Futures for learning · Figure 1 The gender gap in tertiary qualifications across two generations...
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Futures for learning June 14 2006 Merida, Mexico Tom Bentley Demos [email protected] www.demos.co.uk
Transcript of Futures for learning · Figure 1 The gender gap in tertiary qualifications across two generations...
Outline
Valuing educationGlobal change; new pressuresStrategic goals; in conflict? Durable inequalitiesWhy are school systems so resilient?Understanding adaptive changeTowards a systems viewModels of learning and innovation
Education systems combine many levels of meaning and work
Ancient historical practice and tradition: pedagogyShared social and cultural commitment: identityNeighbourhood and class structure: social orderDesign and evolution of state: entitlementIndividual and family endeavour: aspiration
But they operate in new conditions
Collective resource shortages: climate, water, oilPopulation pressures, urban growth, generational changeGreater interconnectedness, communication, mobilityGrowing distance from traditional identities, institutional categoriesAn explosion of knowledge and information
All driven by more intense economic competition and growing social power of individualism;
Many factors
Demography
Values andidentity
Science
Natural resources
Governance
People flow
Economic exchange
DigitalTechnology
Education
Source: Society at a Glance 2005, GE2Source: OECD (2005), Society at a Glance 2005
Young people aged 0-24
0250,000500,000750,000
1,000,0001,250,0001,500,0001,750,0002,000,0002,250,0002,500,0002,750,0003,000,0003,250,0003,500,000
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
Thousands
Less developed regionsMore developed regionsWorld
Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp, 13 December 2005; 1:27:30 PM.
Europe40 %
North & South America
22 %
Asia21 %
Africa9 %
Caribbean7 %
Oceania1 %
Foreign-born population in OECD countries, by region of origin
Source: Trends in International Migration, OECD 2005
People flow
Other Africa55 %
North Africa45 %
Other Asia81 %
China and Chinese Taipei19 %
Latin America
87 %
North America
13 %
EU 2563 %
Other Europe37 %
Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2003 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp, 13 December 2005; 12:10:14 PM.
Population living in urban areas
0102030405060708090
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030 Year
%
More developedcountriesLess developedcountries
City dwelling
Source: ICT Outlook 2004
Internet access
Growing connections
Feed new social dynamics
A gender revolution?New disparities
Figure 1The gender gap in tertiary qualifications across two generations
1. Year of reference 2002.Source: Education at a Glance 2005 , Tables A1.3b and A1.3c.
Age group 25-34 yearsAge group 55-64 years
Countries are ranked in descending order of the difference between the percentage of females and the percentage of males who have attained tertiary-type A and advanced research programmes in the age group 25-34 years.
Percentage of females attaining tertiary-type A and advanced research
programmes
Percentage of males attaining tertiary-type A and advanced research programmes
Percentage of females attaining tertiary-type A and advanced research
programmes
Percentage of males attaining tertiary-type A and advanced research programmes
50 25 0 25 50
Norway
Denmark
Spain
Poland
Portugal
Finland
Sweden
Canada
Australia
Hungary
Greece
France
United States
New Zealand
Italy 1
Iceland1
Slovak Republic
Netherlands1
Ireland
Austria
Luxembourg
Germany
Czech Republic
United Kingdom
Belgium
Turkey
Mexico
Korea
Switzerland
Japan
50 25 0 25 50
1
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Gender gap in tertiary education, 30s and 60s
Growth in employment rates: women, average annual growth in percentage, 1990-2003
Source: OECD Factbook 2005
Source: Health at a Glance 2005
Equality – inequality, 1980s-2000
Source: UNDP (2005), Human Development Report
Source: OECD (2001), The Creative Society of the 21st Century
Global income distribution
Education reform strategies: facing all ways?
Standards based reform to improve attainment outcomesMeasures to improve participation and completion for vulnerable people; poverty reduction, early yearsLiteracy and numeracy strategiesNew infrastructure, especially ICTsWorkforce reformCivic engagement and community cohesionEducation for innovation and creativityExpanding higher education and research
A new global economy
With learning at the heart of competitiveness?
Education: the route to prosperity?
In a recent analysis by the C.D. Howe Institute of Canada, Coulombe& Tremblay (2005) drew this powerful conclusion:
“A country’s literacy scores rising by one percent relative to the international average is associated with an eventual 2.5 percentrelative rise in labour productivity and a 1.5 percent arise in GDP per head. These effects are three times as great as for investment in physical capital. Moreover, the results include that raising literacy and numeracy scores for people at the bottom of the skills distribution is more important to economic growth than producing more highly skilled graduates.”
Fastest Growing Occupations in the US
Medical assistantsNetwork systems and data communications analystsPhysician assistantsSocial and human service assistantsHome health aidesMedical records and health information techniciansPhysical therapist aidesComputer software engineers, applicationsComputer software engineers, systems softwarePhysical therapist assistants
Source: The impact of training on productivity and wages: evidence from British panel data, Dearden, Reed and van Reenan, 2005. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Volume 16, Number 3, 2000.
But this means uneven distribution…
Companies with higher skills base have higher productivity growth…
Nations…
The skilled get upskilled even further
Less than one third of adults with no qualifications participate in learning compared to 94% of those with at least level 4 qualifications.
Only 52% of those with basic skills difficulties take part in learning compared to 83% of those without.
