Fact: As a global entitlement, every child has the right to access learning services. Although statistics show more children enrolled in school, the triple bottom line indicates failing learning trends. Most of the children are lack of the knowledge and skills to unlock their true potential and utilize it to establish value-added contribution to their society as well as to the world.
The Problem Statement: The rift between what society, economies expected in education and the maturity of the system’s capabilities serve is deepening. The depth of this education crisis affects the ultimate global challenges for citizens from infant to the elder for life, work, and participation to democracy as an active citizen.
Projections: At the current rate, by 2030;
- 4 billion school-age children will be in low-middle income countries (63% of the world’s children);
- 420 million will not learn the most fundamental skills in childhood (proficiency levels in reading and mathematics);
- 825 million will not acquire necessary secondary-level skills they need to succeed in life, school, and work.
Lessons Learned: Traditional education business model inputs are not improving the learning outcomes that are required. This fail of improvement outlines Grassroot challenge the way how governments, not-for-profit organizations, education institutions themselves and societies are handling or dote on education systems. A fresh jumpstart (call it radical) approaches should be identified and executed to fulfill the gap between education and requirements.
The Strategy: UNICEF recently released UNICEF’s Education Strategy 2019-2023 document visioning, “every child learns.” To form the basis for the vision, UNICEF identified three goals:
- Equitable access to learning opportunities;
- Improved learning and skills for all;
- Improved learning and protection for children in emergency and fragile contexts.
How to Succeed? First things first, collaboration is the key answer for all. Educational challenges are not only government issues, but a society end to end. This require comprehensive approach with dedication and contribution multidisciplinary. Governments, business leaders, not-for-profit organizations, academy, education institutions, students, and teachers should all collaborate to take action. As much the ambition is infused within stakeholders, the better outcome can be generated from the synergy.
The data-driven behavioral approach is crucial. Any initiative to be taken within the education should rely on facts and evidence and follow with crucial performance indicators drawn within the vision to design the future of education. This will create a competitive advantage to overcome most of the conflicts between stakeholders throughout the journey.
Sustainable innovation is one of the key enablers for next-generation education. This guiding principle will bring scalability and promote new ways to expedite the effectiveness of education systems. Innovative innovation will empower (out of the box) design thinking, prototyping, and technology to drive the transformation in a way that the education system has failed to experience before.