An Educational Revolution is essential for preparing for the unfolding global crises’

“... the idea of the future being different from the present is so repugnant to our conventional modes of thought and behaviour that we, most of us, offer a great resistance to acting on it in practice.”

John Maynard Keynes, economist, 1937

Our education model is 400 years old and unsurprisingly doesn’t adequately equip students for the future. It continues to prepare students for the world that was; and not the world that is imminently going to be.

In practical and technical terms, we are capable of delivering an educational revolution facilitated by AI which could better develop the potential of every individual - including the neurodivergent. The starting point for the design of a new educational system must be to consider the life challenges likely to be faced by tomorrow’s students. Climate change, pandemics, financial crises, geopolitics, and disruptive technologies such as AI, have irreversibly changed our world. Humanity’s problems are complex, global, and interconnected like never before; and they are developing at an accelerating rate. Most experts concur that climate change and AI development is accelerating at an exponential rate which is something humankind struggles to conceptualise - this results in failure to react appropriately.

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”

Albert Allen Bartlett, 1969. Physicist. University of Colorado.

In 2023, the UN has declared that the world is likely to reach a “hellish” 3C of global heating within many of our lifetimes. ‘Hellish’ relates directly to the faltering of global food supply chains, large swathes of the earth becoming uninhabitable, millions of climate refugees fleeing from equatorial to northern regions, intense competition for land, water and food, and conflict erupting across the globe - all happening before a child born today turns 30. Lloyd’s of London reported in 2023 a 1:300 risk of a single extreme weather event within the next 5 years which would cause economic losses of $17.6trillion - a fifth of the global economy.

For all the benefits of democracy, we must recognise its failings. Short electoral cycles make it hard for democratic governments to enact legislation that is essential but would impose dramatic and uncomfortable change. Instead, and facilitated by social media, these cycles encourage the adoption of short term, risk averse, populist policies which severely limit our capacity to respond to imminent, potentially cataclysmic, global challenges. The institutions that we relied upon in the 20th century to keep us safe and to guide us toward national prosperity are increasingly impotent in the 21st century. Climate change is the main case in point; governments across the globe have failed to protect us from impending catastrophe. The Annual Meeting of World Leaders, most recently COP 28 in Dubai, gives no cause for optimism.

We, the authors, presented a vision 15 months ago of what we believed education and assessment would inevitably look like, climate change aside. We envisioned that governments will harness AI to facilitate the separation of education from assessment, freeing teachers and educational institutions to pursue a personalised, appropriate, and more successful education for all.

In the intervening time, the threats posed by climate change have become even clearer. James Hansen, of NASA Goddard, states that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C target is ‘as dead as a doornail’. He appears correct: on November 17th 2023, global mean surface temperatures breached 2C above pre industrial averages for the first time ever. This inability to act is echoed in the widespread inertia within the institutions of government and education which, we conclude, will not control the nature or rate of educational development.

However, if the public imminently demands an education that prepares children for the life challenges they will face, making it a critical topic in future elections, governments may yet be able to influence the type of education that the technologists will provide. We may be able to shape the market demand.

Technologists are transforming the shape and nature of education at a rapidly accelerating pace. We need look no further than the meteoric growth and game changing impact of Open AI’s Chat GPT to see evidence of this. There is going to be a quantum leap over a very short space of time in which the technologists will become the dominant force shaping education. We have little time left in which to influence where that leap lands. Humanity’s biggest challenge will not be in adopting a new educational paradigm but, rather, in adapting to a ‘hellish’ future. It is this future upon which a 21st century education system must focus.

We must all question what opportunities will be available for people in the future in order that they can sustain, as a minimum, a tolerable quality of life. What opportunities will exist to “make a living”? Certainly AI will take a myriad of traditional opportunities from us, initially impacting the professional roles most. Of course, as already happens owing to an excessive number of university graduates in disciplines such as accounting, law or sports science, these graduates take the opportunities previously the preserve of the less well educated. The “working class” will again be subjected to a loss of opportunity; much as they were during the Industrial Revolution.

How do we prepare young people for the collapse of major fishing stocks and farming systems; extreme and regular floods, droughts, and forest fires; and mass involuntary migration; all of which are considered ‘high probability’ outcomes by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? How do we educate to prevent societal collapse associated with unabated climate change? How do we utilise powerful new technologies to prepare young people for their future which will be so different from our own? What skills, character attributes, knowledge and systems will be most appropriate? A collective understanding of this is essential to giving future generations some chance of a decent future.

Civic society needs to recognise that we are in a new era of rapid change, uncertainty, and climate breakdown. We must demand that our governments urgently enact more ambitious, anticipatory, systemic, and inclusive policy. Governments need to design policy portfolios that enable transformative innovation and new markets to emerge, challenging outdated systems, and creating windows of opportunity for new, more appropriate systems to break through.

We must move on from the three principal functions of education for the world past - custody, control and sorting - to inspiring adaptive, resilient, skilful and self aware young people to take on the hideously challenging legacy we shall leave them.

Our education must embrace AI, and equip our young people with the skills to overcome the hellish challenges that they will surely face. This is the moment to act collectively, decisively and with a revolutionary vision for education that extends well beyond the democratic cycle and prepares students for the future to come.

Authors: Andrew Paterson, Naill Dolan and Professor Hugh Montgomery

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