Rebuilding our relationships with each other, the planet and technology

In societies, we see signs of fracturing, division and polarization, especially a spike in violent conflict, from Afghanistan to Ukraine, from Sudan to Gaza, bringing us to the brink of world war. We see in the multilateral system a real polarization. And these geopolitical tensions have an impact on other aspects of our daily life, like American universities campuses, raising fundamental debates about academic freedom and leadership not being able to address it.

Floods, fires, and extreme heat have broken records in nearly every continent, and we expect they will be broken again and again in the years to come until we take action. Action is not only about energy policies. It’s about changing our mindsets.

Technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives, at an exponential rate of change. Devices designed to connect us—already happening between North and South, East and west—are creating new, deep divides and divisions. Of course, each of these three areas is interconnected.

Consider, for example, election disinformation on social media. What potential consequences for democracy might it have during this “super electoral year”, when 2.5 billion people worldwide will be eligible to vote? Or think about the complex interface between green and digital transitions. 

We do not think enough about and the environmental impact of technology, such as the massive amounts of energy and water needed to cool data centers and to train ChatGPT, which is equivalent to a cooling tower of a nuclear reactor.

Against the backdrop, which is quite well-known, there is the risk of addressing new overwhelming challenges through old instruments, and consequently political and intellectual leadership seems to be paralyzed in the face of complexity. Such long-term projects escaping as much as possible the tyranny of the short-term decision-making that often plagues politics.

Instead, mission-oriented projects that defined “cathedral thinking” are marked by courage, dynamic competency, leadership, resilience and creativity. 

That means the same approach that brought the common civil society to build these incredibly enormous, unprecedented monuments to express and make visible the greatness and beauty of God.

Today we have another purpose. We have to identify our cathedrals to build. My cathedral is to realize the Mission Education, to rethink it in a different way. Such projects embed equity, fairness and sustainability. How can we rebuild a world that is more peaceful, just and sustainable in 20, 30 years to come?

The horizon is no longer 2030, but going beyond, seeing where we are 30 years from now. Mission Education is about unlocking the transformative power of education through the learners of today to form the global citizens of tomorrow. Addressing complexity through a new lens, a new philosophical approach, from earliest elementary school throughout one’s life.

Realizing the vision of Mission Education requires us to fundamentally transform education, through three key transitions.

First, from exclusion and elitism to inclusion and equity. This means making education, really, accessible to all. Last year marked the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees, by definition, the right to education.

We must recognize that the global expansion of access to education has been remarkable. In 1948, only 45% of the world’s population (at that time 2.4 billion) had ever set foot in a school. Today, over 95% of the global population of almost 8 billion has attended school. This is the good news, let’s say.

However, despite this progress, access to quality education remains incomplete and, more importantly, inequitable. Recent UNESCO data show that 250 million children and youth are out of school globally. To achieve universal primary and secondary education, a child needs to be enrolled in school every 2 seconds between now and 2030. 

Just to give you a sense of the magnitude of the challenge. 763 million adults still cannot read and write. What we call totally illiterate. In other words, they’re out of any participatory process. Two-thirds of them are women. Education should level the playing field, offering equal access and equal opportunity to all.

I’m sure you remember the very famous motto a former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan once said: “Education is the great equalizer of our time. It gives hope to the hopeless and creates chances for those without.”

I wish to quote, always, as French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu observed and reiterated, too often, education remains a privilege of the wealthy, reproducing social hierarchies and perpetuating inequities.

Unfortunately, we have evidence that nowhere is this clearer than in higher education, where we see deepening divides. It’s about marginalized and vulnerable groups still facing significant barriers in their right to accessing higher education. UNESCO data shows that gaps in enrolment rates at university level between the richest and the poorest can reach a gap of 60 percent.

In Europe, enrolment is about 74 percent. If we move to the sub-Saharan region, enrolment in higher education is about 14 percent. Refugees, unfortunately an increasing part of the world population, are another case. Only six percent of refugees have access to higher education today.

