Each year, the Global Education and Skills Forum is held in Dubai. Sometimes called “The Davos of Education,” the event brings together educators, politicians, activists and thought leaders for a few days of focused conversation about the state of global education.
The 2015 “New Vision For Education—Unlocking The Potential of Technology” report from the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group is pretty clear about the state of global education. It needs attention. “To thrive in a rapidly evolving, technology-mediated world,” the report begins, “students must not only possess strong skills in areas such as language arts, mathematics and science, but they must also be adept at skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, persistence, collaboration and curiosity.”
In the U.S., we spend a lot of time thinking about these kinds of skills and proficiencies. Our media is saturated with discussions of the importance of entrepreneurial problem solving skills. And we are also bombarded with stories about education technologies and digital literacies. Still, our school system suffers from embarrassing socioeconomic disparity. It is shocking that we can continue to teach all of our students the words of the Declaration of Independence even while the manifest reality makes it so obvious that we don’t really believe all schools, districts, classrooms, and students are created equal.
When you look at international data, the picture of inequality shows some surprises. The World Economic Forum report explains that students in many countries are not attaining “the 16 most critical ‘21st-century skills.’” They divide these skills into three categories: Foundational Literacies, Competencies, and Character Qualities.
Foundational Literacies:
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Scientific Literacy
- ICT Literacy
- Financial Literacy
- Cultural and Civic Literacy
Competencies:
- Critical thinking/Problem solving
- Creativity
- Communication
- Collaboration
Character Qualities:
- Curiosity
- Initiative
- Persistence/Grit
- Adaptability
- Leadership
- Social and cultural Awareness
The World Economic Forum studied “nearly 100 countries” and discovered “large gaps in selected indicators for many of these skills.” Surprisingly, these gaps are not always divided by categories as simple as ‘rich’ and ‘poor.’ Instead, the global skills gap is “between developed and developing countries, among countries in the same income group and within countries for different skill types.” The bottom line: “many students are not getting the education they need to prosper in the 21st century and countries are not finding enough of the skilled workers they need to compete.”
The annual Global Education and Skills Forum, organized by the Varkey Foundation, provides an opportunity for the international education community to think about implementations that might help to address this education gap. This year’s theme was “Education, Equity, and Employment: Delivering on the Promise.” And most of the panels focused on “how” the world can fix its education problem.
According to the World Economic Forum, this kind of discussion is one of the necessities. “Much more needs to be done to align indicators, ensure greater global coverage for key skills, establish clear baselines for performance integrated with existing local assessments, standardize the definition and measurement of higher-order skills across cultures and develop assessments directed specifically towards competencies and character qualities.” In theory, just by virtue of putting key stakeholders in the room together, events like the Global Education and Skills forum should help move the world toward consistent definitions and measurements.
Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s Director for Education and Skills, delivered an opening plenary that highlighted data about what makes schools effective. Education outcomes, Schleicher explained, are correlative to whether or not teachers feel valued by their society. Schleicher, as usual, came with great data and graphs that sometimes confirmed common assumptions and sometimes dispelled them. For instance, teacher collaboration and cooperation turns out to be more correlative to efficacy than class size or teacher/student ratios.
As usual, the event was studded with big name speakers like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Clinton shared stories of teachers that inspired him during his life as he spoke at the forum’s climactic event: the awarding of the $1 Million teacher prize to Maine’s Nancie Atwell. Throughout the forum’s two days, questions about technology loomed large. There were sessions entitled “Unleashing Sustainable Innovation” (I spoke about play based learning, especially digital games and learning, during one of these).
The focus on technology is hardly surprising. The World Economic Forum reports that “when educators add education technology to the mix of potential solutions, we find they are most effective if applied within an integrated instructional system known as the closed loop.” The report continues, “The closed loop refers to a system that requires an integrated and connected set of steps to produce results.” In other words, technology doesn’t replace teachers with an easy it fix-it solution. Instead, humans remain essential.
Teachers are more effective when they leverage personalized and adaptive instructional technologies. “At the classroom level of the closed loop, educators create learning objectives, develop curricula and instructional strategies, deliver instruction, embed ongoing assessments, provide appropriate interventions based on student needs and track outcomes and learning.” And administration works best when leaders leverage “institutional resources that help the closed loop deliver outcomes by improving human capital development and strengthening management systems. These include digital professional development resources for teachers and student information and learning management systems.”
The Global Education and Skills Forum addresses the education gap in inspiring ways. By bringing leaders who have devised entrepreneurial solutions together with leaders who have devised more humanitarian solutions, the dialogue feels grounded and honest overall—one group of thought leaders helping to keep the other in check.
As in past years, I left inspired. There’s a lot of good intentioned people in the world, working toward a equitable prosperity for humanity as a whole.
