Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education
This global Report from the International Commission on the Futures of Education asks what role education can play in shaping our common world and shared future as we look to 2050 and beyond. The proposals presented arise out of a two-year global engagement and co-construction process which showed that vast numbers of people – children, youth and adults – are keenly aware that we are connected on this shared planet and that it is imperative that we work together.1
The Report is organized across three parts comprised of several chapters, each of which advances proposals for building a new social contract for education and a number of guiding principles for dialogue and action. It concludes with an epilogue proposing ways the recommendations can be translated into action into different contexts.
Part I of the Report, Between past promises and uncertain futures, presents the dual global challenge of equity and relevance in education that undergirds the need for a new social contract which can help redress educational exclusion and ensure sustainable futures. It consists of two chapters.
Chapter 1 chronicles the drama of the right to education as enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the promises it has fulfilled and fallen short of.
Chapter 2 focuses on key disruptions and emerging transformations, considering four overlapping areas of widespread change: environmental change, technological acceleration, governance and social fragmentation, and new worlds of work. Looking to 2050, this chapter asks how education will be impacted by these disruptions and transformations, and how it can change to better address them.
Part II of the Report, Renewing education, argues for a reconceptualization and renewal of education along five key dimensions: pedagogy, curricula, teaching, schools, and the wide range of education opportunities across life and in different cultural and social spaces. Each of these five dimensions is discussed in a dedicated chapter that includes principles to guide dialogue and action.
Chapter 3 calls for pedagogies of cooperation and solidarity that foster empathy, respect for difference and compassion and build the capacities of individuals to work together to transform themselves and the world.
Chapter 4 encourages ecological, intercultural and interdisciplinary curricula that support students to access and produce knowledge while also developing their capacity to critique and apply it.
Chapter 5 stresses the importance of the transformative work of teachers and recommends that teaching be further professionalized as a collaborative endeavour.
Chapter 6 explains the need to protect schools as social sites that support learning, inclusion, equity, and individual and collective well-being, while simultaneously changing them to better realize just and equitable futures.
Chapter 7 discusses the importance of education across different times and spaces with recognition that it does not happen exclusively in formal institutions but is rather experienced in a multiplicity of social spaces and throughout life.
Part III of the Report, Catalyzing a new social contract for education, provides ideas for beginning to build a new social contract for education by issuing calls for research and for global solidarity and international cooperation.
Chapter 8 calls for a shared research agenda on the right to education throughout life, suggesting that everyone has a role to play in the generation, production, and negotiation of knowledge required to build a new social contract for education.
Chapter 9 discusses the renewed urgent need to build and reinforce global solidarity and international cooperation, with tenacity, boldness, and coherence, and with a vision to 2050 and beyond.
The Report concludes with an epilogue and continuation, which argues that the ideas and proposals raised in the text need to be translated into programmes, resources, and activities in diverse ways in different settings. Such a transformation will result from processes of co-construction and conversation with others whose participation is essential to translate these ideas into planning and action. It is up to leaders at multiple levels of government, education administrators, together with teachers and students, families, communities and civil society organizations to define and implement the renewal of education. 2
1. From the Executive Summary Part of the Report
2 From the Introduction Part of the Report
Interesting document…
Interesting document. Unfortunately many good reports and documentsa re published every year by many established organisation. However what is actually happening in practice ? Are recommendations being implemented ? Is there a reflection process ? A better future needs collaboration from everyone.