or perhaps the first time in history, a generation of young adults throughout the world is within reach of the possibility of taking full control of their own education—what, where and when to learn, how to learn, even why to learn. Their success would signal the epochal leap in education that so many of us have set our sights on, and that are embodied in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In this new model, learning and the ability to demonstrate learning intertwine like a helix to transform individual lives; reshape work and the workplace; propel national economies; and help fulfill education’s “promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies.”
Building and deploying this helix would also recharge the global effort to achieve the mutually reinforcing aims of SDGs #4 and #8 regarding education, lifelong learning, sustainable economic growth, and employment.
It’s a grand vision, but it’s evidence-based and eminently possible. That’s because of a convergence of developments in recent years, including deeper understandings of how people learn and demonstrate learning; advances in digital technologies that can tease out skills, knowledge and personal traits on the level of the individual; and the evolving views of the young adults who are inheriting a planet in existential tumult.
No doubt the obstacles are imposing and tenacious: the political will of national leaders on whether to invest in lifelong learning for their populations; the availability of the financial resources to support investment; the regressive impact of disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic; the vicissitudes of the global economy; and time.
In Achieving SDGs, Perspective Matters
There’s also the structure of the international community. Achieving the aims of the SDGs is a collective project among nations. But every nation is starting from a different baseline and is focused on a different goalpost. While affluent nations focus more on raising the tertiary attainment levels so critical to global economic competitiveness, among developing and emerging economies, the goals are much more fundamental: equipping their populations with basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Problematic even before the pandemic struck, basic literacy and numeracy skills among young learners in low- and middle-income countries have sunk to crisis levels. Analysis by the International Commission on the Futures of Education asserts that “learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70 percent of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text.” In all, more than 771 million people lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women.
And as always, there’s money. Or the lack of it. In his recent keynote address at the UN’s Transforming Education Summit: A Turning Point for Education, Leonardo Garnier, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations, noted that rich countries invest an average $8,500 per year per school-age person, versus $1,000 in upper-middle income countries; $275 in lower middle-income countries; and $50 in the poorest countries.
“The distance is staggering,” Garnier said.
Even the technologies that would help poorer countries narrow learning gaps with richer nations are just as likely to widen those gaps. As the pandemic showed, wealthier countries expanded their use of expensive digital technologies to replace in-class learning lost to pandemic lockdowns. Poorer countries, and poorer regions within countries, including the United States, couldn’t or didn’t. As a result, some 463 million school-age children around the world lacked access to distance learning. And they continue to fall further behind.
That doesn’t stop technology, knowledge and know-how from marching on. And young people everywhere will need to continue learning in order to adapt to constantly shifting labor markets; rapid technological change; and the seismic impacts of globalization, climate change, migration and biomedical shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic.
“Lifelong learning starts in childhood and youth, continuing throughout adulthood and old age,” Francesca Borgonovi and Fabio Manca of the OECD Centre for Skills write in OECD Skills Outlook 2021: Learning for Life. “It encompasses formal learning in settings such as schools and training centres, informal and non-formal learning derived from colleagues and workplace trainers, and unintentional learning stemming from spontaneous social interactions.”
The observations are in tune with Generation Z, the first cohort born into the internet age. In wealthier nations especially, the young adults of Gen Z are dissatisfied with the return on investment of a traditional four-year higher education. Many are looking instead to the hybrid model discussed in Learning for Life to continually equip themselves with modern survival skills.
According to recent opinion research by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation, for instance, 32% of American students enrolled in a bachelor’s program reported having considered withdrawing for a semester or more over the previous six months. Among students pursuing an associate degree, it was 41%. In addition to emotional stress, the COVID-19 pandemic, and cost, they cited the questionable quality of, and the time required to complete, a program of study, and doubts about the relevance of a degree or credential in helping them achieve their career or personal goals.
No Time to Quit
The progress lost to the pandemic has been heartbreaking. But if ever there was a time not to withdraw because of setbacks, this is it. “Simply lamenting that the world is unlikely to reach the goals in 2030 fails to acknowledge just how far these goals have taken us,” researchers for the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) wrote for the Institute’s website after the 75th General Assembly.
“Too many changes have been achieved, and too much popular support exists to completely reverse progress. So, let us act jointly. Let us not let the opportunity for real change slip away,” the SEI researchers said.
That’s good advice. And it’s why we need to recommit, reenergize, and reengage, and to do so without delay.
a global affairs media network
A Grand Vision, Still Within Reach
Photo by Midjourney.
