstruction that followed the war

© Shutterstock

The end of the Second World War was marked around Europe by national programmes of social and economic reconstruction, as nation states sought both to rebuild and to address long-standing inequalities.

In France, the De Gaulle government put in place a massive programme of nationalization and social reform, granting women the right to vote and laying the foundations of the modern French welfare state. In the UK, fees for state secondary education were scrapped (through the 1944 Education Act) and a progressive Labour government was elected with ambitious plans to transform social security, including universal free healthcare for all (the National Health Service). Moreover, in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), following the period of occupation, a programme of economic reconstruction ensued, followed by the creation of the German ‘social state’.

The solidarity and sense of shared responsibility and sacrifice engendered in the war appears to have spurred the people who survived these cataclysmic events to reject the way things had been done before and to demand a world that was better – not just for a few but for everyone. There was a desire to recognize sacrifice by humanizing social policy, including in education, and extending people’s rights. Furthermore, there was a new appreciation of the power of the state to act for the common good. What is remarkable about this is that it was achieved at a moment when most of the countries of Europe were in economic disarray, poverty was rife and food rationing common, and governments were loaded with huge amounts of debt. Continue reading →

COVID-19 and the future of lifelong learning

Posted on by
2

The COVID-19 crisis obliges us to think deeply and creatively about the future of our societies and the role of education in shaping them, writes David Atchoarena

© UNESCO

Much has been said and written already about how educational institutions are responding to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically through online and distance learning. This is important and UNESCO is playing a critical role, with UIL making a significant contribution. Beyond the emergency response, it is equally necessary to reflect on the world that will emerge from the crisis and the role of lifelong learning in supporting social recovery and in shaping a sustainable future.

The crisis not only raises important technical and practical issues about the delivery of education, it also poses critical questions about the kind of society we want to live in, our approach to economic growth, our tolerance of economic and social inequalities, globally and within nations, and our relationship to nature. Continue reading →

Make the right to education a reality for all

Posted on by
Reply

As we mark International Day of Education, David Atchoarena urges countries to redouble their efforts to ensure no one’s right to education is denied

Today is International Day of Education, a moment not only to celebrate education’s powerful contribution to sustainable human prosperity, progress and peace, but also to assert its wider value – as a human right and as an important public good.

It is an opportune time to consider both what we have achieved in realizing the right to education and how far we have to go to ensure this right is realized for every woman, man and child, wherever they live in the world, whatever their background or personal circumstances.

The global challenges we face are enormous. Some 258 million children and youth still do not attend school, four million children and youth refugees are out of school, and 773 million adults around the world cannot read or write, most of them women. In too many cases, disadvantaged and marginalized groups remain excluded from participation in adult learning and education, as the new UNESCO Global Report on Adult Learning and Education points out. Their right to education is being denied. This is unacceptable. Continue reading →

The new learning frontier

Posted on by
Reply

As he begins his first term as Chair of the UIL Governing Board, Daniel Baril reflects on the implications of technological transformation for adult learning and education

© UIL

In my first contribution to the UIL blog, and as I reflect on global issues for adult learning and education as new Chair of the UIL Governing Board, I would like to share a high-level analysis of what I consider a major and new educational challenge. In my view, we are entering a new learning frontier, principally characterized by the fact that human and machine are learning side by side and together. This ‘human-machine learning interface’, as it was described in a recent UNEVOC document, is characteristic of the so-called fourth industrial revolution that is dawning upon us.

In this context, the education landscape is being rapidly and deeply transformed before our eyes by technological forces, and especially by the computational and digital dimensions of those forces. Among other things, new technological means are widely distributed within the population and social arrangements are being transformed by them. In our world now, any two learners are just a click of the mouse away. The questions of the place and pace of artificial intelligence (AI) in education are symptomatic of those changes pressuring our educational world. In a recent forum on this topic, organized by UNESCO in June 2019, parameters for the policy debate were proposed. They are testimonies to the nature and the magnitude of the changes taking place. In particular, AI has the potential for ‘reshaping the core foundations of education, teaching and learning’. Unlocking that potential will move the frontier of our learning world. Continue reading →