TRENDS SHAPING EDUCATION DEVELOPMENTS, EXAMPLES, QUESTIONS VIENNA, 11 TH DECEMBER 2008 David Istance Schooling for Tomorrow & Innovative Learning Environments, OECD/CERI
CERI celebrates its 40 th anniversary this year OECD s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) in the Education Directorate. Its other parts are: policy analysis, statistics and indicators, designing facilities, management of HEIs, and non-members CERI aims to inform long-term policy development by: generating forward-looking research analyses and syntheses; identifying and stimulating educational innovation; promoting international exchange of knowledge and experience
Publications Schooling for Tomorrow series Final Schooling for Tomorrow Report on Trends, Scenarios and Futures Thinking in Action, to be published 2009 Demand-Sensitive Schooling? Evidence and Issues, 2006 Think Scenarios, Rethink Education, 2006 Personalising Education, 2006 Networks of Innovation: towards new models for managing schools and systems, 2003 What Schools for the Future? 2001 Learning to Change: ICT in Schools, 2001 Learning to Bridge the Digital Divide, 2000 Innovating Schools, 1999.
Related CERI volumes, published and to come Trends Shaping Education: 2008 Edition (produced in SfT but to continue after SfT finished) next edition for 2010 or 2011. Innovative Learning Environments Innovating to Learn, Learning to Innovate, 2008 Follow-up volume in preparation Syntheses of learning sciences by world leading researchers for policy & practice, 2009 Higher Education to 2030: Volume 1 Demography, 2008 Further volumes for 2009 (technology, globalisation, scenarios)
Using Trends Studying trends essential to understand context, patterns & dynamics - but the future is no simple extrapolation of the past Reality is about multiple trends in complex interactions, not individual trends in neat lines Any set of trends is highly selective opening lines of reflection, not definitive answers Trends shaping education from the outside and from the inside not just external influences
1.Demographic Transformations - Ageing Since the baby boom, families have become smaller - fewer children born to each woman and having children at older ages. Rising levels of education are associated with fewer children. People have never lived longer in OECD countries than they do today. The increase in lifespan for those reaching retirement age has speeded up markedly since 1950. A clear gap in life expectancy between men and women remains. Together, this means that population structures are dramatically changing. Before, they were bottom heavy pyramids. As older people outnumber the young, we are moving to top heavy population structures.
Birth rates well down on the 1960s 1960 1980 2003 Slovak Republic Korea Czech Republic Poland Greece Spain Italy Japan Hungary Germany Austria Switzerland Portugal Canada Belgium OECD Luxembourg United Kingdom Sweden Netherlands Finland Denmark Australia Norway France New Zealand Ireland Iceland United States Mexico Turkey 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
100+ 95-99 90-94 85-89 80-84 75-79 70-74 65-69 60-64 55-59 50-54 45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4 From bottom-heavy to top-heavy age structures (past trends and forecasts) 2050 1950 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Demography - Some Questions for Education With falling rolls, some places face emptying schools and the reduction in educational choices. Falling enrolments also present new opportunities: are these being seized - making resources go further? Engaging in expensive innovation? Building new infrastructure? Do our long-life societies call for re-thinking what education should be for and what it should equip young people with to live in them? Is the school system doing enough to meet the learning and cultural needs of the many older members of the population? While many older people are active, mentally and physically, growing numbers of elderly people also mean many more of us are frail and in need of expensive care. How much pressure will this put on resources for the school sector?
2. Globalisation economic, cultural, political Deepening and widening of interactions across national borders - we live in both a national and a global context. But how far? In which domains? For good or ill? Globalisation is complex and controversial. Quantitative change - more trade, more migration, more information exchange, more... So, many manifestations but most obviously economic globalisation Qualitative change - more global economic, cultural and political systems. Education Converging education systems? Global learning market? Supra-national organisations? Especially controversial as national/state sovereignty in education so fiercely defended.
