21st Century Development Challenges and Opportunities: Demands on Education Systems
Mmantsetsa Marope, Director, Division of Basic Education, UNESCO Paris, France and Kai-ming Cheng, Chair Professor of Education and Senior Advisor to the Vice Chancellor, The University of Hong Kong, SAR Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China
The presentation will explore major development challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, with development holistically conceived to include among others: human, moral, ethical, social, cultural, political, economic and physical dimensions. It will explore such broad makers of the 21st century as deepening globalization; increasing demand for local responsiveness; spreading commonalities; sharpening particularities; wealth; persisting inequalities; knowledge, information and technology explosion; consistent and fast pace of change; climate change and the unpredictability of change. The presentation will give a more detailed treatment of fast and indelible changes in the work place. Highlights of these changes include increasing knowledge and technology intensity of work, labour intensity of new technologies, more uncertainty and less longevity of jobs, shrinking jobs and expanding work, shrinking low level jobs and expanding high level jobs, multiple occupations in one’s working life and so on. It will discuss knowledge, skills, competencies and affects required to effectively respond to 21st century challenges while taking up opportunities. It will draw implications for education, training and skills development systems as dominant human resources development tools and conclude by proposing recommendations on how human resources development systems can cope, especially in developing countries.