Making the Grade: Knowledge for a New Century

An effective education in the 21st century must provide a harmonious balance between academic education and practical skills development, including technical and vocational education. - UNESCO Member of the Islamic Sisters Association taking ICT classes, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. © Teachers Without Borders Whether in Kansas City or Kampala, a student’s daily schedule might look like this: mathematics in Period 1, biology in Period 2, history in Period 3, and literature in Period 4. While these traditional subjects are important to learn, are they enough? Will they lead to jobs? What about civic values? What about understanding sustainable development and cross-cultural differences in today’s globalized world? In other words, are kids in Kansas City—or Copenhagen or Kolkata for that matter—learning what they really need to succeed in the modern world? Education specialists have rallied behind the promotion of basic education in literacy and numeracy at primary school levels (see “Education for All: A Report Card”), but there is often less consensus about what students should be learning at higher grade levels. While an increasing number of educators in the United States may question how to teach non-traditional subjects like global citizenship, choices of what to teach in developing countries are often more basic and largely influenced by a lack of financial and human resources. In these cases, should schools be trying to provide a broad-based general education that promotes the critical thinking skills needed to thrive in the global economy, or should they focus on teaching the practical skills that young people will need to earn a living? Page 1 - Introduction Page 2 - Reality Check Page 3 - The Virtual Classroom Page 4 - Emphasizing Practical Skills Page 5 - Training for a Global Society PERSPECTIVES HOME: Learning the Future

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