September 20, 2022
For perhaps the first time in history, a generation of young adults throughout the world is within reach of the possibility of taking full control of their own education. It’s a grand vision, but it’s evidence-based and eminently possible, write ETS’s Catherine Millett and Michael Nettles.
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or perhaps the first time in history, a generation of young adults throughout the world is within reach of the possibility of taking full control of their own education—what, where and when to learn, how to learn, even why to learn. Their success would signal the epochal leap in education that so many of us have set our sights on, and that are embodied in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In this new model, learning and the ability to demonstrate learning intertwine like a helix to transform individual lives; reshape work and the workplace; propel national economies; and help fulfill education’s “promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies.”
Building and deploying this helix would also recharge the global effort to achieve the mutually reinforcing aims of SDGs #4 and #8 regarding education, lifelong learning, sustainable economic growth, and employment.
It’s a grand vision, but it’s evidence-based and eminently possible. That’s because of a convergence of developments in recent years, including deeper understandings of how people learn and demonstrate learning; advances in digital technologies that can tease out skills, knowledge and personal traits on the level of the individual; and the evolving views of the young adults who are inheriting a planet in existential tumult.
No doubt the obstacles are imposing and tenacious: the political will of national leaders on whether to invest in lifelong learning for their populations; the availability of the financial resources to support investment; the regressive impact of disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic; the vicissitudes of the global economy; and time.
In Achieving SDGs, Perspective Matters
There’s also the structure of the international community. Achieving the aims of the SDGs is a collective project among nations. But every nation is starting from a different baseline and is focused on a different goalpost. While affluent nations focus more on raising the tertiary attainment levels so critical to global economic competitiveness, among developing and emerging economies, the goals are much more fundamental: equipping their populations with basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Problematic even before the pandemic struck, basic literacy and numeracy skills among young learners in low- and middle-income countries have sunk to crisis levels. Analysis by the International Commission on the Futures of Education asserts that “learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70 percent of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text.” In all, more than 771 million people lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women.
And as always, there’s money. Or the lack of it. In his recent keynote address at the UN’s Transforming Education Summit: A Turning Point for Education, Leonardo Garnier, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations, noted that rich countries invest an average $8,500 per year per school-age person, versus $1,000 in upper-middle income countries; $275 in lower middle-income countries; and $50 in the poorest countries.
“The distance is staggering,” Garnier said.
Even the technologies that would help poorer countries narrow learning gaps with richer nations are just as likely to widen those gaps. As the pandemic showed, wealthier countries expanded their use of expensive digital technologies to replace in-class learning lost to pandemic lockdowns. Poorer countries, and poorer regions within countries, including the United States, couldn’t or didn’t. As a result, some 463 million school-age children around the world lacked access to distance learning. And they continue to fall further behind.
That doesn’t stop technology, knowledge and know-how from marching on. And young people everywhere will need to continue learning in order to adapt to constantly shifting labor markets; rapid technological change; and the seismic impacts of globalization, climate change, migration and biomedical shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic.
“Lifelong learning starts in childhood and youth, continuing throughout adulthood and old age,” Francesca Borgonovi and Fabio Manca of the OECD Centre for Skills write in OECD Skills Outlook 2021: Learning for Life. “It encompasses formal learning in settings such as schools and training centres, informal and non-formal learning derived from colleagues and workplace trainers, and unintentional learning stemming from spontaneous social interactions.”
The observations are in tune with Generation Z, the first cohort born into the internet age. In wealthier nations especially, the young adults of Gen Z are dissatisfied with the return on investment of a traditional four-year higher education. Many are looking instead to the hybrid model discussed in Learning for Life to continually equip themselves with modern survival skills.
According to recent opinion research by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation, for instance, 32% of American students enrolled in a bachelor’s program reported having considered withdrawing for a semester or more over the previous six months. Among students pursuing an associate degree, it was 41%. In addition to emotional stress, the COVID-19 pandemic, and cost, they cited the questionable quality of, and the time required to complete, a program of study, and doubts about the relevance of a degree or credential in helping them achieve their career or personal goals.
No Time to Quit
The progress lost to the pandemic has been heartbreaking. But if ever there was a time not to withdraw because of setbacks, this is it. “Simply lamenting that the world is unlikely to reach the goals in 2030 fails to acknowledge just how far these goals have taken us,” researchers for the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) wrote for the Institute’s website after the 75th General Assembly.
“Too many changes have been achieved, and too much popular support exists to completely reverse progress. So, let us act jointly. Let us not let the opportunity for real change slip away,” the SEI researchers said.
That’s good advice. And it’s why we need to recommit, reenergize, and reengage, and to do so without delay.
