Education over the Next 30 Years

We have long been aware of the major role played by education in the socio-economic development of nations. It is, therefore, essential to form some idea of the way it might develop in the coming decades on a global, European and national scale. However, as Alain Michel and Lorène Prigent remind us here, this is a difficult exercise. Drawing on the studies that fed into the section of the 2016 Vigie Report on education, they analyse a number of trends currently at work: the raising of the general level of training and its ambivalent implications; the tendency to focus on the evaluation of educational practices rather than investing in their intrinsic quality; the need to recruit and train a sufficient number of qualified teachers; the growing convergence of educational policies world-wide; the increased internationalization of higher education; the contribution made by IT in the education sector, but also the illusions to which it gives rise etc. They then propose to focus on a number of trends specific to France, such as the increased number of actors involved in the educational process and the ensuing complexification; the lack of encouragement for teachers to identify potential or talent or, in another area, the adult training system’s unfitness for purpose. So many themes that will be crucial in the development of educational systems and in consolidating their quality to prepare the younger generation optimally for today’s world and, most importantly, the world of tomorrow.