Preparing Children For An “Only the Innovators Survive” Future
The Economist published an article on 18 January 2014 titled “Coming to an office near you: the effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs will be immense – and no country is ready for it”. The Oxford University’s “The Future of Employment” study in 2013 predicts that 47% of today’s US jobs will cease to exist […]
Purpose and Capital to Bring Quality to Education
“Over the past generation many of the most talented people on earth have tried to transform capitalism itself, to use the market to solve social problems. These are people with opposable minds: part profit-oriented and part purpose-oriented.” In describing these “opposable minds,” New York Times columnist David Brooks was commenting on how investors and the social entrepreneurs they are […]
“Learning by doing and making; the virtue of combining very old and very new ideas”
More than a decade ago, when I was in charge of the strategy and policy units under Prime Minister Tony Blair, I lamented to a friend that some of the policies simply weren’t working. The government had no shortage of educational policies. But the ones aiming to re-engage disengaged teenagers showed little sign of any […]
What Can Schools Learn from Resistance to Change?
Even the most effective educational reform effort usually encounters some resistance. Resistance to change refers to any behavior furthering the maintenance of the status quo in the face of pressures to alter it. Much of the literature on change identifies resistance as a crucial element of reactions to change. Change may threaten and disturb us, but it […]
Ready to Work: Education as a Preparation for Working Life
We can no longer assume that being ‘in work’ is the same thing as being employed – ‘having a job’. As the world becomes more connected, so companies get bigger, but so too do opportunities emerge for all kinds of small-scale, niche and self-employed enterprises. Many people who do not have ‘jobs’ in the old-fashioned […]
Fostering Creativity in the Learning Process
Introducing creativity at school is as simple as redesigning the classroom layout or introducing real-world learning, writes Steven Anderson. Several months ago I was having a conversation with a colleague about creativity in learning. We debated back and forth about what creativity looked like and could you really teach creativity. All this stemmed from a comment I […]
Civil Society and the Skills Gap in Latin America
This article is part of a series on innovative solutions to tackle the main challenges of Latin American education (part 2 of 6). The global economy is increasingly defined by jobs that require less than a college degree – but more skills than what can be acquired through a typical high school education alone. At the same time, many […]
What Do Accelerators Accelerate?
In the last years, there has been an explosion in the number of new education and technology projects launched. This impressive boom of edtech initiatives is reaching all sectors and audiences: for-profit businesses are designed to address the new demands of the education market; non-profit organizations adopt technology to new and existing education projects; learners are eager […]
To Join or Not to Join: Decisions Ministries Have to Make About Assessment Studies
As we work in an international organization, we often get a question such as: “What is the right assessment for our country, an international assessment, a regional assessment, or our own national assessment?” This is probably due to the tremendous growth in the number of assessments. Since the International Association for Evaluation of the Educational […]
The China Education Debate: Equity versus Excellence
Education-WISE, Beijing has always been an embarrassment of riches. Beijing is China’s political, intellectual, cultural, and education center, and as such its schools command national attention as well as resources. Beijing also has the luxury of drawing talent from all over China, as well as building bridges to the best schools all around the world. […]