Global education is on the brink
of true transformation and we have more reason for optimism than ever before.
Governments, companies and other organisations around
the world are scrambling to embed a culture of innovation. Being ‘innovative by
default’ and developing a ‘culture of innovation’ seem to be the must have
phrases for the modern vision statement - and with good reason. I don’t believe
it is a buzzword or just another global fad, even if it is already becoming
something of a cliché. On the contrary, we are at a stage now where innovation
is the key to survival, not just in education and business, but also for
humankind.
What is Innovation?
“Innovation
is the multi-stage process whereby organisations transform ideas into
new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and
differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace.” (Baregheh et al,
2009)
Contrary to most dictionary definitions, which tend to
stress only the need for something ‘new’, in reality, innovations have to add
value to be worthwhile. They must make a positive contribution to our lives,
otherwise they will not gain traction and be scaled to the point of sustained normality.
Innovations don’t have to involve new technologies, but they do have to make a
positive difference.
Innovation in Education
“The United Arab Emirates Vision
2021 has education as its foundation, both explicitly and implicitly. Vision
2021 includes aspirations for citizenship, a spirit of entrepreneurship,
enhanced educational attainment, and a knowledge-based economy driven by
innovation, research, science and technology. The realisation of these
aspirations requires a world-class education system, responsive to national
needs and aligned to international standards.”
-
UAE School Inspection Framework for 2015/16
Arguably for the first time, we
have a school inspection framework that explicitly recognises and values the
need to teach our students to be innovative and for schools to model innovation
in providing learners with authentic skills for life and work. I believe this
is very good news for our children as it represents a real driver for positive
curriculum and pedagogical innovation that will, ultimately, better prepare
students for the future.
We must be very clear about the rationale and
predicted outcomes whenever major changes are made to the education of our
children. Our young learners only get once chance and we need to make it count.
So, as the innovation drive inevitably begins to filter down into schools and
their curriculum offerings, we should be certain about what we are trying to
achieve - and why.
I believe there are at least five key reasons why we
need to innovate in our offering to students, whilst also empowering our young
people to become innovators throughout their lives.
1.
The
need for something more
Firstly, competition for places in higher education institutions,
as well as positions with employers is more intense than ever and, faced with a
flood of students who all have the same top grades in public examinations, companies,
colleges and universities are looking for additional indicators of achievement.
Authentic links with industry, internships, elective qualifications, MOOCs and
the Maker Movement are becoming normal provision in today’s innovative schools.
Such opportunities go beyond the Community, Action, Service (CAS) program in IB
schools and Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) in the English curriculum.
These programs undoubtedly add value to students’ prospects, but schools now
recognise the need to provide an even greater range of authentic routes to
educational development and enhancement of life skills.
The University of Kent in the UK
has produced a list of skills that employers want, based on a number of surveys on the
skills required by graduates undertaken by Microsoft, Target Jobs, the BBC,
Prospects, NACE, AGR and other organisations:
1. Verbal communication
2. Teamwork
3. Commercial Awareness
4. Analysing & Investigating
5. Initiative & self-motivation
6. Drive
7. Written communication
8. Planning & organising
9. Flexibility
10. Time management
11. Global skills (including
appreciation of other cultures)
12. Negotiating & persuading
13. Numeracy
14. Computing skills
15. Self-awareness
16. Confidence / personal impact
17. Lifelong learning
18. Stress tolerance
19. Integrity
20. Independence
21. Professionalism
22. Action planning
23. Decision-making
24. Interpersonal sensitivity
25. Creativity
This certainly bears little
correlation with traditional subject-based curricula offered in most schools
today, which is why schools must continue to engage in innovative, hopefully
transformative, curriculum design to provide students with a much broader and
relevant range of skills, values and attributes.
The clear message from industry
is that today’s students need outstanding examination results and a whole lot
more.
2.
Every
child really does matter
Choice within the curriculum is the key to providing
students with the opportunity to achieve their potential in their areas of
strength and interest. I believe that every child is gifted and has the right
to have their gifts nurtured to develop into talents that will serve them with
optimal impact in the future.
I am wary of gifted and talented programs because, for
the most part, such initiatives tend to direct resources to developing the
skills of a minority of students in a narrowly-defined view of what is
valuable. Whilst I agree that our best mathematicians, scientists and linguists
should be extended, I also believe that every other child deserves the same
attention and opportunity, whatever their gifts may be. Only then can every
child aspire to self-fulfilment and lead a happy and successful life, making a
positive contribution to a society in which full employment and universal
self-actualisation are the norms. Personalisation of curriculum and learning
opportunities is a key innovation that we must continue to develop. This starts
by recognising the teacher’s vital role, in partnership with parents, in
identifying the gifts and potential of every child and ensuring those gifts are
nurtured.
