We shape the futures of education together!
10. maj 2021
Thank you for your recent attendance in one or more of the online events we held as part of our collaborative initiative with the Futures of Education. I am proud to say that the online events were a great success, bringing together 479 participants from 87 countries.
We presented you with some of the overarching findings, notably three key trends we identified across perspectives from 2500+ school leaders, teachers, students and their parents from 25 countries on how education needs to be reimagined looking towards 2050 and beyond:
- Education Beyond the Classroom: Educational approaches must include globally oriented issues, exposures, and actions, with learning environments that spread across home, schools, and communities.
- People-driven Learning: Need to encourage/advocate for education stakeholders to challenge prescriptive policies and practices that discourage or prevent teachers from setting learning goals and methodologies, and/or equally constrain opportunities for students to set learning and meaning-making priorities.
- Social and Emotional Well-being: Holistic, whole-student, whole-school, and whole-community approaches that move beyond academic progress and assessment. Educators and administrators need to prioritize socio-emotional skills strategies, resources, and opportunities for learning that empower children to succeed both in and out of schools.
I would like to thank ASPnet National Coordinators as well as ASPnet school leaders, teachers, students and their parents for engaging in joint reflections on the futures of education and for sharing the results of your discussions with us. I would also like to thank the Centre for Global Education in Canada who have helped us analyse these contributions. A spotlight report will be forthcoming and we will inform you once published. In the meantime, you can take a look at the presentation we gave during the event, which encapsulates some of the broad findings.
My special thanks go to ASPnet National Coordinators and teachers from Angola, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Finland, Greece, Haiti, Indonesia, Lebanon, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Slovakia and Spain, who presented country-specific findings during the online events and brought to the forefront voices from ASPnet students, teachers and parents. Your innovative ideas and practices provide fertile ground for our continued discussions and will inform our work in the ASPnet community for the coming years. You can take a look at the presentations, video clips from teachers and students and other project relevant information here.
I would also like to thank Professor Fernando Reimers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Mr Abdel Basset Ben Hassen, President of the Arab Institute for Human Rights in Tunisia, for their moderation of the online events and for ensuring to bring the perspectives of the ASPnet school communities to the International Commission on the Futures of Education and the global flagship report that will be published in November of this year.
Our joint work with the Futures of Education truly gave an opportunity for the ASPnet community to unleash its full potential – co-creating and collaborating across countries and regions to advocate for an education focused on human rights and gender equality, health and well-being, responsible global citizenship and a sustainable future. The education we all want for present and future generations! Thank you all for engaging with us in this important journey and for co-creating and shaping our shared futures together!
Stay safe, stay connected!