Education Perspectives in the Context of Global Mega-Trends (original) (raw)

Education for the future: an international perspective

Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 2006

Building a strategic direction for education ultimately rests on the extent, to which we resolve the key issue addressed by UNESCO’s International Commission on Education for the 21st Century (the Delors Report): what kind of education is needed to create the kind of world, we want to emerge in the future? Certainly, globalisation brings with it many new challenges, opportunities

Education for the challenges of the future

Pedagogijska istraživanja, 2013

Proper planning of education in the light of the challenges of the future is not a simple task. education planned for those who are born in 2010 should enable them to have successful careers perhaps as far in the future as 2080. Short-term strategies thus initially fail. even more so as there is no strategy for the development of the country itself. The events of the second half of the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21 st century have utterly changed the assumptions for planning successful education for the following period. There are two segments of education that should be distinguished-formal education and lifelong learning. The notion of lifelong learning should primarily include education for performing new tasks that never existed during the period of formal education, such as the introduction of computers or microelectronics in the previous period. Reorganisation of the entire education system from the nursery school to doctoral studies is a far more difficult pursuit. In the area of formal education we should carry out maximal generalisation. Generalisation refers to a synthesiological and fully comprehensive approach with the aim of carrying out the identifying functions. These considerations are based on the results of my own research during the last quarter of the century. education is seen as an information system for which we should define a system of aims (non-existent) and determine an entry into that system. A particular problem with education as this system's environment and a base of a successful career is the fact that the world is becoming ever more virtual, cyber-oriented, extremely information-determined, robotical and avatarised. A sophisticated educational pyramid comprising seven levels is offered as an entry into the system of education. The first three levels, essential and invariable, are mathematics, physics and chemistry. A complete transformation is introduced on the fourth level, called general techniques, where biology is one of the essential although not sufficient conditions for successful teaching. The concept of general techniques requires the introduction of archaeology of nature (natural science) and archaeology of culture. everyone should be learning the materials the generalisation of which would benefit from a new systematisation and the study of production procedures irrespective of material type. A systematic theory is a powerful tool in this instance. everyone should be familiar with 6 basic techniques. The concept of general techniques development from the Big Bang to infinity significantly contributes to the predictions. The concept of humane cultural studies is explained. What is asked for is teaching from the perspective of transcendental human needs.

Some Reflections on the Future of Education

Eruditio, 2018

Far from offering a tentative structured theory or solution regarding the urgently needed reforms concerning education in the 21 st century, we limit ourselves to some punctual considerations of how education can prepare students for the future. Even if they are not directly connected, we hope they may help in creating the indispensable radical paradigm shift in the way we teach and learn, which is needed to meet the multi-dimensional challenges confronting global society in the 21 st century. They involve the following points: an attitudinal change from memorizing to understanding; openness to the internet requirements of the present 4 th Industrial Revolution; and developing a connection to Nature and our inner Self or essence, so students can get guidance in their lives and also to help find solutions for the many problems humanity faces today.

BASES OF EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE

This article aims to demonstrate the need to restructure the education system in all countries of the world to adapt to the profound changes that are occurring in the world of work arising from technological advances.

