Look around yourself and observe the advancement of human civilization over the last century & then ask yourself-Does any comparative progress in course content, teaching methodology and pupil’s learning reflect inside the classrooms? Certainly, your answer would be a big No. Worldwide education systems do not seem promising for students, these are no longer vibrant or reflective of human achievement and have become more concentrated in quantitative scores and successive pupils educational career. Another biggest failure of these systems is to provide equal opportunities and access to schools to million of children around the world. Those who are lucky enough to attend schools may not develop a desire for learning to enhance their problem-solving skills, healthy mind, souls, creativity and leadership skills while others yearn for opportunities to learn.
There is only one thing we all can agree on, that there is no ideal world in existence. Now, let’s imagine that the ideal world does exist, what would it be like? Our ideal world for education would be a place where no one has a lack of educational opportunities, each school is equipped with proper Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) tools and validate high quality of learning. Nations are no longer expanding their militaries and defense spending. In this world, no child is left behind or deprived of their basic rights to a quality education. Now, we would be thinking, what would our education system look like in our ideal world?
1. It is No More Us-Against-Them
The changed world does not carry the stigma of racism, discrimination or any sort of phobia against human being because we have embraced diverse religions, races, nationalities, and cultures. Schools educate children learning to encourages universal harmony and coexistence and to understand collective human goals, shared prosperity and development of human civilization. Every classroom depicts a small world, equipped with ICT, where pupils are facilitated to interact, exchange and communicate. Their learning goes beyond the class content to learn about multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious world fellows. There are no more concerns about discrimination based on race, color, creed or religious affiliation because we live in an ideal world.
2. Ownership of Global Goals
Worldwide nations, communities, schools, and individuals support, endorse and engage by pursuing global goals established for the collective prosperity, development, and inclusiveness of all. Every human being understands the essence of these global goals, collective challenges and are devoted to pursuing them in their everyday lives. Though attaining this ideal world has not been easy but it would endorse the visionary leadership and heroic story of our forefathers who laid the foundation of global goals. These goals were called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and later became the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to provide quality of education to every child and to make sure no child is left behind. It is a bitter fact that these goals could not meet the deadlines but our ancestors’ persistence and consistency made it possible today that no one is left behind from his or her basic right to free quality education up to the doctoral level in every nook and corner of the world.
3. Online Schooling Worldwide
Worldwide online schooling possibilities have gone through extensive debate around different aspects including teachers role, pupils learning, finances, mechanisms of monitoring and evaluation, desired social and aptitude skills and localization of learning content. In our ideal world, all children have access to online quality education, and learning with the children across the borders, exchanging their local context and understanding the bigger picture of their world. Each school in our communities is connected to national and international schools by using modern ICT tools.
4. Active Engagement of Stakeholders
In our ideal world, our education system is managed by all the stakeholders i.e. parents, governments, teachers, students, school management, policymakers, and the business community. Education is a huge obligation and responsibility and we cannot afford to leave it on the shoulder of one stakeholder. Collective management and supervision of our education system have made it more accountable, effective and responsive to the fast-changing dynamics of our ideal world. Every parent desires to be heard in the learning of their children and actively engaged in the schools. Parents support and contributions into the school learning model enable the system to nurture the minds that endorse peace, co-existence, sustainability and collective development.
5. Inclusive and Effective Assessment
Management guru Peter Drucker says: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. Historically there have been few international and national assessment systems used to assess, measure and define the quality of education in different parts of the world. There didn’t exist a sound universal assessment system to assess the quality of education from nursery to Post-Doctoral levels.
However, in our ideal world of education, we have developed a strong inclusive assessment system for all levels of education worldwide. This assessment does not merely focus on easily quantifiable variables i.e. graduation rates, attendance, teachers ratio, ICT equipment, students enrollment but it is more focused on qualitative learning. This assessment is beyond the quantitative measures of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) but equally values and assesses students’ creativity, problem-solving skills, social, political and economic contribution, leadership skills, sense of community engagement, sensitivity to diversity, global values and universal citizenship.
Though we are not living in a utopian society but keeping in view of the 21st century’s development the day does not seem far away from when our education system will be free and equal for all. It would bring the highest quality of lifelong learning, universal access along with peace, equity, justice, sustainable development, and revival of human dignity.