More enter than leave OECD countries, with substantial numbers now foreign born Poland Turkey Italy Hungary Finland Slovak Republic Czech Republic Spain Denmark Portugal Norway United Kingdom France Greece Netherlands Ireland Belgium Sweden United States Germany Austria Canada New Zealand Switzerland Australia Luxembourg 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0-5 Stock of foreign-born as a percentage of population (2004) Annual net migration per 1 000 population (1990-2004)
China and India are Catching Up (GDP in PPP)
Increasing numbers of international students in higher education (millions) Increasing numbers of international students in higher education Number of students in higher education studying outside their country of citizenship worldwide (in millions)
Globalisation - Some Questions for Education In pluralistic societies, schools face an even greater range of family aspirations. How far should different demands be accommodated? What do students need to learn to deal with increased cultural diversity? Increasing global competition has underpinned the idea that countries need constant innovation to maintain position. Does education nurture the creativity necessary to be innovative? Are there limits to the aim of enhancing national or regional competitiveness through education? More and more students are studying outside their country of residence. Is this healthy internationalism breaking down the limits of national boundaries? Or is it richer countries and institutions creating new markets for their own benefit?
3. Growing Affluence but Sustainable? Since mid-20 th century, longstanding increase in affluence both driven by and permitting educational expansion. Unprecedented levels of leisure and consumption but how sustainable? For example, growing resource consumption and quantities of waste. Growing lifestyle risks such as obesity and alcohol consumption. Greater income inequality in many OECD countries since the 1980s. Austria, for example, saw both moderate loss of income share by bottom quintile and moderate gain of share by top quintile. Both global warming and severe recession warn that increased affluence is not certain to continue nor to be sustainable though both are possible. And widening inequalities when rich compared with poor world regions.
Growing Affluence across OECD to now at least (GDP per person) 35000 30000 25000 20000 US, CAN, AUS, NZ EU 15 Japan Korea CEE (in OECD) 15000 10000 5000 0 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Growing electricity consumption - coal generation still most common (Terawatt hours) 18 000 16 000 14 000 12 000 10 000 8 000 Other Hydro Nuclear Gas Oil Coal 6 000 4 000 2 000 0 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004
Income inequality tending to rise (Gini coefficients)
Affluence - Some Questions for Education Are attitudes towards schooling changing with greater affluence? Do people regard it more as a consumer good than as a public service than in the past? What is the role of schools in creating responsible citizens, with civic values and sustainable consumption habits? Should this be the business of schools and teachers at all? Education can stimulate social mobility but it also helps to reproduce inequalities when the already-privileged have better access to education. Can education be the benefit of all, so that it does not reinforce inequalities?
4. Individuals and the Nature of Connectivity In most OECD countries, growing importance is attached to individuality: e.g. the World Values Survey suggests that each generation values individual expression and freedom from authorities more than the previous one. Growing recognition of individual rights (all individuals, women, and minorities) compared with statuses attaching to group membership. More diverse, complex family configurations; the movement away from relatively stable, small residential communities towards more fluid and complex networks. ICT is an increasingly important part of everyday life, often replacing human interaction; increasing level of functional literacy is needed to complete even basic operations.
Global Value Change More Secular and Oriented to Self-Expression 0.65 Secular-Rational Values 0.60 0.55 0.50 0.45 0.40 0.35 0.30 0.25 Ex-Communist Europe Korea and Japan 1921-30 Northern Europe after 1980 1961-70 1971-80 1951-60 1941-50 1931-40 0.20 0.15 Southern Europe before 1921 Anglo Saxon Countries 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65 0.70 Self-Expression Values
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Trust (% in general I trust others ) 1981 1990 1999 Britain Belgium Italy Austria Germany Ireland Spain Iceland Finland Netherlands Norway Sweden Denmark Portugal Turkey Slovakia Poland Hungary France Czech Republic
Number of websites worldwide increasing rapidly (in millions) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Individuals & Connectivity: Some Questions for Education As authority is questioned and we become more individualistic, how does this impact on social dynamics in classrooms? And on the role of teachers and the authority of school knowledge? If trust and social engagement are low, in a country or region, where does this leave schools? To what extent does learning depend on trust? What are the effects on children of growing up in the digital age? What is the nature of social connectivity, with greater mobility and more on-line networking with what impact on the social role of schools?
Schooling and Lifelong Learning A neglected relationship Assessing the lifelong learning mission of schooling at three inter-related levels: Focus on student capacities: Do students acquire the competences and motivations to be lifelong learners? Focus on schools as organisations: Do schools encourage flexibility, innovation and group learning - diverse curricula, pedagogies and assessment methods? Focus on schooling as a phase in the context of arrangements over the life cycle: How does education in childhood and adolescence fit with the whole range of learning opportunities over the life cycle?
Thank You!