The Future of Education in Flanders
The school - an attractive place to learn and work in 2030?
An essay exploring themes and questions on the basis of relevant literature and policy documents
Colophon
The Future of Education in Flanders. The school - an attractive place to learn and work in 2030?
This publication has been created in the context of the forward-looking project on learning and teaching in Flanders in 2030, a joint initiative of the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training, the Flemish Education Council and the King Baudouin Foundation.
The literature study, which takes the form of an essay, is one of the three briefing papers that have been developed as a basis for the learning and design lab on the future of education in Flanders [Landen, 24-28 August 2013].
Deze publicatie is ook verkrijgbaar in het Nederlands: Toekomst van het onderwijs in Vlaanderen. De school - een aantrekkelijke plek voor leren en werken in 2030?
Author Joseph W. M. Kessels, Professor of Human Resource Development at the University of Twente and Professor of Educational Leadership at the Scientific Center for Teacher Research, Open Universiteit [The Netherlands].
Translation Stephen Judd
This is a publication edited by the King Baudouin Foundation. It can be downloaded free of charge from the following websites: www.kbs-frb.be www.ond.vlaanderen.be/onderwijs-2030
Legal deposit: D/2893/2013/30 ISBN-13: 978-90-5130-830-3 EAN: 9789051308303 Number: 3190
November 2013
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3 Contents
1. Introduction ...... 6 Defining the question ...... 7
2. Socio-economic and demographic developments ...... 10 2.1 New perspectives on work, attitudes to work and trends in the labour market ...... 12 2.2. Questions for the education system ...... 13
3. Developments within the education system ...... 15 3.1 The role of the teacher ...... 15 3.2 The long-term attractiveness of the education sector ...... 16 3.3 Views about teaching, learning and development ...... 17 3.4. Enthusiasm and stress ...... 18 3.5 New insights into brain function ...... 19 3.6 Ownership and pressure to perform ...... 20 3.7 Implications for the development of talent ...... 23 3.8 Digitalisation of teaching ...... 24 3.9 A generation gap with a clash of experiences ...... 26 3.10 Making the education system attractive ...... 27 3.11 Effective education, what is it for? ...... 29 3.12 Medicalisation and specialisation ...... 31 3.13 Legalism and restrictions on autonomy ...... 31
4. Building blocks for an agenda for innovation and research for 2030 .. 33 4.1. The curriculum ...... 33 4.2 Diversity and personalisation ...... 34 4.3 Perspectives on knowledge and learning ...... 34 4.4 Digitalisation and ICT...... 35 4.5 Lifelong learning ...... 35 4.6 Knowledge productivity and social inequality ...... 35
4 4.7 The workplace as a place to learn ...... 36 4.8 The division of roles between government and school ...... 36 4.9 A new debate on the aims of the education system ...... 37
5. Final conclusion ...... 40
References ...... 43
5 1. Introduction There are many different perspectives that we could choose to explore the directions in which the education system will develop during the next fifteen years. This essay chooses to use the form of a generic introduction (Part 1), followed by a description of a few socio-economic developments (Part 2). Linking in with these exogeneous factors, Part 3 contains an overview of tendencies that can be perceived within the education system. These descriptions finally lead to a number of questions that may guide the process of formulating an agenda for renewal and research focusing on the education system of the future (Part 4). The final conclusion (Part 5) summarises the core of this discourse by setting out some areas of tension in which innovative breakthroughs are required.
The school is part of a society which is undergoing constant change. Aspects such as globalisation, changes in the composition and cohesiveness of the population, technological developments and in particular the role of information and communication technology, the influence of the media and views on the structure of work will all influence the way we think about education.
On the one hand we have an expectation that the education system should be able to prepare people for this changing, complex society. We therefore very much wish to see better and more targeted learning outcomes that will enable large numbers of young people to participate actively and on a long-term basis in an increasingly global knowledge society. We therefore place considerable emphasis on familiarity with technology, the ability to communicate fluently in different languages and the ability to move easily around various networks, supported by the internet and social media. Since the specific skills required are difficult to define precisely, we see generic skills that will continue to be useful for a long time as especially valuable. These include information skills, problem-solving skills, transverse skills that transcend individual areas and communication skills, where the intention is always to continue to devote attention to these, deepen them and broaden them on a lifelong basis. We desire to see an education system that prepares people by giving them a lasting ability to act as smart participants and where possible even as joint architects of a new and complex society. Here, the ability to contribute to knowledge acquisition and knowledge development is an important precondition to allow people to continue to participate in the future.
6 The high expectations outlined above also place the education system under considerable pressure. There are some pioneering schools which are already consciously engaged in an exploration of the future, and they are seeking to play an active role in this process. For some schools, however, it will be very difficult to define a position of their own, actively structure it in a future-oriented way and contribute towards the changes which are coming. Schools that only have the capacity for slow renewal, whose attention is often directed inwards and which focus on curricula from former times, seeing young people as essentially requiring adjustment and domestication through discipline and obedience and subjection to a continual threat of punishment and exclusion, will find it difficult to play their part in guiding children and young adults towards a complex society. This is a society in which survival will only be possible for those who have learned to develop their own talents and abilities, set their own course, make decisions and take the lead on the basis of a strong belief in their own ability, allowing them to engage with an entrepreneurial spirit in a complicated game whose rules we do not yet know.
The Flemish Minister of Education put into words the task of renewal and the urgent need for education to be essentially a long-term ambition: "Given the pace at which the world is now changing, our society will look completely different in 20 years' time. At the same time, society is placing greater expectations on the education system. It is therefore no longer enough for our education system to offer preparation for tomorrow. Since education is a hugely important source of social and economic development, there is a need to anticipate the longer term, unrestricted by parliamentary terms or plans for specific years. Furthermore there is a need to work on the basis of what our society may look like in a few decades' time in order to come up with robust future scenarios. This will demand reflection on the societal evolution taking place now and also on ways in which society will evolve in the future." (Minister Smet, Flemish Minister for Education, Youth Equal Opportunities and Brussels; 1 March 2013).
Defining the question This task of exploring the future of the education system invites us to engage with challenging questions through in-depth dialogue, and it is intended here to offer possible examples of these. This essay will explore themes and questions on the basis of relevant literature and policy documents. The themes and questions that are highlighted may provide a point of departure for the discussions, but just as the author has found that
7 they seem to go against the grain, they will also invite others to take a fresh look at existing conventions and make room for new perspectives. This essay is not a neutral, scientific treatise based on a systematic literature study and meta-analysis. The text is coloured by the author's personal choices, so that the reader retains the freedom to link his own meanings to the process of exploration, while at times also being challenged to define where he himself stands.
We expect a great deal of our education system. We see it as a source of social and economic development for the benefit of society and for the individual members who are part of it. We understand that due to the pace of change, our society in 20 years' time will have a completely different appearance from the one that we see today. Factual descriptions and systematic explorations of the future are coloured by personal wishes, views and aims. In order to work together on a vision of the future, shared views and values are also needed that will create the connections to allow focused steps to be taken towards a desirable future.
Who can say what our society will look like in future? Who can say how education can prepare people for that society?
On the one hand there is an optimism that through smart use of technology, brain science and scenario development in education, we will be more capable than ever before of preparing large groups of young people for significant participation in a future society.
On the other hand it is questionable whether it is just a matter of defining aims and adjusting the course in order to meet that high expectation for the future. Although great progress has been made over the past fifty years in improving access to education, the highest levels of science and culture are still reserved for only a relatively small group of people, leaving large groups of people behind along the way with a sense of frustration, lack of achievement and failure, expressed among other things through a reduced willingness to continue to participate in forms of lifelong learning after their formal education comes to an end.
In order to play a pioneering, innovative role in dealing with the challenges now facing us, the education system will have to engage in a process of critical self-reflection on what has been achieved until now, the weaknesses that come to light through this process and the strengths that provide the energy to complete this ambitious mission.
