Verkfræði og náttúruvísindasviðMálþing

Framtíðin: Staða okkar og sýn / The Future: Our Prospects and Vision

5. desember 2011 Askja

Menntun og framtíð / The Future and Education

Jón Torfi JónassonMenntavísindasvið HÍ, School of Education UI

jtj@hi.is http://www3.hi.is/~jtj/

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

The future, inertia, how education should respond

How should education balance its emphasis on the past (roots), the present (our daily life) and the future? What is the responsibility of the system to ensure this balance and who should shoulder this?

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Inertia, what forces, traditions, values are holding the system back?

The future, two issues

a) Can we predict or envisage the future? b) What changes should we be concerned with?

The future

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

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University Labour market LLL

The past

The present

The future

Where are we now? On balance?

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How is the school system addressing the past, the present and the future?

The past, the present and the future, post-compulsory education

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

The past

The present

The future

Upper secondary education

Higher education

The future, two issues: first - can we predict or envisage the future?

The simple answer is yes, in very important respects we can and we should be dramatically more preoccupied with it than we are now.

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

But is it really possible to predict?

Yes and no, but in important arenas yes; take some examples

All are examples of exponential growth (Albert Bartlett)

I also ask, by the way, who in the “system” are monitoring these changes and suggesting action for education?

I. The increase in the number of students in higher education in Iceland (US, Japan, the Nordic countries); we know this but not necessarily what they choose.

II. Use of mineral deposits, (but not necessarily their price)III. The growth of published papers or material in the sciencesIV. The development of computer calculating power, viz. Moore’s law, (but not how it may be

utilised).Most of this is robustly regular, not only over 25 years but probably 125 years and the growth 1970-2010 could have been accurately predicted in most cases.

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Higher education: enrolment in Iceland 1911-1970

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All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts

Exponential trend. All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts based on the years 1911-1970

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Higher education: enrolment in Iceland 1911-1970-2010

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All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts

Exponential trend. All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts based on the years 1911-1970

Source: Statistics Iceland

The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation IndexPeder Olesen Larsen1 and Markus von Ins2 Scientometrics. 2010 September; 84(3): 575–603. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/ Fig. 3. Number of records for nine databases 1907–2007 (semi logarithmic scale)

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The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation IndexPeder Olesen Larsen1 and Markus von Ins2 Scientometrics. 2010 September; 84(3): 575–603. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/

“... whether the growth rate of scientific publication is declining? The answer is that traditional scientific publishing, that is publication in peer-reviewed journals, is still increasing although there are big differences between fields. There are no indications that the growth rate has decreased in the last 50 years. At the same time, publication using new channels, for example conference proceedings, open archives and home pages, is growing fast.”

“A tentative conclusion is that old, well established disciplines including mathematics and physics have had slower growth rates than new disciplines including computer science and engineering sciences but that the overall growth rate for science still has been at least 4.7% per year. However, the new publication channels, conference contributions, open archives and publications available on the net, for example in home pages, must be taken into account and may change this situation.”

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Eternal exponetial growth?From Kristín Vala and Harald Sverdrup

NLS meeting Reykjavík 29. September 2011

Staðan tekin

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The future, two issues: second - What changes should we be concerned

with?

I will now mention 10 important reasons why we must look to the future, more proactively than we tend to do?

Each deserves a serious in depth discussion, but here we only have time just to mention each of them.

Some of these arguments on their own might be deemed to be a sufficient cause for rethinking; but I think all of them taken together present a very powerful case for the re-conceptualization of education.

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

So why should we, not be content with small steps forward?

I. Global changes in the labour market, both cultural and technical within the jobs themselves, but also mobility issues.

Jobs change fast, people move fast within a particular labour market; the situation in many sectors is already very different from what was the case only 10 years ago.

These changes call for a discussion of the role of the education system, not only to respond to the employment market but to have a proactive influence. Education could play an active role rather than the thoroughly passive one it is accustomed to.

II. Global or grand challenges are now considered to call for a total rethink of the funding of research; similarly it calls for a re-evaluation of the educational system for the same purposes.

See e.g. 2009– Lund declaration ; climate change, food and energy security and the ageing society; Sjá einnig titilinn “New worlds – new solutions”. See also 2008, Challenging Europe’s Research: Rationales for the European Research Area (ERA).

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Why should we?

III. The sustainability argument. The (over)use of the worlds resources and the general claim for a self sustainable local and global economy and culture. This presents an enormous challenge to the future generations; a host of problems need to be solved.

