丰田大规模生产复原机器人 在生活上帮助老年人

In his introduction to the June issue of the International Review of Education – Journal of Lifelong Learning (IRE), the editor states that while it ‘seems undeniable that we live in …  an age of global crisis and existential uncertainty … [t]he notion that we are living through a period of largely unprecedented or exceptionally rapid or fundamental change seems … at the very least questionable and the idea that this should in some way be a driver of policy, in education or elsewhere, frankly dangerous’.

Focusing on the speed of change, rather than its often-structural nature or causes, he writes, ‘can result in hasty, short-term decision-making, anti-democratic, reactive governance, and techno-solutionism, not to mention disempowerment and fatalism. In education, it encourages the adoption of short-term fixes which emphasise the need to adapt and be resilient in the face of change, rather than giving students the means to think critically about the causes of change and, if appropriate, resist them.’ 

Education, he argues, ‘should not just be about adaptation or resilience. … It must give people the means not only to get by but also to think critically about the circumstances in which they find themselves, and enable them to reimagine and transform them. … What gets forgotten in the rush to make students resilient or adaptable or market-ready is really almost everything that is fundamental about education.’ 

The six articles featured in the latest issue of IRE share critical thinking about some of the causes of change and of persistent or even exacerbated disadvantages for marginalised learners. One accelerator of change was, of course, temporarily closing schools and universities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first two articles featured in this issue consider the impact of the sudden switch to online learning – on poor urban children in India and on teachers in the United States and the Global North more generally.

The next two articles, both written in French, discuss school performance in sub-Saharan Africa and the recognition, validation and accreditation (RVA) of adults’ non-formal and informal learning in Canada. Both articles investigate circumstantial obstacles and make recommendations on how to improve learning outcomes and social justice for disadvantaged learners.

The fifth article explores, by way of a literature review, the effectiveness of gamification in education and training – ‘a concept that is still evolving’, as the authors point out. Here, too, their findings suggest, there is ample room for improvement in terms of tailoring the new tools to the learners’ needs. Finally, addressing technological change at the level of societal participation in the Nordic countries, the last article looks at digital transformation from a lifelong learning perspective, with a particular focus on digital marginalisation.

Access the full issue of the International Review of Education