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An essay on possible paths to follow in seeking answers to the above questions or at least a dialogue on the ideas underlying these ways of thinking, must include an exploration of the socio-economic developments that are taking place, in a society which we often refer to as the knowledge society, as well as the shifts that we can also see in the education system itself.
9 2. Socio-economic and demographic developments Due to the ageing population, by 2060 the ratio between people aged 65+ and the working population (15-64 years old) will be approaching 45% (Federal Planning Agency, 2013). In urban areas, the numbers of children will continue to increase, mainly from ethnic minorities and immigrants (Flemish Government, 2009; Willems & Lodewijckx, 2011). Het Stedelijk Onderwijs (2013) expects that in 2025 there will be approximately 23,500 more students in Antwerp, and it plans expand capacity by 9,500 places. Implementing this capacity expansion will require huge efforts, particularly in the areas of accommodation, sites and facilities and not least in providing the necessary staffing.
Recent calculations by the Federal Planning Agency (2013) indicate that the level of external immigration will represent the most important source of the increase in population. As a result of ageing, there will be pressure to raise the retirement age, while the large post-war generation of teachers will be leaving active professional life in increasing numbers. These developments call for vigilance and unconventional approaches, not only because they will put pressure on the financing of services, particularly in terms of pensions, care, health and education, but also because they will lead to a rapid increase in diversity within our society. Continuing inward flows from a large number of countries are resulting in very diverse linguistic backgrounds, values, cultural expressions and religious traditions. This may be viewed as a source of enrichment, but it will no doubt also give rise to new tensions between the newcomers and also in the originally Flemish population, who will feel alienated in their own country. One direct expression of these continuing and varied inward flows will be multilingualism, which will no doubt give rise to tensions in its own right. Will the Dutch language continue to be the sole language of instruction in education, and what will be the consequences of this for the newcomers? What is more, many newcomers will have low levels of literacy. Poor literacy is an important factor that contributes to delayed language development during pre-school and primary education, which is difficult to catch up later in life. Child care can play an important role in enriching the linguistic environment. Only 32% of ethnic minority children and 21% of underprivileged children, however, regularly attend child care, while 70% of Flemish children do so (King Baudouin Foundation, 2013). Belgium will evolve from a multicultural society into a superdiverse society (Van Besien, 2013). The implicit approach of striving for cultural homogeneity and creating a need for newcomers to adapt and be assimilated will be found to be untenable (cf. also Nussbaum 2012). One very promising perspective
10 is the idea of empowerment of hope (Crul, Schneider & Lelie, 2013): the power that emanates from a successful second generation who, thanks to economic progress, make choices in favour of progressive values and emancipation. Far greater benefits can be expected from this than from coercion to adapt. Equal treatment and free access to good education will be basic preconditions for this.
The education system will have to face the question of not only how to make a contribution towards dealing with this superdiversity as a society, but above all how to relate to the situation itself.
This superdiversity will come into being against a background of quite intractable poverty. The risk of poverty is five times higher among citizens who are not Belgian nationals or nationals of another EU country, at 47%. This problem encompasses not only low incomes and material deprivation, but also social exclusion in areas such as employment, housing, education, health and participation in society. It is important not only for the welfare of individual citizens, but also for the cohesiveness of the community, to bring people out of isolation, extend their social networks and increase their self-confidence. One vital component of the fight against poverty is combating loneliness. The recent Poverty Monitor for 2013 indicates that in Flanders poverty is not really falling, while child poverty is actually rising. In the Brussels Capital region, the risk of poverty among 0-15 year olds is 41.7% (King Baudouin Foundation, 2013). Although Flanders achieves a high score in comparison with other EU countries, 10% of citizens live in poverty or social exclusion (Poverty Monitor, 2013). Participation in high quality education and reducing the incidence of poor literacy and poor numeracy are essential preconditions for escaping from poverty or staying out of poverty. The educational level and professional status of the parents determine the developmental opportunities of their children. The use of language, the culture at home and ways of behaving at home are all very different from the school culture. This does not make school easy for children who are at risk of poverty. This has detrimental consequences for the remainder of their career of lifetime learning. Children who have a delay when they start their school career are at greater risk of leaving school with a low educational level or even leaving school prematurely. Unfortunately they are unable to make up for the delay that they have incurred. This is even more true for people of Turkish or Moroccan origin than for Belgians.
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2.1 New perspectives on work, attitudes to work and trends in the labour market In a wider context, attitudes to work and professional life will change. As well as the visible development in the direction of knowledge-based work and services and the reduction in routine work predominantly involving physical effort, there is also a change in attitudes to work. Work is not only a way of providing for the necessities of life; it is also a place for learning and development. The sharp boundaries between paid and unpaid work will become blurred and the importance of work for the formation of an individual's identity will increase. In this way the working environment contributes more than ever towards the feeling of well-being and self- realisation. New forms of work which have been made possible by internet technology, in which employees can choose when and where they do their work much more independently than before, have major consequences in terms of forms of collaboration, ways of providing leadership and relationships of authority. The reduction in the number of hierarchical levels and the increased autonomy among professionals seems to be partly a result of this change and partly promoting its increasingly rapid development. The emancipation resulting from this will no doubt influence working relationships and views on the status of employees and workers. On the basis of this description it seems obvious that the world of work and the world of education will seek to move closer together, not only in terms of direct preparation for the labour market in the context of vocational education, but also in higher, secondary and probably even primary education: will we come to see the working environment increasingly as an attractive learning environment, not only for older people but for young people as well? Hagens (2013), when exploring the future of education, wonders why we are holding on tightly to the proprietary position of education within the walls of a school building. A child can learn a lot outside school too, so it is worthwhile to develop partnerships in which children and young people can participate in a learning society.
In the Netherlands there is a phenomenon of a growing number of individual self-employed people without employees. These are professionals who give up their permanent employment status and carry on their profession on their own account and at their own risk. This tendency is known in the case of lawyers, doctors, architects and consultants, but now more and more nurses, cleaners, computer technicians, designers and even teachers are choosing a structure in which they can still carry on their profession but without being attached by a
12 permanent bond to a single employer and the associated organisation. In the Netherlands, the number of self-employed individuals has grown in recent years to reach almost a million self-employed people, and this number is expected to double during the next few years. A development like this has major consequences in terms of the organisation of a labour market that consists of no more than about 6.5 million people in the Netherlands. In some hospitals the intensive care department is run exclusively by self-employed individuals. Professionals tend to choose to live as self-employed individuals because it offers them attractions such as freedom, independence, flexibility, the ability to make something your own, the challenge and the entrepreneurial opportunities. The less attractive side is the administrative burden, the need to find work, the insecure income, the number of hours people have to work and the fact that the work is often solitary (ING, 2013). It is not clear whether this trend will manifest itself in Flanders in the same way. This perspective on the attractive aspects of such work and the points for concern may, however, be useful when looking at the experience of work in the future. If the experience of freedom, independence, flexibility, ownership, challenge and entrepreneurship are so important that traditional working values such as income security and dependency on a single employer become only secondary, this will have major consequences on the way we look at work and how people relate to it. If those positive experiences of freedom etc. really do make a difference, this will also influence people who work in the education system and it will of course also have an impact on educational content and the structure of the education system.
2.2. Questions for the education system These processes of exploring social and economic developments result in an initial set of questions.
Society will increase in complexity and will develop in less predictable ways, with greater diversity and greater tensions. It is difficult to assess what the implications of a developing knowledge economy will be - where value is increasingly added through knowledge, improvement and innovation rather than by means of traditional factors such as capital, materials and physical labour.
Will the economic reality encourage further selection and exclusion, while the debate in society calls for greater equality of opportunity and for a reduction in social inequality? It is the task of the education system to offer
13 equal opportunities and promote social cohesion. What are the benchmarks in a superdiverse society?
