EDUCATION: A New Kind of Teacher Needed for Lifelong Learning

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Apr 12 2000 (IPS) - “Lifelong learning”, the new educational model taking root worldwide, entails changes in the roles, responsibilities and salaries of educational staff, according to a new study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“Teachers will be expected to exercise more responsibility for learning outcomes through: curricula development and change; research, reflection on and alteration of teaching approaches in the direction of collaborative teaching; assessment of student progress and failures; and modification of work and especially classroom organisation in association with education support staff and parents,” says the report.

The ILO document was drawn up for this week’s meeting on “educational personnel in the context of lifelong learning in a changing world” in Geneva.

The report bases its conclusions on the idea that the various functions traditionally assigned to educators, combined with modern society’s emphasis on constant change – whether political, economic, environmental, technological or social – make it necessary for learning to become a lifelong function.

The ILO holds that today, ongoing learning constitutes the guiding principle of political strategies designed to meet objectives ranging from national economic well-being and competitiveness to personal fulfillment and social cohesion.

“If knowledge, skills and learning abilities are not renewed, the capacity of individuals – and by extension, of communities or nations – to adapt to a new environment will be considerably reduced, if not cut off entirely,” states the report.

It is a question of survival, says the ILO. The importance of learning that continues throughout the working life of an individual, and even after retirement, will be increasingly recognised as a priority by individuals, nations and the international community in years to come, it adds.

The study, coordinated by Bill Ratteree, an ILO specialist in education, outlines the spectrum of positions in the debate on lifelong learning.

“At one end of the conceptual spectrum, the axis of personal fulfillment and social well-being is inspired in part by (renowned Brazilian pedagogue) Paulo Freire’s work in literacy and cultural development with a view to raising individual and collective consciousness.

“Post-modernist theories of the end of social class and economic theories of human capital formation frame the opposing poles of lifelong learning based largely on economic necessity,” the report adds. “This posits that one’s learning is most worthwhile when it is linked to gaining or retaining employment or economic betterment generally.

“The collective utilitarian reasoning for lifelong learning is driven to a great extent by these twin concerns of economic prosperity and social stability,” says the ILO.

“Increased trade and capital flows subsumed under the term globalisation, resulting competitive pressures and alterations in work organisation, and the constant need to adjust to ever- changing technological progress fuel greater demands for highly skilled and adaptable labour,” it adds.

But while that debate continues, large numbers of teenagers and adults remain illiterate – one more indication of the failure to lay the foundations for lifelong learning, according to the report.

The study cites United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) statistics that point to the steady growth in the number of children enrolled in primary school. It admits, however, that there are still sharp disparities between regions.

The ILO points out that 130 million school-age children have no access to primary education, two-thirds of whom are girls. Moreover, “the probability of substantially altering these numbers is not bright,” says the report.

Although illiteracy rates are dropping, they are still too high in the developing world, the ILO underlines. Nearly one-sixth of the world’s population does not know how to read and write, and the outlook is dim for any significant reduction in that figure in the near future, it states.

A closely related question is the fact that access to education and the quality of teaching depend on adequate funding and the size and training levels of educational personnel.

Insufficient financing for education – the minimally acceptable level understood as six percent of Gross Domestic Product – has serious repercussions on access as well as quality, the report warns.

The ILO suggests meeting such needs by diversifying financing mechanisms through a combination of public and private sector partnerships.

In the past few years, a declining trend in the hiring of teachers has been seen throughout the world, and there is a growing gap between LDCs and industrialised nations, which has had a big impact on participation, the report points out.

The ILO stresses that besides questions of financing and organisation, the key to adopting systems aimed at lifelong learning lies in clearly outlining the “profiles, roles and responsibilities, and conditions of work of the people that will teach in, manage and support the system’s operation.”

The report also warns that schools, training institutes and workplaces must become “learning communities in their own right – places of broad-based knowledge sharing and socialisation which foster living and working together; above all, places where individuals learn how to learn.

“An integrated strategy for changing the learning environment will require alterations in the remuneration packages,” the study concludes. “Salaries will need to be at levels sufficient to attract top-quality candidates to education jobs, retain them over a reasonable career span, and be structured in a way to motivate and reward innovative performance.”

EDUCATION: A New Kind of Teacher Needed for Lifelong Learning

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Apr 12 2000 (IPS) - “Lifelong learning”, the new educational model taking root worldwide, entails changes in the roles, responsibilities and salaries of educational staff, according to a new study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
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