While others are deterred…
Among those with no qualifications who don’t engage in lifelong learning, 30% say this is the case because they lack qualifications
Participation by those from low-income households is 40% lower than participation by those from high-income households
Durable inequality; how schooling entrenches inequity
Different outcomes are only partly explained by internal variation in the school and teacher performanceIt is how formal organisation interacts with wider patterns of economic, social and cultural resources that makes the bigger differenceSchooling systems will not overcome growing patterns of exclusion and marginalisation by incrementally improving their attainment scores
So teaching, resourcing, leadership all matter, but they cannot work in isolation from the wider context
Some consequences…
In the US by 1993 the income gap between those who had not finished secondary school and those with just a high-school certificate was as large as that between non-completers and graduates had been twenty years before.
Among German men the unqualified are more than three times as likely to be out of work as those with degrees. In the USA the difference is fivefold.
In England, those who reach the expected standard of numeracy and literacy by age 11 have a 70 % chance of getting the qualifications at 16 they need to head towards higher education. For those who do not reach the same threshold at 11, their chances of the same at 16 are 12%.
In Australia, the worst off 25 % of students are twice as likely to score badly in reading tests as those not in the bottom quartile of the wealth distribution.
Students versus schools background effects
To recap
Global forces are creating massive new pressures, but also new opportunitiesThe current dynamics of knowledge and human capital investment are actually widening inequalityDiversity and flexibility could lead to new peaks of achievement and fulfilment, but somehow these factors can actually combine to make the distribution of opportunity and reward more rigid and unfair
Understandably, frustration with education reform is growing
The reforming response
AccountabilityResourcesCompetitionProductivityPerformance incentives‘Leadership’Sending signals through chains of command to enhance performancewithin existing institutional parameters
But why are school systems so resilient? ‘buffering’ - Elmore
A different starting point?
We cannot remake our education institutions while the division of learning labour between institutions, families and communities remains artificially separated
We need to understand the resilience of institutions as part of our collective capacity to adapt
We need to uncover the dynamics of social and economic adaptation in order to build new learning systems
Learning as a complex, collective process
capacity building involves any policy, strategy or other action undertaken that increases the collective efficacy of a group to raise the bar and close the gap of student learning for all students.
Usually it consists of the development of three components in concert: new knowledge and competencies; new enhanced resources; and new and deeper motivation and commitment to improve things—again, all played out collectively.
Michael Fullan, Beyond Turnaround Leadership, 2006.
Complex adaptive systems
More than the sum of partsDefined by relationships and interdependencesCapable of sustaining flexibility and coherenceAble to adapt continuously over time in response to environmental changeComposed of many different autonomous members
Towards a system view of learning
We are born programmed to learn We shape our dispositions and learning capacities through repeated encounters with the world; school systems are one small sliceSchool systems are resilient because they are adaptiveBut they unintentionally screen out many of the resources we could be using to boost the motivation, resilience, ability of our learnersWe need systems – and innovations – that connect learners to more powerful, plentiful and flexible learning resourcesThe most important reform strategies will be those which integrate most resources around the learner, not those that refocus the school
LearningPractices
Individual choices, aspirations
Identities, collective belonging
Organisational regime and leadership
Innovation, R&D Systems
Knowledge domains and their fields of practice
Local communities
Policy, regulation, inspection, audit
Local Governance Institutions Market
Bridging networks
Changing models of innovation
Open Source,
User-driven
Peer networks
Modular innovation
D&R
Feeds input directly into itself
eg Linux, Wikipedia
Expert patients, Horse’s mouth
Networked Learning communities
BMW virtual innovation centreProject Zero, SSAT
Toyota TQS
We need system reforms that…
Broaden the range of innovators working on a shared challengeUse central policy to frame and connect elements of local systems, and make whole systems more transparentSurround formal schooling with new learning communities that caninteract positively with themHarness the voice and motivations of students themselvesConnect directly with family learning and wellbeingBuild organisational frameworks whose learning becomes self-sustaining
Learning: outlines of a new system?
Personal learning networks
Online providers, career support
Employer, university
Work-life integration
Lifelong learning
Peer networks, interests
Learning for work, mentoring
School Federations
Personal adviser
14-19
Friendship groups
Parks and neighbourhoods
Extended primary school
Family learning, out-of school activities
5-14
Parenting networks
Primary health, libraries
NurseryEarly play, music, emotional support
Early years
Informal communities
Related servicesCore learning institution
Family and individual
Student motivation
and responsibility
Supportive networksof informal learningand information flow
Professional learning
communities
Transparency,legitimacy,
community support
Organisationalflexibility, innovation
Powerfulpedagogical
practices
It follows that the most powerful system changes will combine internal and external resources
Schools and research knowledgeCore curriculum and extended learning programmeFace to face and online communityExpert tutor and work-based practiceHome and library or museumFamily and teachers
We have the opportunity to develop systems through which these connections can emerge and generate their own positive momentum
“It appears from early research that school systems that improve are those that have succeeded in getting people to internalize the expectations of standards-based accountability systems, and that they have managed this internalization largely through modeling commitment and focus using face-to-face relationships, not bureaucratic controls. The basic process at work here is… learning new behaviours and values that are associated with collective responsibility for teaching practice and student learning.”
(Elmore, 2004 a:82)
