About the Initiative
The Context
With accelerated climate change the fragility of our planet is becoming more and more apparent. Persistent inequalities, social fragmentation, and political extremism are bringing many societies to a point of crisis. Advances in digital communication, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology have great potential but also raise serious ethical and governance concerns, especially as promises of innovation and technological change have an uneven record of contributing to human flourishing.
Knowledge and learning are humanity鈥檚 greatest renewable resources for responding to challenges and inventing alternatives. Yet, education does more than respond to a changing world. Education transforms the world.
The Aim
This initiative aims to mobilize the many rich ways of being and knowing in order to leverage humanity鈥檚 collective intelligence. It relies on a broad, open process of co-construction that involves youth, educators, civil society, governments, business and other stakeholders.
One central piece of the work was guided by a high-level International Commission of thought-leaders from diverse fields and different regions of the world. In November 2021 the commission publish its report Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, which presents a forward-looking vision of what education and learning might yet become and allow us individually and collectively to become.
The Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education is the latest in a series of global reports commissioned by UNESCO to grapple with the challenges that the future holds in store and to inspire change and issue policy recommendations for education.
The first of these reports, Learning to Be: the world of education today and tomorrow was developed in 1971-1972 and prepared by a commission chaired by Edgar Faure, a former Prime Minister and Minister of Education of France. The Learning to Be report warned of the risks of inequalities, privation and suffering and emphasized the universal features education. The Faure report called for the continued expansion of education and for lifelong education.
From 1993-1996 a second international commission under the leadership of Jacques Delors, former President of the European Commission and former French Minister of Economy and Finance, prepared a report that was published as Learning: The Treasure Within. This report further emphasized the importance of a humanistic approach to education and established 鈥渢he four pillars鈥 of education, namely: learning to be, learning to know, learning to do, and learning to live together.
Among other important UNESCO publications on education in the intervening years is the 2015 report. Rethinking Education: towards a global common good? which proposed a rethinking of education and knowledge as global common goods.
How does this initiative approach the future?
This project uses the concept of futures in the plural in order to recognize that there is a rich diversity of ways of knowing and being around the world. The plural form also acknowledges that there are multiple dimensions to the future and that there will likely be various desirable and undesirable futures 鈥 all of which will vary greatly depending on who you are and where you stand. Rather than attempting to chart a single future, looking at futures in the plural validates multiple possible and desirable futures of humanity on our shared planet.
UNESCO鈥檚 Futures of Education initiative also approaches the future as a space for democratic design that is connected to, but not limited by, past and present. It builds on dedicated evidence-based trend analysis that can help shine light on anticipated challenges and opportunities. This is complemented by participatory mechanisms for envisioning new possible futures of education. Consultations across world regions will tap the visions and aspirations of a wide range of stakeholders under the understanding that innovation and ownership of the future need to be locally anchored as well as globally discussed.
The project embraces a fluid, iterative, and collective approach to futures-making. The goal is to generate discussion and action on the role of education, knowledge and learning in view of the predicted, possible and preferred futures of humanity and the planet.
Why look beyond the 2030 Agenda?
Education is a key piece of the . Despite the scope of these global commitments and the expected achievements, there is still an urgent need to look beyond this fast-approaching horizon. While the lays out a roadmap for the transformation of education systems and affirms a central commitment to inclusion and equity, we must still ask what education might yet become 鈥 and what education might yet enable us to become. UNESCO鈥檚 Futures of Education initiative uses the horizon of 2050 and beyond in order to anticipate and shape both nearer and more distant futures.