Of course, this assumes that all children have access
to education which, tragically, is not the case. The latest statistics from
UNESCO suggest that “124 million children and young adolescents, roughly
between the ages of 6 and 15 years, have either never started school or have
dropped out.” The quest for equality of opportunity is fundamental to the
future prosperity of humankind and, having so badly missed the Millennium
Goals, we will need to find new ways to ensure that every child has access to a
quality education. This will require a
multi-faceted approach, involving online and blended solutions, closer
collaboration between policy-makers globally, innovative infrastructure
projects, hardware development and teacher training and recruitment. This is
achievable. Organisations such as the Varkey Foundation are already making a
difference in teacher training and Google’s Project Loon is about to bring
complete Internet coverage to its first whole country, Sri Lanka, where only 1
in 5 people are currently connected. Those 124 million children may not all be
learning in brick and mortar schools in the future, but there is growing cause
for optimism that innovative online access solutions are being found, with the
potential to transform individual life chances, the global economy and,
ultimately, political stability and cooperation.
3.
Digital
skills
The development of
digital skills is now a non-negotiable. These skills are explicitly recognised
in the UAE inspection framework and research from around the world consistently
reinforces the importance of a digitally capable workforce. For example, the UK
Digital Skills Taskforce Beta Edition July 2014 Interim Report suggests that
well over half the workforce requires digital skills that extend beyond the
basic skills of digital citizenship and that over 90% of jobs require at least
those basic digital literacies. And that was last year. It has never been clearer that today’s students require at least a basic
level of digital competency, in much the same way that they require basic
literacy and numeracy skills – perhaps more so. Schools will need to continue
to develop digital workflow skills in all students to help them become
accomplished, independent and adaptable digital learners. Moreover, the data
suggest that many will require a much higher level of creative competence to
flourish in the digital age.
4. Entrepreneurship
Students
are already aspiring not to become mere employees, but the entrepreneurs and employers
of the future. Today’s world presents opportunities for entrepreneurs on an
unprecedented scale, not least because of the wide availability of online
crowdfunding for startups, such as Kickstarter. No longer is it necessary to
seek funding from traditional sources to bring an innovation to market and
build a business. Knowing how to do this will become a key component of school
curricula in the years to come. It is
essential that schools continue to expand provision in this area, through
targeted programs, authentic links with industry and integration of entrepreneurial
skills within the subject-based curriculum. Youth
unemployment is a major threat to economic and political stability throughout the
world. Educating students to get jobs will not create the billions of new jobs
that will be needed globally in the coming decades. Educating students to
become confident, capable and adaptable entrepreneurs will help to solve this
issue and lead to a more prosperous, peaceful future.
5.
Saving
the world
And that leads to the final, most important reason for
innovation in schools today. The
world is facing unprecedented challenges, including global warming, pollution,
deforestation, clean energy needs, endangered species, hunger, preventable
diseases, lack of safe drinking water, child exploitation, inter-cultural
tension, refugee crises and fragmented, unpredictable political upheaval on a
global scale.
As never before, our children
will need to be able to identify problems, creating and implementing effective solutions.
The difference between now and the past is that so many past innovations have
not been necessary for our survival – now they are.
Cars, aeroplanes, television,
computers, tumble dryers, disposable nappies (diapers, to my transatlantic friends),
plastic bottles, iPads and digital music collections are all ‘nice-to-haves’
but they were never, arguably, things we needed – certainly not in terms of
ensuring the very existence of our planet and species. Indeed, many have
contributed to the problems we now face. Today, there is a need to innovate
simply to save our planet from ourselves. Of course this will be anything but
simple, but one thing is certain- the future is in the hands of our young
people, our future political and business leaders, scientists, engineers,
doctors and all citizens.
Right now, therefore, it is
firmly in the hands of schools, teachers and parents.
The solutions to many of these
problems will be technological, but many will rely on policies formed by future
leaders of countries and global organisations.
The formation of such world-saving policies will require innovation,
vision, creativity, courage, risk-taking and high level skills in critical
thinking, diplomacy, negotiation, influencing, empathy and inter-cultural
understanding, as well as the STEM skills needed to design and implement
technological solutions.
One of the goals of the UAE
Vision 2021 is to be among the top 20 countries by 2021 as ranked by PISA and
here, once more, there is cause for optimism for educators and students.
