Professor W. John Morgan, an honorary professor at WISERD and the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, has co-chaired a senior panel of experts that has produced a major report for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on the future of education in the 21st century.
Professor Morgan was appointed to chair the panel by the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, and Amina Mohammed, Special Adviser to Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations.
The group of international experts was tasked by UNESCO with preparing a report that identified the issues most likely to affect the organisation of learning for the future, and to stimulate debate about a 21st century vision for education.
The ‘Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good?’ report’s key topics cover sustainable development, reaffirming a humanistic approach, education policy-making and education as a common good.
The Report was presented at the World Education Forum in Incheon, Korea, last month.
Professor Morgan said: “The Report is intended as an opportunity to renew the influential UNESCO reports, Learning to Be: The World of Education Today and Tomorrow (1972) and Learning: The Treasure Within (1996), which did so much to develop the concept and practice of lifelong learning and of mass participation in education.
“It highlights the urgent need to consider education as a global common good, in the interests of humanity’s sustainable development and welfare. It is intended also as a stimulus to dialogue about the fundamental purposes of education, rather than as a technical blue-print”.
Irina Bokova described the Report as: “[…] a humanist vision of education as an essential common good,” writing in the Foreword that she believed this vision to renew ‘…the inspiration of the UNESCO Constitution, agreed 70 years ago, while reflecting new times and demands”.
The report, in full, can be viewed here: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002325/232555e.pdf