Competencies and learning in a globalized world

Though the debate surrounding what children should learn at school today is still wide open, it appears that it does not have to be the same as what we, who are now adults, learned. In this regard, the consensus is increasingly broader. Apparently, our education systems, whose basic features are still established to respond to the industrial economy, are encountering many difficulties in providing the value demanded by today’s society, in a knowledge-based global economy. We currently have all information within reach and it does not seem reasonable to waste energy storing it in memory, when what has become paramount is how to sort and what to do with the avalanche of information available. In this scenario, what is ever more important is the necessary knowledge in order to find the information, understand and analyse it critically. The capacity to recombine this information and use it creatively is particularly significant. Greater value is attached to communication and collaboration skills to respond to challenges, posed by the rapidly changing world in which we live and by such a complex climate as the current one, in an innovative and sustainable manner.

This perspective on learning is not trivial nor does it only propose a change of statements on the curriculum. We do not yet have a clear enough idea of what the school of the future should be like, but reconceiving it seems to be more and more of a priority so that, by rethinking teaching and learning methodologies, school organisation, evaluation strategies and collaboration with the surroundings, education establishments may be capable of offering the skills that the 21^st century requires of citizens. We have schools and secondary schools that are trying out solutions to these and other issues, but the challenge seems incapable of being met by means of a reform process. The required innovation calls for a more in-depth transformation of the education system and, ultimately, of the day-to-day dynamics of each school.