Is there a tension between the "Ausbildung" function, in which individuals are trained for a job, and the "Bildung" function, which emancipates them? Differing levels of awareness of this issue will lead to important differences of opinion in the debates on reforms in the education system. Is it possible to describe the skills that citizens need in order to participate actively in the society of the future? (OECD, 2013)
Alongside an elite of highly trained knowledge workers, a group of citizens may also emerge who will become less and less attractive because they do not have the qualifications to participate in knowledge-based work and to enjoy delivering support services. If the workplace of the future is also a place that requires people to constantly learn and work towards their own development, people who are unemployed and have no voluntary work will not only be a burden on society but they will also be isolated from the learning opportunities that exist at work, tending to increase their relative disadvantage even further. In a knowledge society, this type of exclusion will lead to an accelerating process of segregation. The ability to participate in any kind of work will have a crucial function in terms of learning, development, reinforcing the sense of self-esteem and promoting well- being. Recognising this kind of participation in society should encourage the education system to encourage opportunities to participate actively in a working context even during formal education. As an extreme consequence, it may even be asked whether the absolute prohibition on child labour is in fact a sensible idea in a knowledge economy.
14 3. Developments within the education system Developments are also taking place within the education system that may influence the shape of our views of the future. The role of the teacher, the attractiveness of working in education, changing perspectives on learning and teaching, the role of enthusiasm and stress and the role of ownership and the pressure to perform are all discussed in the pages below.
3.1 The role of the teacher Recognising the crucial role of the teacher in determining the quality of education (McKinsey, 2011; Pearson, 2012; Hattie, 2009) not only means appreciating the teaching profession; it also puts teachers under increased pressure to deliver high performance. The profession will also become aware of its own influence on educational results. Teachers will demand more professional space and authority to shape and organise the education they provide, which will reduce the potential for central steering. The concept of 'professional space' is found mostly in the area of the social sciences, and it refers to the scope for action that people are given (Hupe, 2009). When considering the professional space available to teachers in particular, this usually means the extent to which teachers have authority over or are able to influence working processes in the education system (OCW, 2008). This professional space is important when it comes to increasing the appreciation enjoyed by the profession, (Jansen, Brink, & Kole, 2009) increasing the sense of ownership, strengthening learning networks, motivating teachers and enhancing their professionalism (Vrieze, van Daalen, & Wester, 2009).
In this context there is cause for concern over the fact that a high percentage of young teachers are leaving the profession and that the reputation of the teaching profession is being eroded. The growing pressure on schools and teachers is probably made greater still by the greater influence that parents will increasingly wish to have over the education system. The increasing influence of both teachers and parents on the arrangement and structure of the education system will make it increasingly difficult for governments to impose specific changes and innovations on the education system on the basis of centralised legislation and guidelines. The central policymaking role of government will come into tension with local demands for influence over the system. Hooge (2013) even refers to the myth of governability of educational organisations.
If the role of the teacher is decisive in determining the quality of education, then teaching must have a reputation for being an attractive, highly valued profession (Education Cooperative, 2011). That attractive image is needed
15 in order to create greater interest in teacher education. In a fast-moving communication society, a lot will depend on the nature of reporting on education and the way in which those involved conduct the debates on improvements and innovation in education. The nature and tone of reporting and debate will directly influence the image of the teaching profession. In Belgium the number of applicants for teacher training courses has fallen by 9% during the past two years (Flemish Ministry for Education, 2013). In Finland, on the other hand, an average of 6,000 candidates apply for the 1,000 teacher training places that become available each year (Sahlberg, 2012). The high level of education and the perception of professional space seem to be important factors in determining the attractiveness of the teaching profession.
3.2 The long-term attractiveness of the education sector The education system will also increasingly be focusing on adults who are seeking to structure their own lifelong learning. Education is not only intended for young people who are not yet participating in the labour market. In order to be able to participate in a knowledge society on a long- term basis, people will need to be involved in education on a regular basis. One increasingly important precondition for this will be whether education is truly attractive to potential participants. The monopoly on awarding diplomas and the assumption that the participants will have an attitude of obedience are vanishing. This requires those involved in education to seek a balance between customer-oriented working and delivering high quality, which is something that is not always familiar to conventional institutions. The Flemish education system has been at the top of the educational rankings for years in terms of numeracy and language (Pearson, 2012; Pisa, 2009; EU, 2013). It is noticeable that this high quality at the top end runs in parallel with a high level of social inequality at the bottom end, particularly among students of ethnic minority origin (Unicef, 2010; 2012; EU, 2012b). How can we avoid wasting talent (Jacobs & Rea, 2011) and reduce the societal tensions that are associated with exclusion?
Belgium also occupies an extreme position within Europe in terms of adult participation in lifelong learning (7.1% in 2011). This percentage has actually fallen in recent years and it is far below the EU target of 15% in 2020 (EU, 2012b). The price that we pay for high quality at the top end is also expressed in great social inequality and the fact that many people have an aversion to becoming involved in the education system in the context of lifelong learning.
16 There are significant challenges in relation to enhancing the long-term attractiveness of education by removing the mechanisms of exclusion, reducing frustrations and experiences of failure and increasing enjoyment of learning, development and work, also for underprivileged Flemish people and ethnic minorities.
3.3 Views about teaching, learning and development Views of the ways in which people learn are also changing. As well as supply-oriented ways of working that involve systematically teaching a curriculum to homogenous groups with the aim of developing cognitive abilities, there is also an interest in approaches that attribute greater value to self-directed learning based on intrinsic motivation, where the starting- point is not a prescribed quantity of content to be taught but the personal interest and developmental capacity of the learner. The emphasis here is not so much on theories in relation to information transfer, skills acquisition or how the memory works, but on addressing the learning person's long-term motivation. The Self Determination Theory (SDT) of Ryan and Deci (2000) sets out from the principle that people are better motivated to work and learn if they are able to live out of their three strong basic needs. These are: the need to develop skills (competence), the need to direct themselves (autonomy) and the need to create links with others (relatedness). According to this theory, people have a strong, natural need to constantly extend and strengthen their abilities, skills and expertise, as long as they are able to influence this process themselves (autonomy), preferably doing so in collaboration with others (relatedness). The type of learning that results from these basic needs generally has the characteristics of deep learning and leads to better outcomes (VanSteenkiste et al., 2010). This theory is gaining greater significance both in the world of work and in schools.
In everyday learning and working situations, creating structures and providing space for the aspect of autonomy is a major problem. Due to the large number of regulations, procedures, rules and protocols that exist, the scope for autonomy is increasingly restricted, particularly for students in a uniform, compulsory curriculum and for employees working at low levels in the hierarchy of an organisation. According to SDT this restriction therefore also negatively influences the willingness to work on developing further skills and hampers the enjoyment of this. Teachers and managers are aware of this too, but they can often see few opportunities to create greater autonomy if the prescribed curriculum, examination requirements and performance targets remain in place.
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3.4. Enthusiasm and stress A completely different theory proves helpful when it comes to exploring factors that promote our enthusiasm for our work. Schaufeli and Bakker (2004, 2008) have carried out research into factors that promote stress and burn-out. On the basis of their findings they were also able to indicate which elements of everyday work reduce stress factors and strengthen engagement and enthusiasm. The following four aspects are involved: Dedication: does the work have meaning for you, can you take pride in it, is it inspiring and can you find enthusiasm for it? Absorption: Can you become completely absorbed in your work, do you find yourself in the flow and does the work regularly allow you to completely forget yourself? Challenge: Does your work regularly present you with challenges, for example through new and complex tasks? Enjoyment: Does your work give you pleasure, does it make you curious and does it offer you adequate opportunities for self-expression?
If work regularly satisfies the four aspects set out above, it is very likely that there will be a high level of engagement and enthusiasm for the work, you will experience less stress, the risk of burn-out will be lower and you will have more energy to devote to the work. It is interesting to apply this approach of enthusiasm and engagement in work when carrying out the exploratory work on increasing the attractiveness of the school system for pupils, students and teachers.