Self sustainability, use of resources and energy production see e.g. UNESCO’s Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future.

IV. The fast development of scientific and technological knowledge calls for a thorough revision of curriculum in a number of fields but probably even for totally new subjects for study.

We can find fields with doubling time down to 2-5 years but even if it is 10-20 years this is very fast. This should be taken into account and the redesign of the curriculum should be considered.

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Why should we?

V. Technological development allows for dramatic changes in a whole spectrum of tasks.

In the computer field the doubling time can be around 1-3 years. All kinds of tools for designing, communicating, writing, calculating etc. etc. will be used. Many tasks of today are already obsolete. Assume our students will use these tools; all of them and much more.

General-purpose computing capacity grew at an annual rate of 58%. The world's capacity for bidirectional telecommunication grew at 28% per year, closely followed by the increase in globally stored information (23%). Martin Hilbert1* and Priscila López2 2011 Science April 1

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6025/60.full.pdf

VI. The communication technology similarly calls for important changes. Whether it is the environment afforded by Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 (semantic web) , 4.0 (symbiotic web) we may anticipate important changes. The recent development of GSM, tablets etc. underlines that much of the technology the children use today will soon become obsolete; but some of ours schools still operate as if not even these instruments are there as normal tools of their lives. The same applies to other levels of education.

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Staðan tekin

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Why should we?

VII. The demand for new skills for our new economy. This is a discussion that has got furthest but perhaps has made least headway. Now there are easily 20, 25 years this claim started to emerge (forgetting Dewey in the 1910s). The call was for new skills., but the matters has not had much success until with the new key factors introduced by the ministry in its national curriculum guide.

VIII. Many statutes (laws) on education, require the school system to prepare for the future, not just to-morrow, but also the day after (even if we don’t exactly know how)

IX. There is a strong indication that social and ethical issues are (neglected) long term goals for education.

X. Substantial research on education, teaching and schooling affords a lot of suggestions for change to our educational practices.

Thousands of research papers are published on every aspect of educational practice. But it is very unclear what impact it has on education; in fact the channels for the interaction between the two are not very wide. But a lost of suggestions for change exist.

But research may sometimes only inspire research, let it not necessarily control all we do.

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Skills that probably should play a central role in our curriculum; not a marginal role as some people think.

• New skills, 21st century skills• http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/publ/pdf/ll-learning/keycomp_en.pdf • http://www.p21.org/ • http://www3.hi.is/~jtj/greinar/JTJ%20DISCUSSION%20PAPER%20May%2031-2010.pdf

NLS meeting Reykjavík 29. September 2011

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills; from the USA

Somtimes put as:

3 Rs

4 Cs

Core Subjects

Reading, writing, artimeticCritical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation

21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects

Information, Media and Technology Skills

Learning and Innovation Skills

Life and Career Skills

3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology

4. Digital competence

5. Learning to learn

6. Social and civic competences

7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship

8. Cultural awareness and expression

European Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, suggests these key areas:

1. Communication in the mother tongue

2. Communication in foreign languages

Inertia

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons.

We now turn to the more complex but more intriguing plethora of interacting factors that hold back education, rightly or wrongly; note that I am certainly not talking about ill-meaning conspiratorial factors, but mostly implicit genuinely cultural or systemic factors that happen to be in control.

Educational systems evolve notoriously slowly; their history manifests this very clearly; this applies to their form, operation and content.

Traditions and traditional values and often very strong interests keep education in the throes of old time (some see this as the role of education). The traditions are strong and so are the conservative forces which stem from many sources.

They relate to old or traditional values, old content and old ways of doing things and not least entrenched interests. Of course some old values should be cherished, but which?

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 1

The general discourse is conservative. A conservative discourse and ideas of many outside the educational system who naturally control the course of its development.

I am here referring to the views of many parents and politicians; somewhat conservative impetus from industry that the education system serve the economy (yes, but how is that best done ?); teacher education, its content and organisation – related inter alia to the time since a lot of the teaching force graduated; conservative ideas proposed by the university as a European institution about the education of young people and generally outdated notions about content and how new techniques, new content and new cultures could permeate education. As an agent in this would also be some well established standardised tests, which volunteer to gracefully take the central stage, marginalising other contenders.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 2

The new ideas that are to replace the old, are sometimes woolly or cloudy, not well moulded and sometimes even vacuous. Some might even not be very good!

