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Youth about New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion

The Inter­na­tional Move­ment Youth Time had asked young peo­ple what they think about edu­ca­tion and here are their answers.

I see the great demand for this kind of ideas and projects that will touch upon edu­ca­tion, obsta­cles in the realm of suc­cess­ful educa­tive reforms, new chal­lenges, etc, as this is an issue that wor­ries thou­sands of minds in a con­stant strug­gle to answer a gen­eral ques­tion — which educa­tive sys­tem is better”.

Akop Gabrielyan, Youth Time Mem­ber, Master’s stu­dent at Cen­tral Euro­pean Uni­ver­sity (Budapest), poli­tol­o­gist, Armenia

I would like to empha­sise the need for Life­long Learn­ing (not as an EU par­a­digm but sim­ply a need for a chang­ing world we are liv­ing, work­ing and learn­ing in) and the big big advan­tages of Non-​Formal edu­ca­tion within this process and its fruit­ful com­bi­na­tion with the for­mal edu­ca­tional system”.

Markus Rebitschek, Youth Time Mem­ber, Founder, Chair­man & CEO at non­profit asso­ci­a­tion “Cul­ture Goes Europe (CGE) — Soziokul­turelle Ini­tia­tive Erfurt e.V.”, Germany

When speak­ing about edu­ca­tion, a series of issues that influ­ence each other mutu­ally must be con­sid­ered. Fur­ther, in order to deal with the topic prop­erly, all these rel­e­vant fac­tors should be stud­ied in detail because edu­ca­tion is a com­plex topic. Hav­ing in mind this, we should take one step towards the future and not two steps back to the past by recall­ing well known prin­ci­ples. Thus, I accept your invi­ta­tion to join the sci­en­tific group and the group of mod­er­a­tors and look for­ward dis­cussing the new par­a­digm of edu­ca­tion with you”.

Thomas Wanker, Italy

A par­a­digm shift in edu­ca­tion is as nec­es­sary as ever before, and I look for­ward to work­ing with you to cre­ate that change as I believe that edu­ca­tion must adapt to the changed real­i­ties of today and tomor­row. The effects of this new global risk soci­ety are felt in almost every coun­try of the world and include a sec­ond dilemma of our times: mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and the tran­si­tion towards becom­ing mul­ti­cul­tural sen­si­tive soci­eties. Mul­ti­cul­tural soci­eties already exist in every devel­oped coun­try, and they will increas­ingly play a role in soci­ety due to demo­graphic changes and other factors.

1. Inter­cul­tural Com­pe­tence: The com­plex risk and mul­ti­cul­tural soci­eties of today make hav­ing inter­cul­tural com­pe­tence one of the most impor­tant skills of the 21th cen­tury. While the def­i­n­i­tions of inter­cul­tural com­pe­tence dif­fer, they all agree that it is the abil­ity to under­stand and nav­i­gate in envi­ron­ments that are dif­fer­ent from one’s own.

This capac­ity of accept­ing dif­fer­ences and learn­ing to adapt towards chang­ing real­i­ties is, and will be, a key deter­miner of suc­cess and value cre­ation for tomorrow.

2. Inde­pen­dence: This dynamic fast chang­ing real­ity cre­ates the need for inde­pen­dent thinkers, with the skills to acquire and process infor­ma­tion quickly and by them­selves. The best blue­print for cre­at­ing an edu­ca­tion sys­tem that achieves this can be found in Scan­di­navia, which uti­lizes a sys­tem that focuses on iden­ti­fy­ing the tal­ents and weak­nesses of young mem­bers of soci­ety dur­ing the early phases of child­hood. (…) The need for the abil­ity to process and cap­i­tal­ize on infor­ma­tion holds espe­cially true in these times of the third edu­ca­tion rev­o­lu­tion, which has brought us free online uni­ver­sity, open source learn­ing and free data.

3. Inno­va­tion: Edu­ca­tion has the mis­sion to fos­ter young pupils so that they can enrich all strands of soci­ety, and it must strive to live up to this respon­si­bil­ity in this chang­ing environment.

Niko­las Papa­geor­giou, Youth Time Mem­ber, Germany

The par­a­digm should be a bit refo­cused on indi­vid­u­al­ity, on tal­ents and abil­i­ties dis­clo­sures (here I remem­bered the Sort­ing Hat in Harry Pot­ter movie, which was wise enough to under­stand what fac­ulty to advise to the stu­dent accord­ing his skills and char­ac­ter). Alumni should be engaged (either suc­cess­ful and young or mature and pros­per­ous). Inno­va­tion for all dis­ci­plined should be pro­vided. Cre­ative think­ing should be devel­oped. Inde­pen­dence should be given to stu­dents in applied dis­ci­plines (the­ory still stays the­ory, there are still fun­da­men­tal sci­ence, e.g. his­tory, phi­los­o­phy and by the way all of you make quo­ta­tions of great thinkers which are still cru­cial and actual)”.

Maria Semen­ova, Youth Time Mem­ber, singer, star­tu­per, Russia

 I think edu­ca­tion of tomor­row must be some­thing that com­bines

1. Abil­ity to get the job or make a job through entre­pre­neur­ship

2. Respon­si­bil­ity and account­abil­ity to local social norms and inter­na­tional debates

3. Abil­ity to take a posi­tion based on moral, reli­gious, prac­ti­cal grounds and make deci­sion and lead groups and teams”.

Anirudh Agrawal, Youth Time Mem­ber, PhD Fel­low doing research in social entre­pre­neur­ship, Copen­hagen Busi­ness School, India

Edu­ca­tion con­tin­ues to be the same today, a means of cre­at­ing use­ful work­ers and use­ful tool for assur­ing that cul­ture will always be repet­i­tive and uni­form which means pre­serv­ing the cur­rent struc­ture of soci­ety.

  • Now edu­ca­tion is an admin­is­tra­tive process not a cre­ative one.
  • Should all peo­ple have equal quan­tity and qual­ity of knowl­edge?
  • School as insti­tu­tion becomes the tool of social exclu­sion though claims the oppo­site aim.
  • Mod­ern edu­ca­tion is ori­ented on giv­ing answers instead of devel­op­ing the skill to gen­er­ate ques­tions and then find answers
  • In mod­ern edu­ca­tion empha­sis is on result but not on the process
  • Edu­ca­tion should respond to exter­nal neces­sity and develop inter­nal skills (human being as a cell which gets vital energy from inside but is self-​sufficient from inside).
  • Now we under­stand that we should make edu­ca­tion more emo­tional (develop this skill) but how can it be taught by teach­ers of pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion?
  • The key idea is not to find a new ped­a­gogy (and then another one, and then …) but to ade­quate ped­a­gogy to the cul­tural moment”.

From the doc­u­men­tary “Pro­hib­ited edu­ca­tion” (August 2012), quo­ta­tions pro­vided by Olesya Lilikovich, Project man­ager, Youth Time Moscow Office, PhD stu­dent, Russia

Paris Youth Dec­la­ra­tion New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion

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