e need a global education agenda, platforms, and leadership with strong local agency.
Mass education with schools for all, is a young invention in human history. It has developed to serve the development of nation states in the western and developing world since the 19th century. As a result, education systems today are nationally governed and driven. While this has served the development of nationhood and developing the workforce to serve the growth and development of the country, it has also disconnected us. It has disconnected learners from local Indigenous knowledge and wisdom and disconnected learners from an increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
We do not have shared education understanding, acceptance of differences, contents, or goals for cooperation across national borders for our children and young people in an increasingly interconnected world. Most topical issues of our age are shared and global.
Beyond identities as individuals, communities, and nationhood, we also have an identity as a human being. It is this identity which has increasingly been called upon as we face complex, planetary challenges. We must move beyond our narrow identities which pit us against one another based on nationhood, caste, class, race, religion, and gender to instead evolve a set of common ethics that bring us together as humans.
For us to provide a fair chance for our children and hope for a sustainable life on the planet, we believe it is time for a similar massive transformation in education as was seen 150 years ago with mass education. We urgently need a global education vision, agenda, platforms, and leadership, all rooted in the local context respecting the reconnection we are observing with local cultures, community living, nature, and even tradition.
Adopting a globalized approach rooted in local agency is a key to a sustainable global shared approach in education.
We hope the children of today will be able to understand climate change and planetary limits, technological progress with its opportunities and problems, growing inequalities and the threat authoritarian leadership can pose for security and peace. We hope our children will be able to solve and overcome threats, have skills and understanding required to thrive and prosper in their lives and societies, and build a better world.
We believe that the September UN Summit on Transforming Education should take up this idea for deliberations and potentially decide on pilot projects to develop and assess a common global curriculum content on chosen themes for all children. This would not challenge the national school systems but compliment them. The themes could be climate change, global inequalities, potential of new technologies & individual, societal, and planetary well-being and thriving. The Summit should also agree on the leadership and platform for global education development. Do we need a Global Education Organisation for this, or can our current structures deliver? Perhaps a phased approach starting with current structures?
Moreover, we believe the pandemic has pushed us into immediate radical action in two ways. It has created a deep crisis in education as millions of children have been out of school for 24+ months and as a result our SDGs have become harder or impossible to achieve by 2030. But the pandemic has also created a mental and technological momentum and readiness among the education community to recognize global common goals and utilize shared technological tools to work together locally and globally. We strongly urge that we act upon the education crisis now and start building a long-term global education vision with immediate concrete pilots across the globe. Our children cannot and should not wait.
a global affairs media network
Why We Need a Global Education Vision
Photo by Alexandr Podvalny via Unsplash.
September 13, 2022
The world must act upon the education crisis now and start building a long-term global education vision. Adopting a globalized approach rooted in local agency is a key to a sustainable shared approach in education, write Dr. Pilvi Torsti, Vishal Talreja, and Joanne McEachen.
W
e need a global education agenda, platforms, and leadership with strong local agency.
Mass education with schools for all, is a young invention in human history. It has developed to serve the development of nation states in the western and developing world since the 19th century. As a result, education systems today are nationally governed and driven. While this has served the development of nationhood and developing the workforce to serve the growth and development of the country, it has also disconnected us. It has disconnected learners from local Indigenous knowledge and wisdom and disconnected learners from an increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
We do not have shared education understanding, acceptance of differences, contents, or goals for cooperation across national borders for our children and young people in an increasingly interconnected world. Most topical issues of our age are shared and global.
Beyond identities as individuals, communities, and nationhood, we also have an identity as a human being. It is this identity which has increasingly been called upon as we face complex, planetary challenges. We must move beyond our narrow identities which pit us against one another based on nationhood, caste, class, race, religion, and gender to instead evolve a set of common ethics that bring us together as humans.
For us to provide a fair chance for our children and hope for a sustainable life on the planet, we believe it is time for a similar massive transformation in education as was seen 150 years ago with mass education. We urgently need a global education vision, agenda, platforms, and leadership, all rooted in the local context respecting the reconnection we are observing with local cultures, community living, nature, and even tradition.
Adopting a globalized approach rooted in local agency is a key to a sustainable global shared approach in education.
We hope the children of today will be able to understand climate change and planetary limits, technological progress with its opportunities and problems, growing inequalities and the threat authoritarian leadership can pose for security and peace. We hope our children will be able to solve and overcome threats, have skills and understanding required to thrive and prosper in their lives and societies, and build a better world.
We believe that the September UN Summit on Transforming Education should take up this idea for deliberations and potentially decide on pilot projects to develop and assess a common global curriculum content on chosen themes for all children. This would not challenge the national school systems but compliment them. The themes could be climate change, global inequalities, potential of new technologies & individual, societal, and planetary well-being and thriving. The Summit should also agree on the leadership and platform for global education development. Do we need a Global Education Organisation for this, or can our current structures deliver? Perhaps a phased approach starting with current structures?
Moreover, we believe the pandemic has pushed us into immediate radical action in two ways. It has created a deep crisis in education as millions of children have been out of school for 24+ months and as a result our SDGs have become harder or impossible to achieve by 2030. But the pandemic has also created a mental and technological momentum and readiness among the education community to recognize global common goals and utilize shared technological tools to work together locally and globally. We strongly urge that we act upon the education crisis now and start building a long-term global education vision with immediate concrete pilots across the globe. Our children cannot and should not wait.
