Teaching for the Future: Global Engagement, Sustainability and Digital Skills (OECD 2023)

• May 12, 2023
• neelam

Global education systems face an array of huge challenges, including question marks over how to remain relevant in a fast-changing world. This report, Teaching for the Future: Global Engagement, Sustainability and Digital Skills, outlines the challenges and key trends for teaching and schools, and sets out ambitious proposals to improve education standards to ensure learning caters to the needs of all students regardless of background.

The report was used as the basis to launch discussions about the state of global education at the International Summit on the Teaching Profession held in Washington D.C. in April 2023, where the US Department of Education, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation, Education International brought together education ministers, union leaders and other teacher leaders with the aim to better support the teaching profession in meeting the formidable challenges of 21st century education. Topics discussed included the future of learning and ways to radically reimagine how education systems function in the decades to come; analysis of how to attract and support the development of high-quality teachers and teaching practices in the age of digitalisation; and ways to support the teaching of global competencies in schools, and how to promote equitable and inclusive learning environments for all. In particular:

• The first session of the Summit examined ways to elevate and enhance the teaching profession. Some countries face dire teacher shortages while in others the teaching profession continues to be an attractive career choice. These differences among conuntries are not simply explained by teacher salaries or material conditions and the Summit represented a promising space for peer learning and policy dialogue.
• The second session looked at ways to educate global and cultural competence as well as civic engagement. For many countries, this has become a major issue to ensure students are better prepared to succed in interconnected world and to counter rising economic, social, political and cultural polarisation.
• The third session explored ways to leverage digital technologies to ensure equitable access and enhanced learning. The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally transformed learning by forcing schools worldwide to find alternatives to face-to-face instruction by engaging with the digital world. The Summit provided an opportunity to explore how countries are progressing towards reconciling the potential opportunities and risks of digital technologies with the social anrelational nature of learning.