More and more research has become available recently that reveals the positive relationships between an attitude of showing appreciation for talent, basic needs according to SDT, aspects relating to enthusiasm, the relationship with an increasing belief in one's own ability (Self-efficacy) and the results of learning and work (Bushe & Kassam, 2005; Van Dinther, Dochy, & Segers, 2011; Verleysen & Van Acker, 2010). On the basis of these findings it can be assumed that the attractiveness of education and improvements in quality are both made up of a combination of appreciating talent, increasing autonomy, stimulating social connections and avoiding experiences of failure and frustrations, which promotes greater self-efficacy.
18 3.5 New insights into brain function Recent studies looking at the way the brain works have led to considerable optimism in relation to the potential to obtain better performance from the brain. The pointers for the education system that it may be possible to derive from the findings of neuroscientists, are very diverse (Damasio, 1994; Howard-Jones, 2010; Sousa, 2006; Spee, 2012). The brain can function better if it has plenty of oxygen, fuel and rest. Open windows, physical exercise, healthy eating and sufficient hours of sleep are all good for brain activity. The neuroplasticity of the brain makes it possible to create new networks of connections again and again, which seems to indicate that the potential for learning is almost unlimited. To make those networks permanent, however, activities do have to be repeated regularly over a longer period, since otherwise the abilities will disappear again. Due to the sensitivity of the brain to images, smells and tactile impressions, teaching interventions that use such varied modalities may result in improved retention. It is also useful to make the connection between the function of mirror neurons and social interactions between people, which may account for the power of exemplary behaviour and imitation. The function of neurotransmitters provides support for the idea of creating a safe and pleasant learning environment, where successes are appreciated. Learning is more effective when it is fun and exciting. If knowledge is organised in neural networks, it is worth the effort to create links with existing knowledge, presenting information in varied forms such as looking things up, thinking of applications and playing with the material. Above all, learning should be meaningful and should ideally elicit an emotional or aesthetic experience. If you are consciously aiming to develop a particular skill, it helps to name a concrete goal and preferably also to visualise it. Providing a focus helps the brain to filter information and work towards the goal in a more targeted way. It is notable that advanced neurophysiological imaging techniques and dopamine function can be used to build a basis of support for the traditional upbringing rules and teaching methods at school. Using the results of brain research it is also possible to use neurological approaches to transform an opinion based on individual preferences or ideological convictions into a truth. New insights into brain structures and the functions of biochemical metabolism in the brain have sometimes led to rather euphoric expectations and a veritable neuromythology has emerged as a result. Despite the complexity of the micro-scale processes in the brain, over-simplification of the findings can also result in a new one- sidedness in terms of the opportunities for guided instruction, an approach
19 in which the roles of personality, intrinsic motivation and previous learning experience all disappear from view. If the brain of a child going through puberty is still developing, the need for structure can easily be interpreted as a need for restraint and discipline. The beneficial effects of rest, routine and concentration can be presented as reasons for limiting freedom of movement and the child's own contribution. Apart from these qualifying observations, we find that modern research into the brain offers significant support for learning activities that promote active engagement, in a social context with a pleasant learning environment, which above all provides space for affective preferences and personal significance and meaning. This may provide some support for the need for a type of knowledge development which is based on personalised, meaningful learning.
Views on learning and development are not entirely unanimous, however, and even the scientific research seeking to provide better insights into this area has its own premises and assumptions. These often coincide with deep convictions about the aims of the education system and they range from qualifying students for further education and professions, with a strong emphasis on tight structures and objective assessment, to identifying personal talents and helping to develop these without any pressure or coercion from external examinations. Each of these convictions is also engendering schools of thought in scientific research which present corresponding evidence for the various views.
3.6 Ownership and pressure to perform Teachers play an important role in defining the quality of education. The teacher establishes contact with pupils and students, creates a safe environment, organises meaningful learning activities, explains their purpose, helps those who find the process difficult and gives everyone a sense of being worthwhile. This requires complex skills which are also very personal in nature. The teacher is his own tool (Stevens, 2010).
Those who consider that the quality of education needs to be improved, however, generally will engage in activities such as defining targets, controlling, monitoring, measuring performance, correcting deviations, strengthening the knowledge base, providing additional training and registering professional skills.
20 There is a collision here between two worlds which are difficult to reconcile with each other: the talent of enthusiastic and engaged ownership and the need to satisfy pressures to perform which are imposed from outside.
In 2001 legislation was passed in the United states under President G.W. Bush which brought about far-reaching educational reforms, under the slogan No Child Left Behind (Congress Federal Government USA, 2001). The key aims focused on increasing the general ability of students in primary and secondary education, improving the quality of teachers and allowing every child, regardless of their social background, to have access to a high standard of education. These reforms were accompanied by a very strict system of accountability. Each school has to demonstrate that it has achieved a higher score every year on the basis of standardised tests: this is the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) system. Penalties are imposed on those failing to achieve this, which include being publicly named as a poor performing school, reduced funding and dismissal of teachers with poor scores. Strict training requirements are imposed on teachers by law. Schools are only allowed to use educational methods that have been proven to be successful on the basis of scientific research. Practical experience, interviews, case studies, action research and other forms of qualitative data collection do not constitute a valid basis for an evidence- based approach to education.
Now, ten years later, opinions are very divided on this radical educational reform. Specific disputed points are the increase in social inequality, because the poor performing schools are generally the schools with underprivileged pupils, and these are hit hard by the AYP system. In areas where there was a shortage of teachers, this situation became worse in many cases. Constant targeting of test results in literacy and numeracy resulted in a practice of teaching to the test, and sometimes even cheating to the test and as a result the range of teaching offered became narrower (Ratvich, 2010). In the international comparative PISA study (OECD, 2010) which considered the skills of 15 year old students in schools, the US fell from 15th place for reading (in 2000) to 17th (in 2009) and in numeracy it fell from 24th place (in 2003) to 30th place (in 2009). The Obama administration is currently working on a revision of the reform measures, which places less emphasis on constant testing and accountability and leaves more room for personalised learning and customized support to support (Federal Government USA, 2010).
21 In sharp contrast to the American No Child Left Behind regime is the Finnish model, in which the highly trained teacher is the key player. Standardised tests play only a minor role. School is not just a place for numeracy and literacy. The school provides care and welfare too. There is dental care, psychological support and a free, healthy lunch. Teachers are closely involved in improving the education provided and developing and implementing plans that will allow them to provide tailored teaching to students who are running ahead and other students who need additional support. The craftsmanship, autonomy and professional space provided for teachers in Finland makes teaching one of the most highly valued of all professions in that country. Each year more than 6000 candidates apply for the 1000 teacher training places that are available (Sahlberg, 2012). The Finnish education system has come highest in the international educational rankings for many years (OECD, 2010; Pearson, 2012).
The sharp contrast between the education systems in the United States and Finland again raises the question of whether improving the education system is about closely controlling performance indicators or whether it is better to deal with these difficult questions on the basis of a teaching culture in which teachers, school leaders, governors and parents work together to develop and test new and unconventional approaches. In control systems aimed at performance improvement, the results are well defined, for example higher scores for numeracy and literacy, fewer early school leavers and more adult participation. Tight control and accountability based on performance targets do of course require strong leadership. In the short term, this leads to a boost in output. After three or four years, however, growth comes to a standstill, despite the extra efforts being made in terms of money, energy and the use of improved working methods. We have been able to see this clearly from the major educational reform carried out in the United Kingdom (Fullan, 2005). A culture of assessment based on numerical measures in which the process of shared creation of meaning is lost, ultimately leads to unintentional but perverse incentives and undermines the sense of enthusiastic craftsmanship among professionals. At this point, alienation, exhaustion, cynicism, depression and burn-out are lurking just around the corner. The Council for Societal Development (RMO, 2011) has drawn lessons from the recent credit crisis and showed not only how control mechanisms in relation to mortgage provision and the bonus culture have perverse effects with disastrous consequences, but also pointed to comparable dangers in health care, social care and education. The RMO easily creates links between a similar one-sided system of control based on financial results in higher education
22 and the dominant importance of rankings. The performance paradigm creates an incentive for schools to achieve the highest possible demonstrable result as measured against a limited number of predetermined targets, preferably using the fewest possible resources. Due to the strong emphasis on quantitative outcome measures in education, teachers and students become alienated from themselves. Precisely because the teacher himself is the most important tool that he uses in his professional work, this kind of alienation causes a decline in the quality of teaching (Stevens, 2010) and ultimately has a demoralising effect on professionals. It takes away from professionals the autonomy to act according to their own insights. If this system of controls is also seen as one-sided or unfair, confidence will be lost in those exercising control and the relationship will degenerate into cynicism. This in turn is detrimental to the attractiveness of the education system and the teaching profession.