Andreas Schleicher, Director
for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and has recently
stated:
“The world is certainly becoming increasingly
ambiguous and volatile. But I believe people have probably always struggled
with change. What is new is that the kind of things that are easy to teach and easy to
test—the kind of routine cognitive skills—are also easy to digitize, automate
and outsource. We find ourselves in the same situation that people with routine
skills found themselves in during the Industrial Revolution. A lot of people
are losing their jobs because the kind of ways we used to work and think are no
longer relevant. That’s what the digital revolution does to many of the skills
that are very well established in education today.
The question is: how do we respond
to this? How do we equip people with the skills that are essential in the modern
world? Not as an alternative to disciplinary contexts, in my view. You can
teach creativity in mathematics, problem-solving in mathematics, social skills
in mathematics. We need to think about what kind of skills we want to
develop—and how to use established disciplines to develop these skills.
“Human beings are certainly connected in a way
they have never been connected before, and I wonder if success in this day and
age might require a form of empathy that hasn’t been required before. Economic success today is very much about
you being able to collaborate, compete and connect with people. It requires the capacity to see the world through
different lenses, to appreciate different value systems, to respect different
cultures. And those people who are able to do that will find their way through
this kind of world. Those people who struggle with this will see the world as
threatening to them; they will see globalization as something happening to
them, rather than them being part of it.”
The unprecedented influence of PISA on
educational policy globally has been well-documented, so it is welcome that the
assessments are evolving to encompass a far broader range of skills. Whilst I
don’t necessarily agree with the approach of incorporating these skills within
the existing hierarchy of traditional subjects (I prefer the more innovative
curriculum model proposed by Marc Prensky), it does seem that PISA’s direction of travel has the
potential to begin relieving some of the tension between traditional, archaic
assessments and the need to develop a creative, relevant curriculum that truly
meets the needs of all 21st Century learners.
In the 2012 PISA round,
optional tests in creative problem-solving and financial literacy were
introduced in some countries. The 2015 assessments included collaborative
problem-solving tasks, requiring negotiation and consensus building. We now
have a strong indication that future assessments will go even further in
assessing what may be recognised as ‘21st Century Skills’ and we
know that this development work is already underway.
The value of so-called
‘soft’ skills has never been greater and Schleicher’s recognition of
empathy as a key skill is, again, welcome. It would be helpful to stop
referring to skills such as empathy, emotional intelligence, consensus
building, conflict resolution, collaboration, negotiation, etc. as ‘soft’ skills,
as this invariably devalues their importance. If, as Prensky argues, we place
these vital skills at the heart of our curricula – and find a way to
effectively measure them – then we may begin to see that there is nothing
‘soft’ about them. They need to be an essential element of today’s educational
offering on a global scale.
The goal of education in the 21st
Century must be to equip all students with the philosophies, knowledge, skills,
attributes and values that will empower and inspire them to seek not only
self-actualisation and personal happiness but also a common way forward for all
humanity.
It is an exciting time to work
in education and, now that assessment and inspection frameworks are beginning
to support what teachers and schools really believe is best for their students,
rather than these frameworks acting as perceived barriers to innovation and
creativity, it is also a time for great optimism.
But that optimism must be
accompanied by courageous action. If we don’t get education right in the 21st
Century, there may not be a 22nd.
Phil Redhead is
Senior Manager, Digital Strategy at GEMS Education
References
Baregheh, A., Rowley, J. & Sambrook, S.
(2009) Towards a multidisciplinary definition of innovation, Emerald
Group Publishing Limited http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sally_Sambrook/publication/41104662_Towards_a_multidisciplinary_definition_of_innovation/links/0c96051e5a3eec5628000000.pdf
Fastcoexist.com
(June 2015): Sri Lanka Will Be
The First Country To Deploy Google's Balloon-Based Internet
Prensky, M. (2014) The World Needs a New
Curriculum: http://marcprensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Prensky-5-The-World_Needs_a_New_Curriculum.pdf
Schleicher, A. (23rd July 2015) interviewed
in Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2015/07/23/the-critical-role-of-teachers-in-transforming-education-systems/
Times Educational
Supplement (7th August 2015) https://www.tes.co.uk/news/school-news/breaking-news/sixth-formers-turn-extended-projects-win-top-university-places
UK Digital Skills
Taskforce (2014) Beta Edition July 2014
Interim Report http://policy.bcs.org/sites/policy.bcs.org/files/Interim%20report.pdf
UNESCO (July 2015)
POLICY PAPER 22 / FACT SHEET 31: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/fs-31-out-of-school-children-en.pdf
United Arab
Emirates School Inspection Framework 2015-16 – Not published
University of Kent: What are the top ten skills that employers
want? http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/top-ten-skills.htm [Accessed 13 August 2015]
