Creating the Future Model of Education

Pavel Lukshapavel.luksha@gmail.com

SCHOOL 2020

Presented to the Forum on the Future of Education

November 2009,Obninsk, Russia

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Russian Education in the ‘Reactive Mode’• Increasing gap between the content of education and

demand from the economy / government• Changes come from outside,

and the education system reacts:– e.g. ‘Unified State Examination* -

should be cancelled’; ‘Bologna process - should be stopped’; …

• ‘Reactive Mode’ is a weak position: “please give us back what we had before the change came”

A STRONG POSITION WOULD BE: “LET’S MAKE IT BETTER BY IMPLEMENTING A NEW MODEL OF EDUCATION”

* Unified State Examination (EGE) – standard aptitude test mandatory in Russia since 2008

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A New Model of Education

• Responds to global challenges• Responds to the country’s strategies in

the modern world (geopolitical, economic, scientific, cultural …)

• Responds to requests and demands of students

DOES A RESPONSE EXIST?

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School Education: New Global Challenges

• “Post-information society”: the traditional model of knowledge transfer is not required at all (‘Google knows everything’)

• Life long learning gets real: deinstitutionalization of education (‘iPod instead of lecturer’ etc.)

• ‘A school of life’ or ‘a school for loosers”? (like Russian Army is now)

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Country Situation and Strategic Dilemmas

• Geopolitics (strong Europe, pressure from China, internal instability, depopulation): a new model or a collapse of united country?

• Economics (‘post-oil era’, inability to compete with Asia): smart manufacturing or “Fourth World”?

• Science (demolition of scientific schools, objective inability to lead in key areas): focused breakthrough or “Fourth World”?

• Culture (reduction of the ‘Russian World’, conflicts between religion and modernization): cultural renaissance or cultural degradation?

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Pragmatics: How the world will look for school graduates in 2020?

• Competition in the global labor market: traditional and new developed countries (Asia-2025: +1 billion urban citizens from now)

• Technological and social progress: the most prestigious professions of 2020 many not even exist today, and skills learnt in school will be not relevant

• Employers receive ‘semi-finished product’ requiring additional learning / training – practice is more valuable than knowledge

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The future cannot be foreseenbut it can be built

Trends may create a range of scenarios

BUT

The probability of any scenario depends on our actions

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Re-Programming the(Secondary School) Education?

• For post-information society, the revision of education models implies:– Responses to new challenges of

education– Positioning towards the country

priorities– Key skills of employees in 2025 (in real

connection between the school and the professional world)

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Some Elements of the New Education Model

• Abandoning of the traditional ‘teacher as speaker’ model in favor of a shared research & exploration model

• Abandoning of the traditional subject-focused model in favor of the ‘competence learning’ model

• The key competencies: – Working in the modern organizational environment

(communication, management and creativity in peer groups)

– Working in the world of abundant information

• New learning environments

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Some Ideas for New Education Model• Collaborative work and creativity• Firm knowledge, not ‘correct answers’• Shared process of search for truth• Real student democracy• Abandoning of class- and

lesson-oriented (Komensky) education system

• Learning of skills for learning

But… these are ideas of of 20-century Russian pedagogues (Shatsky, Makarenko, …), the ground of our work in last 20-30 years – can they be the ground of new education model? WHAT ELSE IS NEEDED THEN?

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Designing the future of Schools: “design probations” (by Philips Design)

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‘Future Probation’ for New Learning Environment: School-2020 in Britain

and in the US

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What else could be done: government? • State-supported grant system for the development of education

methods for post-information society• Federal program for creation

of new learning environment prototypes• Public-private programs for the

development of distance learning courses, electronic certification systems etc.

• Grants for creation and distribution of innovative educational programs in mainstream and alternative education

• Exchange of international expertise, incl. transfer of Russian ‘best practices’ in education to foreign teachers

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School-2020: Challenge to Be Taken• The challenges of post-information society are real. The

crisis of educational system and radical change of education models is a global phenomenon rather than Russia-specific one

• ‘Reactive’ paradigms in education mean that the government will make educational system change – but not the way we want it and with some delay

• The Russian pedagogic traditions can help the Russian educational innovator community lead the process of the global education paradigm transformation - Will you be able to use the chance of ‘anticipatory development’?