The Grand Challenges of Education

1. NERA, the Nordic Educational Research Association School of Education at the University of IcelandReykjavík 7-9 March 2013 The Grand Challenges of Education Jón Torfi Jónasson, School of Education, University of Iceland jtj@hi.is Jón Torfi Jónasson Aimee Haley NERA Iceland 2013

2. The grand challenges for education • 1.1 Mapping the future onto education • 1.2 Forging the research-praxis nexus within the system of education • 1.3 Education, democracy and equity • 1.4 Moving LLL to the centre of the educational system • 1.5 The teacher as the initiator of change dilemma • 1.6 The professional education of teachers – the fragmentation problem Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

3. Abstract: Grand challenges for educational policy Following the recent trend to enumerate grand challenges for the global society, the paper will explore six grand challenges within the field of education. It will be argued that they are both real and serious, but seem to be largely neglected in the mainstream educational policy discourse, even though most have been introduced in the literature, but in a limited manner and not really related to serious policy initiatives. 1. The future needs to be mapped onto the system and operation of education. This requires rethinking the future, rethinking education and exploring the forces of inertia that stall reasonable and urgent need for the dynamic development of education. 2. It will be argued that the massive ongoing – often high quality – educational research permeates the educational system very slowly. Education, like many other arenas need to bridge this gap between research and practice with a special sustained effort. 3. It will be argued that the forces of globalization, standardization, external evaluation, marketization and commodification of education all potentially threaten the basic values of Nordic education, in particular its egalitarian role and character. 4 It will be argued that despite the longstanding LLL discourse, the development of educational structures is largely argued along the lines of an educational system moulded during the 19th and 20th centuries. Examples of this are discussion of basic education, including upper secondary and tertiary education and the drop-out problems. 5 It is recently been argued quite forcefully that educational reform and development must genuinely include the teaching profession. Nevertheless much of the current educational discourse centres around externally controlled testing, curriculum and content. It will be argued that teachers, school authorities and researchers must ensure the full participation of the teachers, partly by institutionalising this cooperation. 6 The partly positive, but mainly the negative effect of distributing teacher education among different special subject faculties (sometimes in parallel with elevating teacher education in the HE hierarchy) will further fragment and thus undermine the identity and professionalization of the teaching force and lessen the educational dynamism of the school system. Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

4. GC-1: Mapping the future onto education • The first, and perhaps the most exciting and important challenge Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

5. Where are we now within education? On balance? How is the school system addressing the past, the present and the future? Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

6. The task has four components + a road map First is gauging into the future, noting the spectrum of developments that are foreseeable, explicitly or implicitly. These include vast changes at the local and global levels. Secondly, education must be rethought both on the basis of the basic principles on which the system of education is based and referring to the ways we attend to the past, the present and the future in our educational practice. Thirdly, and a part of rethinking education relates to the consensus that at least the basics must always be included. But the problem may be that the basics are not what they used to be, they will in many ways change and in some respects be completely different. Fourthly we must carefully explore the multitude of factors that directly or indirectly hinder or stall changes taking place. These may be decisive in determining what will transpire or rather, not happen, despite good ideas and good intentions and some urgency for change. There are many stakeholders that don’t see any need for change and many who quite explicitly resist any move to move. These can be very effective and totally dominant and threaten to leave the educational enterprise totally out of phase. It will be stressed, that this claim does not mean that all time honoured values and classical content should be displaced, certainly not. Number five, we must interweave the four concerns mentioned above and thus redesign our agendas for education. We must escape our linear trains of thought and think much more coherently and pointedly about the future. Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

7. GC-2: Research and educational practice • How is the research-practice nexus to be forged within the field of education? • The amount of research being done • Channelling it into education, at all levels, the field and policy • Making it affect or inspire education • What can we learn from other disciplines; e.g. the “translational science” efforts in medicine. Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

8. GC-3: Globalization and educational values: Education, democracy and equity There is little disagreement at the rhetorical level that equity and democracy are important educational values, perhaps fundamental ones. But it is very unclear how these should map onto the educational system: • Should education explicitly tackle the inequities found in most systems? • Should these values be reflected in the modus operandi of the system? • How much of the curriculum should explicitly be devoted to these issues? • How will globalization, with marketization, accountability and testing affect the nurturing of these values? • What does recent (19th-20th centuries) history of education tell us about the introduction of these ideas into our systems? Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

9. GC-4: LLL and the current system of education • The ripe discourse on LLL is well over half a century old. • There is little real disagreement that it should be the hallmark of modern society and modern education • There seems also be a consensus that we continue to think of education in the outmoded patterns of the 18th+ centuries; that all formal education should come first and then some additional little extras should be added later, hopefully • This is passé, to be polite; there are arguments referring to rapid change of various sorts, to pedagogical arguments, and the professionalization literature that demand change of systems. But there are lot of vested interests involved. Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

10. A schematic diagram indicating the way many people think (implicitly) about education, accepting a relatively sensible description for the 1950’s It is suggested here that a much more appropriate description or conceptual framework would be (note we are hinting at 5 x 20 year periods): Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

11. Part-2: Why LLL should take the central stage Three arguments will be presented, each one would suffice as an argument for change, but all of them should be included in a holistic framework for change. These are Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

12. GC-5: The teacher as initiator dilemma or The “fourth way” dilemma Accept for the time being that no sustained genuine change will take place within the system of education if it is not initiated and owned by the teachers. How do we engineer the situation such that the teachers are cognizant of all the changes that new knowledge, new cultures, new demands require? Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

13. GC-5: The teacher as initiator dilemma or The “fourth way” dilemma The number of actors is formidable. The purely logistic problem of implementation is huge. In 2010 the 0-15 world population was 1850 million, which means that each cohort was about 115 million. Given that the trend is towards 30 pupils per class that might mean 4 million teachers per cohort, or 50 million teachers for 12 cohorts. Introducing new ideas on a regular basis is a daunting task. In Europe with 20 pupils per class and 15 cohorts the corresponding numbers would be 720.000 teachers. Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

14. GC-6: Fragmentation of teacher education The notion that education is about teaching subjects and the priority is that the aspiring teachers learn their subjects is outdated. Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

15. The future and education • Inertia(s) within education • Ten substantial reasons why education does not want to change (much) Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

16. The future and educationHow to move forward? The roadmap towards the future of education • Addressing the challenges • How to move forward? The roadmap towards the future of education • At least we much acknowledge these challenges Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences

17. Thank you Jón Torfi Jónasson CELE NOICES Symposium Turku 2013 Fallacious inferences