UNESCO´s initiative Futures of Education aims to reimagine and reshape how we think about education and how education and shape the futures of humanity and the planet when looking at a timeframe until 2050. Through a global consultation process and with the support of an International Commission, the concept of ‘education as a social contract’ was shaped and is now being promoted in Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education.
UNESCO has a long-standing history of shaping the world´s education systems with cutting-edge reports to inspire change and issue policy recommendations for education systems. The Futures of Education Report is the latest in this series following the Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996) and will shape the years to come in our quest towards the SDGs by 2030.
Sustainability has emerged as a crucial goal for humanity and is now considered as an intent or purpose of education. This new vision of sustainability as an education purpose, has great implications for revisiting the understanding of “quality” education and its application both at the local and global contexts. Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a means of engaging the world´s education and training systems in creating a more sustainable future.
What do we do?
- The UNESCO Chair team has contributed to this broad global discussion with co-writing a think piece on sustainability as a purpose of education to this initiative’s first seminal publication Humanistic futures of learning: Perspectives from UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN Networks. We promote engaging with the Futures of Education Report in our global partner networks and participate in UNESCO Conferences to further establish the importance and enhance a transdisciplinary understanding of ESD.