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Looking globally: the future of education
Looking globally: the future of education

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4 Summary: What needs to change?

This week you have seen that there has been a great deal of progress in offering education worldwide and that education is no longer just for privileged young people. Most countries in the world now acknowledge that all children have a right to education and are working to make that a reality.

But you have also been challenged to consider what the purpose of education may be, and how education may need to respond to three key drivers for change: changes to the environment, demographic changes, and the impact of technology.

Activity 7 Identifying the changes

Timing: Allow approximately 45 minutes
  1. Using all the ideas you have now considered, prepare a mind map (see Activities and tools [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]   for more information on how to do this) summarising your thoughts on what needs to change if education is to be fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. You might use the three key drivers for change as a basis for your mind map, or another system.
  2. On the working wall you will have had the opportunity to read other participants’ ideas about aspects of education systems which may need to change. Re-read the comments on the wall and then add ideas to your mind map from those that seem important to you.
  3. Take an image or screenshot of this mind map (see Taking screenshots for help with this) and store it safely so that you can return to it in the following weeks.

Please note: we may wish to reuse your working wall contributions, anonymously, in future sessions of this course. If you wish to opt out of this, email WELS-ECYS-Masters@open.ac.uk.

In the next few weeks you will be encouraged to think more about the purpose of education in a changing world. You will explore, in depth, some of the ways in which the world is changing and how that may change your ideas about what education is for.