Looking globally: the future of education

2 Population growth

Figure 3 Are we in danger of having too many people for the resources to support?

‘It is not the number of people on the planet that is the issue – but the number of consumers and the scale and nature of their consumption,’ says David Satterthwaite, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London (Cumming, 2016).

He quotes Gandhi: ‘The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.’

Activity 3 Thinking about population growth

Allow approximately 45 minutes

In the previous activity you considered the changing populations of individual countries. You will now consider the bigger picture in terms of global population by reading two articles which review what a sustainable population is for our planet. This will help provide the context for considering the role of education in responding to the issues raised. Together, these two articles concern different ends of the spectrum of the issues raised by population growth.

Part A

  1. Read the BBC article How many people can our planet really support? to identify the answer to what a sustainable population might be and some of the factors to take into account.
  2. Make one short post to the working wall about EITHER: (a) The key issue(s) that education needs to concern itself with globally, given expected demographic changes? OR (b) Ideas about a solution (such as those offered in the articles) which you think education systems in any one country (for example, your own) can reasonably attend to?

    Don’t forget to add the country that you are talking about to your post, i.e. Denmark: 1) ... 2) ... 3) ... . Try to link any posts for (b) to any in (a) if you think they are relevant.

Part B

Allow approximately 45 minutes

Read the article Policies to Address Population Growth Nationally and Internationally (Goodyear, 2008) in which a range of international population-related policies are summarised, not all of which focus on curbing growth. Issues around gender, food production and the role of education are raised.

Think about:

  • Do you agree that it is education’s role to mitigate some of the underlying issues and work for peace, reconciliation and/or sustainable living?
  • If it is not a role of an education system to respond to issues related to demographic change, whose role is it?
  • Does the education system you are familiar with include some reference to tackling issues of demographic change, possibly in its curriculum?

OpenLearn - Looking globally: the future of education
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