2. An increasing focus on Technical and Vocational Education and a growing demand for effective systems to assess complex skills and competencies.
3. A focus on the need to train and support teachers with content, online communities and ‘how to teach’ guides.
4. A pressing need for the standardisation of assessment in the classroom, both summative and formative.
De-centralised Education Systems and trends in pedagogy
In de-centralised education systems, and in developed economies, we are seeing a continuing move towards enquiry-based learning and the notion of self-aware students and self-aware practitioners. This refers to the emphasis on teaching students how they learn, and how to plan and organise their own learning (a good example is the work of the highly influential educator John Hattie and his Visible Learning programme which is being increasingly adopted worldwide).
This means that future technology will need to support students who are developing their own portfolio of skills and competencies, and who will be learning through projects that encompass a range of subjects. We are also seeing a shift towards Blended Learning, combining experiential education with technology, so that the latter becomes one tool among many, and to ensure that physical experience (making things, doing experiments with laboratory equipment) and social interaction continues to be the core focus of classrooms.
De-centralised education systems tend to encourage pockets of excellence and innovative practice. In reality these can end up being isolated, even within schools where one or more ‘super teachers’ experiment with new technologies and pedagogies and the rest of the staff carry on as before. Over the next three to five years, Change Management and teacher training and support will continue to be a priority to