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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy
Competence Centre on Foresight

We foster a strategic, future-oriented and anticipatory culture in the EU policymaking process.

  • Page | Last updated: 10 Oct 2018
Potential implications on Diversification of Education and Learning
Strategic Foresight

Education System

Stronger commitment to human capital support is needed, given the critical role of education to ensuring that EU-level human capital policy intervention is differentiated according to the varying development needs and challenges of different countries and regions.

Lifelong learning

  • Future of Learning: Preparing for Change - The central learning paradigm is characterised by lifelong and life-wide learning, shaped by the ubiquity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). To reach the goals of personalised, collaborative and informalised learning, holistic changes need to be made (curricula, pedagogies, assessment, leadership, teacher training, etc.) and mechanisms need to be put in place which make flexible and targeted lifelong learning a reality and support the recognition of informally acquired skills.
  • Competence-based education is critical for not only acquiring knowledge, but also to prepare for a career and work.
  • Stronger commitment to human capital support is needed, given the critical role of education to ensuring that EU-level human capital policy intervention is differentiated according to the varying development needs and challenges of different countries and regions.
  • Serious efforts will have to be made to prevent dangerous knowledge/intelligence gaps leading to unstable conditions.

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New models of education

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Technology

Access to education should become a basic human right regardless of age, race, disability, geography etc.

Augment individual intelligence

  • Augment individual intelligence could eventually create functional geniuses, fundamentally changing the education and learning systems.
  • Future prejudices could emerge between those who are more technologically augmented and those less so. To change this is to encourage broad democratic usage of new technologies to avoid their abuse by the few and disadvantage the many.
  • Computational thinking (CT) is another emergent trend/competence. Boosting CT as a competence for personal development, employability, social inclusion and active citizenship in formal, informal and non-formal settings will be a strong need. See also results from ICILS 2018 suggesting that the percentage of students in the lower region of the CT proficiency ranges from around 20% in Denmark to as much as 48% in Luxembourg.

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Digital world challenges

  • Universal access to internet might help alleviate the barriers that exist for education. according to the World Economic Forum, several projections have been made to grant people around the world the right and access to the internet.
  • Digital literacy development since early childhood has to be adopted at all school levels in order to offer better digital equity and tools to forge critical thinking in the digital world in all strands of the society to avoid a widening digital gap.
  • Media literacy for children and educators has to become part of the education system to understand and be responsibly engaged with the digital environment and avoid the increasing Privacy paradox.
  • Schools should be prepared to have integrated personalised AI learning aids.
  • AI will change learning, teaching and education, as well as labour markets and competence requirements. As AI will be used to automate productive processes, we may need to reinvent current educational institutions.

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