Fellows hear from Noah Sobe, a senior program working for UNESCO Future of Innovation and Learning
Wednesday morning opened with the session "Education Futures – Education Transformation" and a presentation from Noah Sobe, senior program officer on the UNESCO Future of Innovation and Learning team.
In 2021, the organization compiled a report, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, seeking to find solutions to two simple questions: what will the education sector look like in 2050, and what needs to change in order to achieve that vision?
“We are between a past and futures – a past that shows we have come a long way in education over the last 75 years, but progress has been uneven and many gaps are from the exclusions and injustices of yesterday,” said Noah Sobe. Noah went on to expose some of the report’s contents, which flag a number of elements, including the commercialization of education and digital divides in developing countries.
The report instead suggests a new contract that includes three key elements in order to move forward.
- Foundational principles. This emphasizes the importance of expanding the right to quality education and strengthening it as a public good.
- Renewing how learning is organized. A number of key components make up the organizational structure of learning. To list a few of them: pedagogy, curricula, teaching, schools and broader educational ecosystems. “If being educated means living unsustainably, we need to recalibrate our notions of what education should do,” said Noah.
- Action and actors. Global collaboration, integrating stakeholders from across the board, is integral to building a new social contract and transforming education. “Digital technologies should aim to support - and not replace - teachers and schools,” said Noah. “This is a call for renewal, not to start from scratch, but to base our efforts off of what we know.”
In the second half of the session, Network Members split into four groups, guided by two prompts. The first was to discuss future trends in connection with the previous day’s presentation on mega trends and education policy and practice. The second prompt was to highlight what the report gets right and identify any areas to improve. Here are some of the key takeaways:
Financing of education: “It’s not just about the money you get, it’s about how you manage it. Good money management also builds trust in institutions. And then there are taxes. Even in good years, people are so antitax because of distrust in institutions. It’s hard for schools to get the money they need.”
Digital learning and transformation: “We need to define and establish a plan to better communicate the possibilities of digital learning. Sometimes policymakers have a vision, but teachers and parents have their own vision.”
Teaching and the teaching profession: “In terms of increasing attractiveness to the teaching profession, what’s missing is incentives. Benefits would make the teaching profession more attractive. ´There’s also a difference between perceived teacher shortage and job shortage. There’s an interesting situation in Uganda where there is a surplus of teachers, but there aren’t any jobs.”
Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development: “We believe that there should be more focus on recovery programs. “We should focus on ASK: Attitude, Skills and Knowledge.”
This article featured in Issue 2 of the Breadth of Skills: Education Transformation program newsletter. Download the full issue here.
