High Performing Systems for Tomorrow

Dialogues about the Future of Education Systems in a Changing World

I'd recommend going through all this report as you can see some interesting commonalities as well as differences between these jurisdictions.  And the open-ended questions are great to get thinking of the really large picture!

(Finland, Estonia, BC, Hong Kong, Singapore.) 

Areas of High-Level Agreement

While the project did not result in consensus on commonly endorsed principles, there were some broad areas of agreement on where systems needed to go, as well as some shared recognition of the tensions and challenges that would need to be considered in a complex and uncertain future.

Participating jurisdictions all described many of the same thorny challenges confronting them: 

• globalization
• the rise of artificial intelligence
• widening inequality
• simmering civic unrest
• challenges to democratic norms and institutions
• global pandemic.

 In the face of these challenges

• systems require broader educational goals that serve political stability and social cohesion.
• Learning systems should be organized around principles consistent with the science of learning. Many education systems organized in the industrial era for
  mass production contain structures that are incongruent with what the science of learning suggests is best for learners. These include organizing learning by year, moving students along before ensuring that they are ready and have the support to succeed, and requiring students to learn a wide range of factual and
  procedural information at the expense of deeper learning.
• Learning systems need to focus on not only strengthening the conceptual understanding of the core disciplines for all students but also impart the skills and attributes encompassing what humans do best relative to machines. These include, but are not limited to, person-to-person interactions and interpersonal
  skills, synthesis, pattern recognition, moral reasoning, and creativity. These skills and attributes should be couched within disciplines because epistemic
  knowledge will be key.
• The breadth of knowledge, skills and competencies we want to impart cannot possibly be taught in 12 years of schooling. This has several implications. For one, current curricula are overcrowded and need to be pared back to enable deeper learning of core disciplinary concepts. For another, lifelong learning is becoming increasingly important to education systems.
• Technology carries enormous potential for redesigning education systems. It can facilitate more sophisticated diagnosis and differentiation, instill motivation and create new forms of more engaging learning environments, and help design and organize learning pathways, including for lifelong learning.
• But technology also carries tremendous risks: the potential to exacerbate inequality, exploit students’ data, promote rote learning, or alienate teachers or students. In addition, present-day conversations about the role of technology in learning have often focused on unhelpful tweaks to the current paradigm 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATION

A critical view through the lens of human rights, democracy and the rule of law

This report from European Council asks the questions to ensure that AI in education is a positive force.

• How do we ensure that AI&ED protects and does not undermine human rights, democracy and the rule of law? To begin with, what is the
  “right kind” of AI in education?
•  What should be taught about AI, to our children and our citizens, in our schools and universities and in vocational education and lifelong learning? How do we ensure that we move beyond focusing exclusively on the technological dimension of AI to instead give equal attention to the human dimension of AI – issues such as the impact of AI on human rights, autonomy and agency, alongside questions of transparency, fairness, trustworthiness and ethics.