This applies inter alia to some new ideas that were proposed during the 20th century, e.g. applied to discovery or project learning, ideas fostering creativity, arts or moral values; this also applies to some of the 21st century skills programmes which have been proposed repeatedly for the last 20-30 years. This will probably also apply to the new basic factors in the new EC eight key competencies.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 3

The current ideas were once good. One reason why the push to introduce new ideas is somewhat undermined is that the rationale, the utility and ambition behind the introduction of the present ideas, some time ago, were all convincing and credible, even though it took a long time for them to win their place.

The proponents of those ideas may still be operative and still think the ideas they adopted or fought for or introduced stand the test of time. This is partly a problem that may be traced to the older (my) generation but may also influence the judgement of those outstanding young people who did so well with the content and operations of the traditional environment.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 4

Nothing dramatic happens if we don't exchange new ideas for old ones. In fact nothing happens ― yet. This is the fourth reason why it is somewhat cumbersome to secure the place for new ideas replacing old well established and tested ones. (It is relatively safe not to instigate changes).

The only ensuing problem is that young people are not given the opportunity to do a variety of interesting and valuable things, that new ideas, new skills, new technologies or new cultures might afford them; but of course they will survive nevertheless.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 5

The stronghold of vested interests. It is especially important for those who want to argue for replacing new with old that one may seriously threaten a variety of vested interests and ideals of those who are already there. This may operate at several levels and perhaps present the most formidable obstacles of all I mention here.

Here we may also introduce a variety of intra-institutional tensions that may stifle change.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 6

Lack of overview and lack of foresight. The sixth reason why new ideas don't emerge is that very few people who are engaged in education have the overview or wide perspective over all the different but pressing reasons for change. Very few have the responsibility or opportunity to follow the many quite substantial changes in the social and ethical and technological and cultural environment and speculate about the possible educational implications. The perspective we, in the educational arena, have is often very narrow, far too narrow. Fragmentation is one of the problems of education in general.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 7

Standards are conservative . The seventh reason relates to the metrics or indices that are used to indicate standards. These are implicitly very conservative, and the higher the stakes the more so.

They are probably normally proposed and defended by those who have a relatively secure position to defend. This is not meant to criticize their genuine ambition to retain high standard. Standards are also conservative.

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Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 8

Educational research is preoccupied with the present. The eight reason relates to the relationship of educational practice to research. This is an intriguing situation. On the one hand, enormous amount of potential inspiration from research does not find its way into education. There is no venue. That is a major problem. On the other hand if one gets too preoccupied with research into particular problems one may get stuck with attempting to solve those without moving on. Thus the relationship with research is a major problem.

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Thus I have presented a number of reasons why a prediction involving rather modest but gradual development of education is probably reasonable.

Education

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Creating a Learning Society, - learning society for the future.

We have now indicated, why a new educational perspective should be adopted, and some of the reasons why this may amount to a fairly steep uphill walk.

We must probe the aims of education much more thoroughly than we normally do.

We must look into the future with a totally different intent and insight than we have become accustomed to (note the various Think tanks).

We must discuss openly and critically the inertia inherent in the system and how it moulds it and holds it back.

We must also discuss what type of a learning culture we are developing.

VON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Creating a Learning Society, - learning society for the future.

We must probe the future much more aggressively, and holistically than we normally do and discuss what should and might be changed to respond to the prospects more proactively than we have done,

in terms of organization,

content,

methods

values.

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New world, new curricular wars

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The subjects of the 19th and the 20th centuries

Complete renewal of the existing subjects

New subjects

New tools, new cultures

New skills and key competencies

The fundamental aims of the aims of university education must be constantly reassessed

Thank you very much

Kærar þakkir

ECNAIS conference Warsaw nov 2011 JTJVON Framtíðin og menntun des 2011 JTJ

Jón Torfi Jónasson - CHER 2011 Iceland 37

The predicted growth of the world tertiary student population relative to total population: number of students

per million inhabitants

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Jón Torfi Jónasson - CHER 2011 Iceland 38

World population 20096.790 million

Growth of 4% 5%HE students 2000 100 100 million

2010 150 163 million2020 220 265 million2030 324 432 million2040 480 704 million2050 710 1146 million

Jón Torfi Jónasson - CHER 2011 Iceland 39

The growth of the world tertiary student population relative to total population in the 20th century: number of

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The problem with inequality: the US (the 20:20 scale)

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International Monetary FundFinance & Development, September 2011, Vol. 48, No. 3Andrew G. Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry

“Do societies inevitably face an invidious choice between efficient production and equitable wealth and income distribution? Are social justice and social product at war with one another?In a word, no.”

“That experience brought home the fact that sustainable economic reform is possible only when its benefits are widely shared. “