3.7 Implications for the development of talent The development of talent is about more than delivering measurable performance. Teachers wish to play a part in developing self-confidence, creativity, persistence, independence and curiosity among their students. They consider it important to work on areas such as respect, a sense of responsibility and willingness to participate in dialogue. These are learning outcomes that are not expressed as scores in the current standardised tests (Volman, 2011).
A common thread can be seen in all these developments whereby generally greater value is being attributed to differentiation, individualisation, personalisation, individually tailored work, a focus on demand, active participation, intrinsic motivation, appreciation of talent, learning from each other, learning about types of collaboration, learning in non-traditional school environments, learning from authentic experiences, learning from meaningful activities, paying attention to diversity, counteracting social exclusion and discriminatory selection, recognising and valuing difference and promoting creativity.
In a future in which the demands on citizens and employees are turning out to be increasingly difficult to define, the importance of teaching clear and objectively measurable, cognitive content will change considerably. Representing comparable educational performance in terms of numeracy and literacy through the use of standardised tests may be an important aid to determining the quality of national education systems in terms of effectiveness, control, autonomy and social inequality, but in themselves
23 these performance measures present too limited a picture of the educational outcomes that are desirable in order to allow participation in a complex society with many different pressures. There is a major risk that actively seeking to achieve high yields, through intentional controls that tend in this direction and holding schools and teachers accountable for these will lead to perverse incentives, choke off engagement and undermine professional autonomy.
The basis underlying the above explorations makes clear the importance of autonomy, enthusiasm, engagement and the ability and willingness to take responsibility, since these are preconditions for the development of creativity, independent thinking and a pleasure in learning and development of pupils, students and teachers. This in turn raises questions about the strict controls based on performance indicators that are increasingly being seen in the education system. These controls are the expression of a fundamental lack of trust in pupils, students, teachers and school managers (headmasters), which will ultimately result in alienation, overwork, unattractiveness, premature dropout and people leaving the profession. A general feeling of dissatisfaction will create an image of teaching which is marred by frustration, failure and unattractiveness.
3.8 Digitalisation of teaching ICT has a part to play in many different ways. For the current generation of teachers, policymakers and managers, ICT is a medium that can be used to exchange information quickly. Although economic output in the business world is now based almost entirely on the working of ICT systems, where work has become largely independent of specific times and places, the influence of this change has been relatively limited in the education system. ICT offers powerful opportunities to establish contacts that are otherwise not possible. It creates opportunities to spend time in a fictional world that can be more attractive than reality. ICT has not yet brought about radical changes of this kind in the education system.
Rubens (2003) indicates that the development of e-learning, after a phase of exaggerated enthusiasm in the 1990s, is now going through a phase of disappointment. He mentions concerns about the poor quality of many e-learning teaching materials, a lack of interaction, an awareness that high-quality e-learning applications are not necessarily cheaper, the realisation that many e-learning applications require extra programmes that actually raise the threshold for access, electronic learning environments that are no more than platforms on which information and
24 documents are exchanged, and the lack of real renewal in teaching practices.
Digitalisation offers many opportunities, but it does not necessarily enrich teaching or make it more accessible to a wider group of people. Clearly the hype is now over and there is room for an assessment of what works and what does not. The increasing focus on digital literacy as a precondition for participation in today's society (Mariën & Van Audenhove, 2013) and the increase in blended rather than full e-learning applications both illustrate the search for truly meaningful ways of using new technology. The emphasis on the importance of interaction, the potential offered by social media in this area (Van Meeuwen, 2011) and the call for digital applications with the emphasis on teaching methods (Sercu, 2012) also point to the evolution of e-learning into a powerful form of learning with real added value.
Perhaps the disappointment with digitalisation in the education system is linked to the fact that our existing views on teaching, learning and development no longer fit in with the opportunities available and the growth in the area of digital media. The importance of digitalisation has probably been much greater in terms of developments such as globalisation, creating links, accessing and moving around networks and creating virtual worlds, than its limited applications in a context where there has been little change in views on teaching methods. This may indicate that thinking in the area of education is still lagging far behind the developments in the area of digitalisation and that it will therefore hardly be possible to integrate ICT in the education system in an acceptable way. Developments could probably move in the right direction more strongly if the education system were to adapt to the possibilities offered by ICT. This, however, would mean letting go of traditional views in relation to learning, acquiring information and knowledge and developing skills.
As computers make further progress within the education system, these objections will also grow louder. Spitzer, Professor and Director of the University Psychiatric Hospital in Ulm, in his bestseller Digitale Demenz: Wie wir uns und unsere Kinder um den Verstand bringen [Digital Dementia: how we are destroying our minds and those of our children] (Spitzer, 2012) takes a strong line against the use of computers in the education system. He asserts that working with screens harms children's ability to concentrate and impairs their language acquisition and social skills. It
25 results in computer addiction, speech, learning and attention disorders and depression. Virtual learning cannot replace the process of engaging actively with reality but it does reduce the ability to do so. Delfos (2012) adopts a more nuanced approach in her criticism of the extensive use of computers by young children, arriving at a set of recommendations which are helpful in regulating varied learning environments.
3.9 A generation gap with a clash of experiences The integrated incorporation of ICT in the education system will no doubt have a major impact on self-directed student learning, diversity in applications and the creation of diverse types of connections extending far beyond the individual school. For a large proportion of young people this process has probably already been underway for a long time and as a result they experience school as a part of their rhythm of work that is compulsory, a place where they actually no longer feel at home because it increasingly is left outside their real experience, which is often much more interesting, exciting, richer and more adventurous. When asking how to make education attractive in a long-term way, a radical openness to ICT and social media as a way of life could play an important part.
ICT, the use of the internet, social media and the ability to move around in virtual networks may, however, also engender a new generation gap. Exponents of the traditional world are adopting a position which is far removed from the new digital natives. ICT probably has a greater influence on the world in which people think and live their lives than we would now consider possible, which will make communication and collaboration between the older generation and the ICT generation more and more difficult. This means more than just making available technological tools such as computer networks, smartphones and tablets (Van Meeuwen, 2011). For the new generation, ICT and an online life will be inseparably linked to identity and the creation of significance and meaning. As a result, the actual use of online networks is only the technological manifestation of a much more wide-ranging youth culture about which older people and teachers know virtually nothing, let alone having the ability to connect with it. Punk, funk, hip-hop, heavy metal, new weird and gothic may be names closely associated with pop music but they play an important role in exploring identities, sensemaking and the creation of significance, complete with their own clothing, language, rituals and customs, in a way that is not accessible to older people or consequently also to teachers.
26 In order to understand premature dropout, the difficulty of connecting with young people, a sense of the relationships between them and the role of influence within their own circles, youth culture must be approached in an honest and unprejudiced way. If this is not done, and if the gap has already become too large, it will be difficult to turn the school into an attractive place to learn and work.
3.10 Making the education system attractive The change in relation to ICT will have much greater implications for the education system than simply offering new opportunities to transfer curriculum content and look up information. A generation growing up with an internet connection from birth will have different ways of learning, gathering information, developing knowledge and finding their way in a changing society. Dominant learning systems based on hierarchy, obedience, assessment and exclusion will clash with the anarchy of social media, the ability to move around in multiple and diverse networks, with identities which are based more on different types of connections than on the uniform structures of the system of school years and classes. Such a world will give rise to new tensions and forms of loneliness and exclusion. Many existing teachers will find it difficult to connect, let alone offer any help with it.
