Development: The futures of education

By: Evelyn Espinoza Carriel

What we can find on the website of the Ministry of Education is that there is an initiative "The Futures of Education" born in November 2019, with the approval of the 193 countries that make up the General Assembly of UNESCO.  It aims to rethink education and reshape its future, fostering a debate on how to reinvent knowledge and learning in a world where global solidarity is imperative in the face of increasing complexity, interconnectedness, uncertainty and the effects of climate change and the health emergency caused by COVID-19.

Knowledge and learning are the greatest renewable resources humanity has to respond to today's challenges and invent alternatives. Education does not merely respond to a changing world, it transforms the world. Looking to 2050 and beyond, the Education Futures initiative seeks to reinvent how education and knowledge can contribute to the common good.

In Ecuador, the "Education Futures" process proposed by UNESCO is led by the Ministry of Education, with the cooperation of the Secretariat of Intercultural Bilingual Education (SESEIB), UNICEF, the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB), Plan International, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, Development and Self-Management (DYA) and United for Education. Based on the importance of including Ecuador in this global initiative and incorporating the reflections of the Ecuadorian population and specialists in the global results, an exercise of collective intelligence and co-responsibility is proposed at the national level to position education as a national priority.

The challenges posed to education by the health emergency, its economic repercussions and the global context, demand unity, pragmatism and co-responsibility to identify strategies and major agreements to be sustained in the short, medium and long term, and to guarantee the human right to education to the entire population, prioritizing children, adolescents and young people who face different vulnerabilities and, therefore, greater risk of dropping out of school.

Opinion:

The education of the future will not be tied to specific subjects, nor to individual student work, but to the development of skills such as communication, creativity and critical thinking.

In Ecuador we must implement above all the quality preparation of teachers in order to achieve a quality education adapting to the technological time we are living and that due to the pandemic of Covid-19 has had to develop in a forced way and thus be able to adapt to the new means by which classes can be taught. In a futuristic vision technology will cover much more in education and in our daily lives, unfortunately I think that in underdeveloped countries like Ecuador and several Latin American countries these technologies will not be available to everyone in such a short time. But at least let's hope that the internet is available to everyone since it is something fundamental for the new era of education.