| |
World
Education Forum
Dakar, Senegal 26-28 April 2000 |
| |
| Designing
basic education content to meet the needs and values of society
|
|
|
|
Issues
Paper
|
| |
| Strategy
Session I.6 |
| |
|
Original
: English
|
| |
 What
kinds of knowledge, skills and values are required for successful
living in human society as we move into the new millennium?
How can countries adapt the content of basic education programmes
to meet their particular needs? What actions can the international
community undertake to encourage and assist countries |
| |
| 1. Background.
|
| |
|
"Given the trend toward more open societies and global economies,
we must emphasize the forms of learning and critical thinking
that enable individuals to understand changing environments,
create new knowledge and shape their own destinies. We must
respond to new challenges by promoting learning in all aspects
of life, through all institutions of society, in effect, creating
environments in which living is learning" (The Amman Affirmation,
1996). |
| |
|
2.
New Learning Environments; New Challenges for Learning
|
| |
|
Three new dynamics are shaping learning environments, requiring
fundamental rethinking of the content and learning objectives
of education, the contexts in which learning and the acquisition
of new knowledge occur, and the skills required for learning,
both initially and over a lifetime. |
| |
|
First
is the movement toward more open and democratic societies,
globally competitive economies and more active citizenship
and participation at all levels. New approaches are needed
supporting active learning, critical thinking and collaborative
inquiry from the early grades onward. Content at all levels
needs to go beyond the academic curriculum and factual knowledge
to include exploration of the environment in all respects,
open-ended inquiries and consideration of multiple possibilities
for design tasks, problem-solving, social and personal choices.
In addition to the foundation skills and personal disciplines,
essential learning skills include creativity, curiosity and
the abilities to work and learn with others in environments
of mutual respect and value. The learning environment itself
will have to provide room and support for such active learning
and open learning in increasingly diverse learning communities
as well as provide sufficient governance and accountability
to sustain support and encourage further exploration of improved
approaches.
|
| |
|
Second is the expansion of communications and information
technologies, dramatically increasing the volume of information
available to learners, the connectedness among communities of
learners and the ability of learners to engage in more interactive
and exploratory forms of learning. Helping learners to make
sense of the available information will be an increasing challenge.
The skills of assessing and evaluating information and of relating
the information to the context of the learner need to be taught,
not just expected. Among the new learning skills will be those
of accessing information, sharing knowledge and learning together
with others through organisational networks and communications
webs connecting learners to broader learning and knowledge-building
communities. |
| |
|
Third is the continuing change in all dimensions - social,
economic, technologic. Learners, individually and as communities,
need to engage in continuous learning and the generation and
acquisition of new knowledge over a lifetime. Much of the knowledge
needed for productive citizenship over the lifetime of today's
children does not yet exist. Essential skills include those
of accessing information, collaboration with others, joint problem-solving
and the communications skills necessary for continuing learning
beyond the school and over a lifetime. These skills build on
the values of active learning, including curiosity, personal
efficacy and respect for others. |
| |
|
In addition, there is new urgency to ensuring that education
at all levels and in all places reinforces a culture of peace,
tolerance and respect for human rights; helps resolve conflicts
and prevent violence; and supports the emergence of new, inclusive,
coherent and resilient communities in societies emerging from
conflict. Human Rights must both be taught as essential knowledge
and applied in the classroom and other learning environments.
A culture of peace must be reinforced through all aspects of
education, including respect for other views and recognition
of the inherent diversity of all learning communities. |
| |
|
|
These values must be reflected not just in academic studies
and abstract discussion, but also in the arts, in athletics,
in governance of educational activities and in all the interactions
among members of each learning community. Choices about language
of instruction, inclusion or exclusion of minorities, provisions
for the effective education of girls, governance and accountability
for schools and other value-based decisions about the provision
of education are effectively part of the curriculum. They teach
and reinforce knowledge and values that lead either to healthy,
cohesive, resilient and respectful communities or to communities
in conflict, unable to work and live together and wasting resources
and opportunities for the common future. These are continuing
concerns and ethical choices for all countries and communities,
but they are of particular urgency in communities emerging from
conflict, or at risk of civil conflict. |
| |
|
| 3. Choices |
| |
|
|
These challenges require new content emphases and new pedagogic
approaches and raise fundamental questions about how to assess
education progress against new objectives and expectations and
how to reflect such assessments in education plans, policies
and budgets.. At the same time, there continues to be deep concern
for how to meet the existing basic education objectives and
expectations. As communities continue to focus on meeting basic
learning needs, including foundation skills and the skills,
knowledge and values supporting individual and community identity
in each context, they must also begin to address the challenges
of the new learning environments. |
| |
|
All countries face these choices. None can expect success
for the future with rigid and closed education systems without
re-examining the curricula and reflecting on the values embedded
in the education approaches. There remains for all countries
and communities an urgent need to address basic learning needs
on a continuing basis, but within an inexorable process of new
information, technologic change and evolving societies. The
key issue is how to make progress toward both sets of objectives
through approaches that are cost-effective, feasible at full
scale and manageable within the constraints of the system's
management, governance and pedagogic support capacities (e.g.
teacher training and support, materials development, technical
support) at the level of each community. The key resources for
this to happen will continue to be leadership, vision, courage
and a willingness to explore new possibilities. |
| |
| 4.
Issues for discussion: |
| |
|
|
What are the possibilities for meeting both sets of challenges
through new approaches employing content integration and exploratory
learning in more open learning environments using technology
appropriately to support the new approaches and to facilitate
continuing learning? |
| |
|
Does movement toward greater diversity, more openness and
more exploratory learning mean less acccountability? Or, are
there feasible ways of setting new standards and measures of
learning, with new ways for learners to demonstrate competency
and be assessed in performance |
| |
|
Are gaps in communications and information media technology
the main constraint to more engaged and interactive learning?
Or, is the constraint more the difficulties in changing the
environment of the classroom, supporting teachers in new ways
and managing the transition to interactive learning in more
open learning environments? |
| |
|
|
Does movement toward more inclusive systems, the encouragement
of critical thinking and respect for other views and cultures
create unacceptable challenges to the status quo? Or, are such
changes in the values and culture of the school essential to
developing vigorous, cohesive communities with the resilience
to manage change, promoting sustainable civil societies and
preparing new generations of active learners and active citizens?
|
| |
|
Are the new learning approaches necessarily more expensive and
more difficult to manage and implement ? |
| |
|
==================
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