Although computers have made their entrance in more and more schools, ICT and the digitalisation of work have not broken through in many places into the wider field of education, while elsewhere in society they have turned the way things are done completely upside-down. This may indicate a lack of opportunities for change and renewal in the education system. On the basis of that reasoning we would have to adjust any expectations that the education system will be able to make a significant contribution towards the renewal of society.
We are making significant efforts to make education attractive and keep young people at school for longer, in order to reduce the number of drop- outs and leavers. The EU wishes to reduce the number of premature school-leavers to 10% and increase participation in vocational and higher education to 40%. To achieve this, it will be necessary to ensure that school fits in better with youth culture. The same young people we are struggling to help today are already living their lives online and participating in digital communities every day. For them, a place without internet access is a place without oxygen, since it does not offer them access to the networks where they belong and of which they form a part. Despite the many efforts being
27 made in the area of digitalisation, many schools have hardly managed to connect with their experience at all. Digitalisation of the school experience is an important ingredient in the strategy to make education attractive to young people again.
Robinson (2013) puts this very powerfully when he says that today's formal education is not capable of addressing certain essential human characteristics, such as diversity, curiosity and creativity. Educational environments which are oriented towards adaptation to uniformity and standardisation, in which the course content and examinations have a more important role than the student, are not attractive to young people. They do not feel at home in such places. In such environments you can keep things going on the basis of obedience and discipline for a long time, certainly if you are good at these things. Once that fails, the only alternative is to leave. Robinson’s (2013) recent comments therefore address the question: ‘How to escape education’s death valley?’
Lucas, Claxton and Spencer (2013) attempt to operationalise these aspects of diversity, creativity and curiosity further, in the hope that they will assume a more prominent role in the education system as a result. This particularly concerns aspects such as: - Imagination, which includes playing with possibilities, creating connections and allowing and using intuition. - Curiosity, which includes being surprised, asking questions, exploring and researching. - Persistence, which includes being able to cope with uncertainty, carrying on when things are difficult and having the courage to be different. - Collaboration, which includes sharing each other's products, giving and receiving feedback and getting on with people in a constructive way. - Discipline, which includes being able to reflect critically, developing skills and improving ways of working. This summary also makes it clear how much wider these 21st Century Skills are than the knowledge and skills that are generally expressed in learning outcomes and above all in examination requirements and which form the basis of teaching and assessment.
The emphasis is generally on basic literacy and numeracy skills. It seems that these have to be in place first, before any space is made available for imagination, curiosity and collaboration. Improving the quality of education,
28 however, is also about learning to find pleasure in curiously exploring new things, developing social skills, reinforcing the faith in one's own ability and self-respect, supporting citizenship, emancipation and social cohesion, dealing with cultural diversity and enlarging the safe living and working environment, starting with safety at school. We could also add to this list tasks such as providing public information about healthy living, the dangers of obesity, alcohol and drug abuse, life as a heterosexual and homosexual, and living together with people who have different cultural backgrounds. If this can be done successfully, school will be an attractive place to be and numeracy and literacy will serve as useful tools in order to realise that ambition.
3.11 Effective education, what is it for? Familiar approaches to studies on education, which emphasise enhancing the results of the learning process (student outcomes), improving the school systems that are effective for these (school improvement) and how to manage them (governance and funding) will be completely inadequate when there is a need to build learning environments to achieve the development of personalised talent, self-direction, enthusiasm, engagement, imagination and community formation.
Hattie (2009) takes a large number of meta-analyses and distils out the core of effective teaching, which is the all-important factor in meaningful teaching and learning. The following factors distinguish the best from the mediocre: - top teachers challenge their pupils with goals and tasks in a way that fits well with their abilities (challenge & differentiation) - top teachers work on the basis of a deep representation of knowledge about learning which enables them to explain things clearly, create links between prior knowledge and content and create links between different subjects both within and outside a subject area. - top teachers are able to monitor their students carefully in the way they approach questions, ascertain their current level and their progress and give appropriate feedback that offers them new insights (monitoring and feedback).
Where will these top teachers be focusing their core qualities in future? Steering students in a predefined direction, based on a uniform curriculum derived from skills that are expected to be in demand in the society of the
29 future, or identifying what makes young people curious or motivates them, perceiving their talents and their potential, and helping to support them in a way that results in a high degree of independence and self-reliance? Is the education system facing a choice between either domesticating and disciplining citizens using competency profiles and required skills, or emancipating them so that they can hold their own, maintaining self- determination and an innovative approach amidst an extremely diverse, unpredictable and unsafe environment? In the past Freire (1970) and Chomsky (2000) spoke about the domesticating effect of education, which results in the reproduction of social inequality and causes a decline in creative ability.
If the core qualities set out by Hattie (2009) are synonymous with effective education, what will we use them for in the future? The VLOR (2013), in its recent recommendation on the EU report Rethinking Education (2012b) called strongly for a continuing focus on social cohesion, a long-term approach and equal opportunities from a teaching perspective. This is a wide-ranging task from the point of view of education policy, which supports the idea of emancipation and is more critical about making one- sided changes to the education system based on economic demands resulting from the current crisis. In the mission of education, the development of the person and the perspective of the learner, must remain the central focus. Given a very unpredictable and turbulent environment, the education system will not be able to fulfill this societal role in isolation, so it will be necessary to enter into multifaceted relationships involving collaboration with social partners, health care organisations and social care institutions. The learner's perspective is always the starting-point, and the sense of participation, well-being, involvement and motivation will demand the highest level of attention.
This focusing of attention on personal development and the support for the learning individual will also lead to different living and learning arrangements for children and young people, particularly in the 0-12 age group. The existing patchwork-type provision consisting of child care providers, nurseries and kindergartens, before-school and after-school clubs, primary education, youth support and social services, could be integrated into children's centres, where young people can go from 08.00 to 20.00, 7 days a week, 50 weeks of the year (Studulski, 2010)
30 3.12 Medicalisation and specialisation One of the forms of increasing complexity in our society can be seen in the problematisation of youth in relation to issues such as activity, stress and concentration. Every type of problem demands a diagnosis and a treatment plan, and this can lead to labels such as ADHD, dyslexia, PDD-NOS, dyscalculia, DCD clumsiness and hypersensitivity, sometimes with referrals to medical services and specialist education. Specialisation and medicalisation may be the result of this, with an increasing number of prescriptions, for example Rilatine (= Ritalin) for ADHD and antidepressants. In the Netherlands, the use of ADHD medication rose by 34% in 2007 (Van Dijk, Zuidgeest, Van Dijk, & Verheij, 2008). This increase in the use of medication for behavioural problems in children is worrying and demands a review of the approach to these issues. In response to this development of problematisation, medicalisation and specialisation, there is a desire to pay more attention within the mainstream education system to behavioural problems and concentration disorders affecting children, without immediately placing them in forms of specialist education. This does demand further professionalisation among teachers and support from specialist healthcare consultants.
3.13 Legalism and restrictions on autonomy Many professionals within the education system are looking for and experimenting with new ways of learning that respond to the desire to devote attention to the diversity, curiosity and creativity of young people. They often find that this is hampered, however, among other factors by the rise in legislation and regulation in education. One recurring complaint is that an excessively legalistic approach hampers the autonomy of teaching staff and that legalism may be crossing a critical boundary (Korsten, 2010) and threatening the teaching process. The government uses the courts as a tool to maintain its influence and power in an increasingly globalised world. Interdisciplinary learning outcomes, inspections, registration entitlements, compulsory improvements in governance, checks on decisions made by schools on examinations and regulations of extra charges in schools are a few examples of areas in which legalism is making itself felt in the education system (Beliën & Van Haegendoren, 2010).