To change course, in a nutshell, we need to move from a practice of reforming to a culture of transforming the education system. Both as educators and as societies, we must fundamentally shift our perception of diversity towards radical inclusion. The second transition is to reimagine how education is taught, moving from competition to collaboration. From values of individualistic success, national competition, and limitless economic growth, to one of solidarity, which brings to inclusive growth.

Two areas in particular stick out where a culture of collaboration is very much more needed: this is the climate change field and the digital revolution. Education has been and remains a victim of climate change. Many young people and children are obliged to flee, who are deprived of their right to education.  But it also an essential part of the solution.

Yet climate change education is often absent or insufficient in many countries, including European countries, with many teachers feeling unprepared to teacher it. To effectively tackle the climate emergency, we need to empower teachers and learners with the knowledge, the awareness, the skills, the shift of mindsets. No climate action can succeed without climate change education. Moving from competition to collaboration is also essential in our relationship with technology. 

But what is the impact on education? Technologies like AI present many questions for the future of knowledge, education and learning, like the big questions that are still open:

• What skills and competencies are most relevant in this new AI world we are entering? 
• What will education look like in five years? In a generation from now?
• How can we steer technology in a way that is not driving us, but that we steer by the principles of inclusion, equity, quality and accessibility?
• How do we make sure the private sector is also part of this community?

We need a human-centered vision of our relationship with technology, which is the approach UNESCO takes – we released, a few months ago, the first Guidance on Generative AI in Education and Research.

Moving towards open-source language models and public digital learning platforms, I see a big opportunity. We must start very early, from primary school. Without reimagining these vital relationships, current educational models, approaches, and practices cannot help us change course and transform the future. 

That’s why, zooming out a little more broadly, education systems should not simply aim to adapt to technological, social changes and environmental changes, but rather shape them in more just and sustainable directions. It is in these values that education must urgently transform according to our vision and UNESCO’s lifelong learning perspective.

And finally, that takes me to the third transition, which is more complex and related to your work here, in the Department of Philosophy. Moving from a logic of control and certainty to one that embraces connection and complexity. 

Traditional models of education, very much true in the humanities, emphasize problem-solving and finding for each problem the ‘right’ answer. What we need now, learners of today and citizens of tomorrow, is being able to ask the right questions. It’s about changing mindsets. To help people live as global citizens free of hate and intolerance, every person must be afforded access to quality education, in this new pattern, model, transformative approach.

This is the mission of UNESCO, which was born in the aftermath of the Second World War with a vision of peace laid out in the first article our Constitution: “Since wars begin in the minds of women and men, it is in the minds of women and men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Through the three pillars of education, science and culture. Education for peace is one of the topics today. It may sound naive. The soft side of the soft power. But soft power should be brought to hard places.

Last year, a new normative instrument was adopted by UNESCO’s 194 Member States: The UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development. It provides educators, governments and civil society with a roadmap to implement these principles in a very concrete way.

How can we achieve this transformation, to make high-quality education and lifelong learning accessible to all? How to do we make “Mission Education” possible?

Education is a global common good. Like public health, it’s a fundamental right. We need a new social contract for education.

First, a new social contract for education requires shared vision, cooperation, and political will. Cooperation, trust, and support are needed at every level. Most importantly we need new cooperation between geopolitical blocs. 

Second, to address this political will in budget. It sounds less inspiring as a point. Without the budget allocated to translate principles into policies and policies into concrete tools. We have a gap of almost $100 billion per year till 2030. The gap was the equivalent last year three weeks of military expenditure.

The impact you can have as researchers and faculty can be very important, especially during this year when the International Financial Architecture is under discussion and reform. President Macron convened a global summit for a new pact for multilateral financing. Education was not very much in this picture.

This is why UNESCO is now exploring, with other partners like the World Bank and IMF, ideas for innovative financing mechanisms like debt swaps for education. They are very common for climate change. It’s strange that no one thought of a “financing bond” in the Global South.

Third, addressing the root causes of poverty, exclusion and inequities in society, which goes beyond our mission itself, but we continue to extend this call for change, which is the inter-generational, daily, and lifelong project of all of us.