Every sector has a groundbreaking moment, something which changes the landscape of the day-to-day environment of that particular area. One of the most important educational milestones was a UNESCO report, written by the former European Commission President Jacques Delors.
Published 21 years ago, it presented the educational landscape with new ways of looking at things. Education had always been an inward-looking industry. Not much had changed, and bringing fresh ideas to the table had proved very challenging.
This report was Delors’ send-off from the job, a role he had for three years between 1993 and 1996. The report turned out to be very influential – it was the basis of major reforms across Europe and the rest of the world. We still use it as a foundation for a number of things, such as the European Lifelong Learning Indicators.
The core of the report was quite simple. It listed four important elements for a proper education: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live with others and learning to be. These encompass the fundamentals of a well-rounded educational experience, which goes beyond the academic area. It is about human growth rather than academic achievement. This report had the foresight and ambition to dream what could be done, referenced commonly as "utopia" in the report, but which, in reality, were straightforward and simple notions. It had foresight – discussing areas which were far from commonplace at the time such as a multi-cultural environment in a school and how technology could change how we learn new things.
It forecast a changing world where skills and abilities in the real world were more important that academic certification. It talked about "exclusion of a growing number of people in the rich countries" and how this would continue to bring about disillusionment. This, in many ways, was a self-fulfilling prophecy. We all know about the vast inequalities that are present in our world, including western countries. The result of this was a contaminated political arena, which gave rise to political characters that didn’t have the right policies in mind to solve this, but just wanted to appease a feeling. This, in turn, led to a dangerous rotation of events.
I found the report very interesting because it didn’t talk about an education system in a silo. Often, the educational experience is discussed, reported and analysed as if it is independent of the outside world, as if the challenges and realities out there don’t have any sort of effect on schools, teachers and children. Rather than look inwards, for the first time the report looked outwards. It presented a complicated world and no easy solutions. It was about people and all the variables at play, the interactions between us and what the future held. It was not just about curricula and academia, but also about aspirations.
"There is a need to rethink and broaden the notion of lifelong education. Not only must it adapt to changes in the nature of work, but it must also constitute a continuous process of forming whole human beings – their knowledge and aptitudes, as well as the critical faculty and the ability to act. It should enable people to develop awareness of themselves and their environment and encourage them to play their social role at work and in the community," the report states.
Since that report of 21 years ago, education across the globe has continued to thrive on rigid certifications and examinations, forgetting that its scope should go beyond that. Led by Asia and the US, the standardisation formula has spread to all corners of the world.
Another report by UNESCO, this time published in 1972 by Edgar Faure, was titled “Learning to be: World of Education – Today and Tomorrow”.' It may be 45 years old but could have been written recently. Its recommendations are still very relevant, for it states that in the 21st century everyone will need to exercise greater independence and judgement combined with a stronger sense of personal responsibility for the attainment of common goals.
During the European Union Presidency in the first six months of this year, we did our best to present and communicate these messages. We know our limitations as a country – but we also know that the European Union gives us a seat and platform at the main show. We have used that platform to drive the message and influence other countries. This does not necessarily mean that we are going to be changing the education systems of our countries, but it all starts from a thought or an idea.
We discussed the educational system in our context and the way we keep the reality of “out there” away from schools. We talked about getting education out of its bubble and injecting it with a dose of reality and life to reach beyond school subjects and listen to our biggest stakeholder: our children and young people who are sitting in classrooms today. As everything, it is a case of adapt or die. The relevance of the education system will only remain if it adapts to the needs of the modern world. It is easy to say things are moving too fast. It is easy to say the world out there is complicated and everchanging and that the education system cannot keep up with the pace. However, we cannot use old methods which have proved to have failed, and still expect better results. We must have the courage to change.
When we do, the results could be phenomenal and there is evidence on that. Over the past days, MATSEC has published the SEC (‘O' level) results for last May's session. The averages varied, but they hovered around the 60 per cent to 70 per cent mark. The five vocational subjects, which were introduced three years ago at Form 3 level, and whose students sat for the first time, had a whopping 89.1 per cent pass mark. This goes to show that when we provide students with quality vocational programmes and a different way to measure their abilities (it was not a win-all exam like the others but through two assignments and a control assessment) the results can be fruitful.
The first step in this journey has been taken. I like to think about these changes as evolution, rather than revolution. Revolution has negative connotations such as the base is not right and we need to start from scratch. That is not the case. It is about evolution – the foundation has served us well over time, but it needs to change to adapt to the new realities and the new environment. The new realities are the different abilities of our children, changing society and the technologies at play which will modernise, and change, our lives.
As schools resume tomorrow we will achieve yet another incremental change, a small step towards a bigger change. Every scholastic year we introduce a fresh batch of new things. Often, they may not be seen as grandiose but that is intentional. We want alternative programmes, new pedagogical methods and different pathways to be introduced seamlessly, not as a grand one-time change.
These are all important improvements that will continue to gather pace over the next two years. These policies are important because they expand our educational system to reach everyone. Above all else, we are doing all this by holding true to the Delors mantra of what education is all about: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live with others and learning to be.
Evarist Bartolo is Minister for Education