The school is accountable, however, not only to its funding authority (Van der Waal, 2007) but also to teachers, parents, neighbours, to the government and to the labour market. The publication of information on schools (such as inspection reports) can be understood on the basis of this increased demand for accountability to different stakeholders (VLOR, 2010).
31 It is indisputably true that parents have rights in terms of accessibility, freedom of choice, quality and information about their child's education. The question, however, is whether the legally enforceable nature of those rights should be made more comprehensive or whether more attention should be paid to developing partnerships between parents, the community and the school in order to share responsibility. Good education, in which teachers take into account the varying needs of learners, according to Van Crombrugge (2012), stands or falls on the basis of a high level of trust among the various partners involved in education. In a culture where there is little trust and little consultation, lawsuits can have a counter-productive effect, because they are interpreted as an expression of mistrust and a restriction on the teacher's professional autonomy. To prevent disputes and conflicts with stakeholders, it seems that emphasising participative school leadership and co-creative schools in which all those involved make the school together (Smits, Vandeputte & Larock, 2012) may be a promising direction to explore.
32 4. Building blocks for an agenda for innovation and research for 2030 The key themes for an agenda for innovation and research that looks forward to the education system in 2030 come from the observed diversity and tensions resulting from the developments outlined above. These are set out below in the form of a large number of questions that may provide direction during the coming dialogues on the future of education.
4.1. The curriculum What will be the common knowledge base for education in the future? Is there a core curriculum with a uniform set of knowledge, skills and attitudes? Is there a common base of content that every person involved in the educational system should have mastered, either in the form of initial qualifications or in order to gain access to further education? Is it possible to formulate the basic knowledge that is needed in order to function in a knowledge society? Is it possible, based on views on this basic knowledge, to describe uniform levels for primary education, secondary education, vocational education and higher education? How do these levels relate to core values such as participation, social cohesion, sustainability, autonomy, responsibility and creativity? Are there skills that are required in order to survive in the 21st century? (http://education-2020.wikispaces.com/21st+Century+Learning)
A tension emerges around the effect of controls resulting from the presence of compulsory basic knowledge, competency profiles and required skills, and also from the need to identify, discover and develop talents. Everyone has talents, all talents must be developed and no talent must be wasted (Commissie Accent op Talent, 2009). The practice of exerting control through prescribed content is based on an approach to education which is fundamentally different from the talent-oriented development which starts by valuing and recognising the individual's potential and ambitions. Here a deficiency-based approach clashes with a growth-based perspective.
There is increasing agreement that the so-called soft skills referred to above such as creativity, curiosity, entrepreneurship and innovation have a crucial part to play in developing the society of the future. There are also doubts as to whether the existing education system is capable of adequately meeting this challenge (EU, 2012).
33 4.2 Diversity and personalisation The exploration set out above referred to the increasing super-diversity of the society of the future, with its varied experiences, cultural differences and multilingualism. There is also a desire to focus learning environments on individual differences and personal preferences. This is not only in order to improve learning outcomes, but also to satisfy the need for well-being, engagement and motivation. What are the consequences of diversity and personalisation? Is there a tension between an individualised approach and the core curriculum? Is the educational system capable of connecting with people's differences and preferences in relation to learning and areas of knowledge, even for a student population whose composition is so diverse that social cohesion clearly becomes a major issue? Is there a tension between the desire to develop everyone's talent and the required basic knowledge? What influence does a uniform, standardised assessment system have on efforts to achieve diversity, personal development and diverse educational content? Diversity probably demands a small-scale approach; is it possible to satisfy this demand, in an environment where education is increasingly delivered on a mass scale?
4.3 Perspectives on knowledge and learning What is the perspective on knowledge and learning underlying the educational system? Does it see knowledge as gathered cultural heritage, accumulated in the past, which we have to pass on to a new generation by means of the educational system? Is learning about the ability to access those cultural goods and internalise them in the individual's own thinking and experience? Is it about knowledge as a personal ability to identify new and unfamiliar problems, analyse them and design and implement a solution based on relevant information? How does a person acquire a critical attitude, a capacity for innovation and a creative mind? If we offer the independent student a high level of autonomy in terms of both the content to be learned and the way in which it is acquired, will such an independent student learn enough? Is learning an individual matter, or is it above all a social undertaking?
What does an educational system look like which is based not on teaching a uniform curriculum but rather on unfolding individual talents and developing personal skills? Is basic knowledge a precondition for the development of skills or does the development of personal skills invite people to find out the relevant information?
34 4.4 Digitalisation and ICT Can it be assumed that ICT and digitalisation will cause a new generation gap? What is the influence of ICT on the thinking and experience of young people? Is ICT limited to new forms of information delivery and communication, or does it also influence people's thinking and experience and thus their way of sensemaking?
How can the educational system play a bridging role in this area? (OECD, 2013). How much attention is the education system paying to the older generation of people who have not grown up with ICT and are increasingly falling behind the younger generation? What skills do pupils, students and employees in the education system need in order to structure ICT appropriately in their own learning and working environments? Can the education system be innovative in this area, or is it only capable of playing a supporting role?
4.5 Lifelong learning What are the implications of efforts towards lifelong learning in terms of structuring the education system? How can we make education so attractive that people develop habits of learning to learn and lifelong learning? How can we create a school that offers an attractive prospect of developing talents even at later stages in life, in contrast to an institution that people want to leave as quickly as possible? How can you acquire skills that will allow you to structure lifelong learning independently?
4.6 Knowledge productivity and social inequality If a knowledge society is mainly driven by the dynamism of constant renewal and innovation, how can we structure the education system in such a way that everyone is invited to learn and participate in it? Does a strong emphasis on transferring cultural heritage promote or does it actually inhibit improvement and innovation? How can you make people curious about relevant information and how can you help them to develop the skill to identify this information, process it and convert it into new personal skills? How can formal learning and informal learning find a place in the education system? Is the knowledge society mainly an attractive place to learn and work for highly educated people, and are less well educated people and those doing traditional jobs left behind (Unicef, 2010; 2012)? Are renewal and innovation mainly economic in character or do they also apply to the complex questions associated with participation,
35 sustainability and social cohesion? What role can the education system play in this area?
4.7 The workplace as a place to learn What are the implications of the fact that working environments are devoting more and more attention to knowledge development, developing talents and focusing on the acquisition of new skills? How will the boundaries between school and work become blurred? How is the appreciation for the world of work and professional life increasing? Will the education system be extending itself into the world of work? How can the school system make use of the rich learning environment that a workplace can provide? Is that workplace meaningful as a place of learning mostly in vocational education, or is this perhaps also the case in primary, secondary and higher education? Will teachers be participating more in the world of work? Can teachers who do not themselves participate in work outside the school offer good preparation for knowledge-based work?
4.8 The division of roles between government and school Can the government promote the structuring of an education system that meets the need for diversity? Is the government the principal monitor of the quality of the education system? What does the task of a quality monitoring authority look like if we no longer have a uniform curriculum and if central assessment is no longer an appropriate tool? How, in an education system aiming to achieve diversity, can the government simultaneously satisfy the principles of equal opportunities and fair distribution? (Sahlberg, 2012). How, in a knowledge economy, can everyone still have equal access to the education system?
How can the government protect citizens against conflicting interests in dual forms of education in which businesses, institutions and schools work closely together to structure the education system? If, in dual forms of education, the better students have a higher chance of finding attractive jobs, how can we protect the less talented ones from impoverished learning workplaces? Should we encourage students to combine a study career with a part-time job, which will improve their chances in the future?
How can the government encourage development-oriented research that will explore the possibilities and hindrances presented by new educational arrangements and generate new and inspiring examples for the education system of the future? How can the government promote renewal and
36 innovation in the education system without the existing system of rules imposed by the same government discouraging the same things? Is there an exclusive task for the government, as an important promoter and funder of the above-mentioned questions relating to renewal, and what part will be played by individual schools and the social partners? How can schools retain ownership over improvements and innovations, since doing so is an important precondition for successful implementation?