Futures of Education for Rapid Global-Societal Change

There’s a Future: Visions for a Better World, 2012

Education today in most of the world is more suited to the nineteenth-century industrial era than it is to the twenty-first century. There are three key aspects to this insight. Firstly, knowledge is evolving. The fragmentation of knowledge through specialization is widely regarded as being unsuited to the complexity of the twenty-first century by scholars and thinkers from many fields (including complexity science, ecology, futures studies, integral studies, philosophy and psychology). Yet education is still largely a piecemeal affair. Secondly, consciousness is evolving, and education needs to evolve with it. Research on the evolution of consciousness — pioneered by Rudolf Steiner in the early twentieth century (Steiner [1926] 1966) — has gathered impetus throughout the twentieth century. These theories are still marginalised by narrow Darwinian notions of biological evolution. However, evidence to support the evolution of consciousness comes from three main sources: from integral theorists (Donald 2001; Elgin 1997; Gangadean 2006; Hart 2001; László 2008; Russell 2000; Swimme 1992; Thompson 1998; Wade 1996); from adult developmental psychology research on postformal reasoning (Bassett 2005; Commons et al. 1990; Commons and Richards 2002; Cowan and Todorovic 2005; Kohlberg 1990; Labouvie-Vief 1992; Sinnott 1998, 2005; Torbert 2004); and from the literature on planetary consciousness (Benedikter 2007; Earley 1997; Elgin 1997; Gangadean 2006; László 2006; Montuori 1999; Morin and Kern 1999; Nicolescu 2002; Russell 2000; Swimme and Tucker 2006). My own research over the last decade on the evolution of consciousness confirms my view that education urgently needs to evolve (Gidley 2007a, 2007b, 2009, 2010a, 2010b). Thirdly, education belongs in the realm of culture, not economics. Educational bureaucrats produce concepts such as the “knowledge economy” which appropriate education for the purpose of profit. While schooling was taken over during the Industrial Revolution to provide fodder for the factories, education is fundamentally a socio-cultural practice. In the post-industrial twenty-first century education needs to be primarily concerned with developing the minds, hearts and souls of young people, to live in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. What do today’s educators know about, and think about, these challenges? What is the role of educational futures in these major developments? How can education transform itself to incorporate these new insights?

Education in the Future

The paper explores some of the most interesting and important ways in which education is likely to change in the future. The first part of the paper notes that the two most prominent recent developments in education are a large decrease in public funding and an increased reliance on the Internet and related technologies. At least partly for these reasons, we need a serious discussion concerning what education is and what its function should be. The second part of the paper discusses various predictions and proposals for how education, prominently including teaching strategies, will in fact change in the future. Most of the proposals and recommendations share something important in common—an increased stress upon creativity, tailoring education to the needs of specific students, and the collapse of the classroom/reality distinction, in part through the use of virtual reality technologies. There may be nothing that can be done about the de-funding of public education but educators should strive to use technological tools that are at their disposal as effectively as possible.

KEN Brief, 29th of October 2021. Models of Future Education: Vision 2025/2030 and Beyond

Knowledge Economy Networks´ Brief, 2021

Crisis is normally the intensified challenge and an opportunity to change and adapt to new conditions. The impact of Covid-19 has definitely been and remain a good example of a major crisis the world has experienced, and education has been one of the most strongly affected domains. Unfortunately, students were experiencing the worse part of the crisis. We evaluate this impact and its consequences in terms of accelerated changes which the higher education systems around the globe have faced rather drastically. At the same time important changes were introduced and increased the priority of building future models – being able to respond to the needs of the labour market of today and the future. Looking at some interesting experiences we are getting closer to the answers on the questions how it is possible to prepare students for the multitude of jobs and professions they will perform in the coming years. Undoubtedly, it requires a shift from the still predominant teaching to an emerging learning culture, and this shift requires adjustment by all parties in the education process. Recently many strategic documents have been prepared and published in order to encourage modernisation of education, particularly at the post-secondary level. We are summarising them in the Brief, and presenting how the proposed models are starting to be implemented in various national environments.

Some Thoughts on Education for the Future

Some Thoughts on Education for the Future, 2023

Education is undergoing a historic transformation. Throughout history, access to higher education has changed from being a privilege of birth or talent (elite phase) to becoming a property of those with specific qualifications (expert phase). Nowadays, a higher education diploma is required for most occupations, both now and in the future, while the boundaries of common knowledge continue expanding (universal phase). Nowadays, educators overwhelmingly recognize that new generations will need to rely on multidisciplinary knowledge to comprehend solutions to real problems. Furthermore, it is not sufficient to develop the motivational and self-guiding capacity of individuals. The collective future requires embedding an attitude amenable to knowledge sharing. The advances in information technology have brought us a plethora of means for accessing, classifying, storing, and displaying virtually any portion of the knowledge treasures, at the speed of magnetic waves. The digital myriad has soon enfolded the education sector along with the rest of the socio-economic domains. Technical barriers that obstruct the implementation of trends such as Problem/Project/Team-based Learning, Massive Open Online Courses, and Authentic Assessments have literally disappeared.