4.9 A new debate on the aims of the education system The questions set out above refer directly or indirectly to the purpose of education: what aims should an education system be seeking to achieve? They also touch on personal views on the role of education, which in many cases are coloured by people's own experiences. A number of different approaches have been mentioned during the course of this essay. These range from preparing young people to occupy a meaningful place in society, to creating freedom to make choices independently and structure their own lives in future.
In his famous essay Education as Socialization and as Individualization (1989), American philosopher Richard Rorty (1931-2007) describes two main tendencies in thinking about the aims of education (See also Wijnberg, 2009).
On one side is the tendency according to which the primary aim of education is the socialisation of children. The school is above all involved in training the pupils, teaching and imparting to them a fixed package of academic knowledge and skills, social norms and values, together with a certain civic sense, so that they will later be able to participate in society as responsible citizens. The teacher is the carrier and imparter of the knowledge which is assembled in the fixed core curriculum.
On the other side is the tendency according to which the primary aim of education is the individualisation of children. This tendency sees the school more as a guide, offering the students various different resources that will allow them to develop into the person they would naturally wish to become. Here it is not the fixed, prescribed knowledge that is most important, but the development of a critical ability that enables the pupils themselves to shape and perhaps even radically change their own future - and that of society. This demands a flexible curriculum and the implementation of new technologies in which the teacher stands among the pupils as a coach.
37 These two tendencies, which Rorty links respectively to conservative and radical left-wing approaches, and which in the recent publication by Reijngoud (2013) result in Followers and Shapers, are also expressed in the German concepts of Ausbildung and Bildung.
It becomes more complex if Ausbildung as preparation for future work takes the form of adjustment, discipline and domestication, with an (excessively) one-sided emphasis on economic utilitarian thinking. The VLOR (2013) warns against this in a response to the European Union education policy (2012a and 2012b). Here numeracy and literacy are the core of the curriculum and form the basis for all subsequent forms of secondary education. This view tends to lead to a reduced interest in creative expressions, physical activity, culture and cultural differences, appreciation for manual skills and technical/instrumental approaches. It may result in strict rule-based systems with prescribed competency profiles, standardised national tests, agreed performance targets linked to budgeting systems and a competitive examination system, which opens the way to the top for only a few and delivers a series of experiences of frustration, lack of achievement and failure for many people. One-sided utilitarian thinking may degenerate into a system of constant selection and exclusion, which overshadows the enjoyment of learning and development and reproduces existing social inequalities. It undermines the intrinsic motivation and belief in one's own ability, which are two conditions for further growth and development. It may give rise to perverse incentives, as the Council for Social Development (RMO, 2011) also warns. It creates a temptation for schools to commit financial and diploma fraud, and for students to steal examination test papers and sell them on the internet.
The Bildung ideal can accommodate the current concern to develop talents and strive to get the best from yourself, while there is also critical reflection on the environment in which people live. Aleid Truijens (in Reijngoud, 2013) summarises this as follows: "The most important task of the education system is to show children and young people how the world works and to teach them to think about it. That task is certainly important for children who do not receive much from home, as in the case of many children from underprivileged neighbourhoods and families of blue-collar workers. Where will the children come into contact with history and culture, other than at school? This does not apply only to them: even children with well-educated parents do not always have a rich and formative upbringing at home. Many people's lives consist largely of nothing but work and consumption. For many people their time at school is
38 the only period in their life when they think deeply about history, read poetry and novels, look at art, learn to make music or see lettuces grow in the school garden."
The development of talent, self-development, creative and artistic formation, critical reflection and learning to think independently and autonomously may hold the promise of creating freedom and promoting emancipation, but in the eyes of many these are vague intentions that are difficult to put into practice at all, let alone measure and assess for their effectiveness and efficiency. Brilliant teachers will use the space that is provided responsibly and professionally, but less talented staff may easily lose track of what is going on, waste the students' time and squander the public resources that are made available. Experiments with the new learning, the study house and self-directed learning have often ended in failures and conflicts, and students have paid for these with educational delays.
When structuring the education system of the future, views from both tendencies will need to find a place, preferably in a way that does not allow good intentions to degenerate into dogmatic restrictions that would form the basis for deep-rooted conflicts with no prospect of reconciliation.
39 5. Final conclusion The explorations of developments in society (Part 2) and developments within the education system (Part 3) gave rise to a number of questions for the future in Part 4. These questions reflect a number of areas of tension in which breakthroughs will be needed in the upcoming debates on the education system of the future. The possible areas of tension are set out below by way of a conclusion.
5.1. Encouraging autonomy, renewal and responsibility, or steering towards competency profiles that support economic development? Freedom and emancipation versus discipline and domestication?
5.2. Enhancing basic numeracy and literacy skills, working together in the school context, or broadening learning opportunities by recognising and valuing workplaces alongside adults as fully valid places of learning at an early stage in the learning career (dualisation, not only in higher education and vocational education but also in secondary and possibly primary education).
5.3. ICT has a major part to play as a source of information for traditional educational content and it is also part of a way of working and a way of life that facilitates independence, self-direction, collaboration in networks, interactive learning and self-expression.
5.4. Making education attractive in the long term for both young people and teachers. To achieve this, implicit views on prescribing compulsory teaching material, compulsory education, control, steering, auditing, assessment, selection and exclusion should give way to the recognition and appreciation of talent, encouraging and strengthening the belief in self- efficacy, making room for imagination, creativity and enterprise, valuing differences and recognising equal value. This is about uniformity versus diversity, with a link to people's experiences of youth culture.
5.5. Is the school building a place for the transfer of knowledge to those obliged to study, or a house in which to learn, work, eat, play and live for children aged 0-12, at times when parents find it difficult to provide care for their children? Are we moving towards having integrated children's centres, where partners working together in a chain provide care for children from 08.00 – 20.00, 7 days a week, 50 weeks of the year?
40 5.6. The capacity for renewal in the education system. One important question will be to consider the extent to which the education system has the innovative capacity to begin a process of transformation that will offer a suitable response to the above questions. For many, the education system is the engine of renewal and is preparing the way for the future. We hope to be able to address more effectively many of the issues that we find it difficult to resolve in our society through appropriate education. These include safe participation in traffic, healthy eating and living, living together harmoniously, working on sustainability and creating more interest in beta sciences and technologies.
Skeptics will insist that the potential for change in the education system is very limited, which is expressed among other things in the reasonably limited penetration of ICT, gaming and social media. It is difficult for the vocational education system to keep up with and respond appropriately to developments in the labour market. If it does not succeed in keeping young people on board and reducing premature dropout, schools will not be able to offer an attractive place for the development of talent and for ambitious enhancement of knowledge. If we continue to hold on to the tradition of long summer holidays, which in a predominantly agrarian society were intended to allow children to work with their parents in the fields during the busy summer months, then the high expectations placed on modern innovation will require some adjustment.
Nevertheless, there are many places in the education system where renewal is bursting forth. There are schools that play an active role in their neighbourhoods, schools that work on continuous learning processes to facilitate the children's transition from one type of education to another and schools that devote a lot of attention to creativity, music and dance in the core curriculum. Schools in the special education system, when encountering children with severe disabilities in areas such as vision, hearing and motor ability, are coming up with astonishing approaches that encourage growth and development in a way that nobody thought possible. Some schools are managing to involve parents very actively in education and provide extra support to enrich language skills in low-literacy households. In all these examples it is not regulations, examination requirements or inspections that have been the driving force for change, but enthusiastic, passionate teachers who come up with new approaches and breakthroughs through their own personal engagement. Here once again autonomy, professional space, passion and shared values form the basis for renewal in education. All the government can do is remove
41 inhibiting regulations and recognise and appreciate the talents of professionals working in the field. Perhaps the optimum conditions to allow the education system to become the very best it can be will be those conditions that empower hope: the power and energy that comes from a process of emancipation in which motivated professionals work with like- minded colleagues to shape the ideals that they have chosen. If this comes about, the education system will need only to cherish and encourage these innovative practices.
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