1. Rethinking Education Towards a global common good?
- The FFA is the result of an inclusive and extended consultation over the past 12 months. The document was developed in close consultation with the Education for All Steering Committee.
- The essential elements of the FFA were agreed upon at the World Education Forum The document was then refined and finalized by consensus through the drafting group co-chaired by Mr Vedeler and myself. The document before you is the final draft for adoption.
- The FFA provides guidance on the implementation of Education 2030, taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities. It outlines modalities to support succesful implementation at the country level.

2. What is UNESCO?
UNESCO is a major United Nations policy agency founded in 1946 and with headquarters in Paris. The first Director General was the eminent biologist Sir Julian Huxley.
Its remit is:
Education; Science; Culture, together with Social Science and Communications:
It provides the annual Global Monitoring Report on Education for All:
Some other UN agencies are: United Nations International Childrens’ Fund or UNICEF; Food and Agricultural Organization or FAO; International Labour Organization or ILO.

3. Looking backward to see ahead
In re-visioning education for the future we must build upon the legacy of past analyses
1972: The Faure Report:
Established the two interrelated notions of learning society and lifelong education at a time when traditional education systems were being challenged e. g. Compulsory Miseducation, Paul Goodman(1971) and De-Schooling Society, Ivan Illich (1973).

4. Looking backward to see ahead
1996: The Delors Report:
Proposed an integrated vision of education based on the two concepts of learning throughout life and the four pillars of education (learning to know, to do, to live together, and to be).

5. Paradoxes and Tensions associated with societal development
Poverty reduction Vulnerability, inequality, and exclusion
Economic growth Ecological stress, unsustainable
production/consumption
Interconnected world Division, intolerance
and conflict
- The FFA is the result of an inclusive and extended consultation over the past 12 months. The document was developed in close consultation with the Education for All Steering Committee.
- The essential elements of the FFA were agreed upon at the World Education Forum The document was then refined and finalized by consensus through the drafting group co-chaired by Mr Vedeler and myself. The document before you is the final draft for adoption.
- The FFA provides guidance on the implementation of Education 2030, taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities. It outlines modalities to support succesful implementation at the country level.

6. A central concern for Sustainable Human and Social Development
- The FFA is based on one single agenda, Education 2030, which is encapsulated in SDG 4. Education 2030 is comprehensive, holistic, ambitious, aspirational and universal, inspired by a vison of education that transform lives leaving no one behind. It attends to the unfinished business of the Education for All goals and the education-related MDGs while effectively addressing current and future education challenges. It affirms that education is central for human and sustainable development.

7. Humanistic Approach to Development and Education
Fundamental Principles
Concern for sustainable human and social development
Recognizing the diversity of lived realities
Reaffirming a core of ethical values
Fundamental purpose of education:
To enhance and sustain the dignity and capacity of the human person in relation to others and to nature
- The FFA is based on one single agenda, Education 2030, which is encapsulated in SDG 4. Education 2030 is comprehensive, holistic, ambitious, aspirational and universal, inspired by a vison of education that transform lives leaving no one behind. It attends to the unfinished business of the Education for All goals and the education-related MDGs while effectively addressing current and future education challenges. It affirms that education is central for human and sustainable development.

8. What does a humanistic approach to education and learning mean?8

9. Learning to Live Together
Contents and methods An Integrated Approach to Learning
Understanding others;
Respect for human dignity and diversity;
Learning for responsible and active citizenship
Learning for work and life;
Competencies to deal with unforeseen situations
Alternating study & work
Foundational skills;
Presupposes ‘learning to learn’
Foundation for lifelong learning
Preparation for the learning society
Independent judgement;
Sense of personal responsibility;
Tapping the buried treasure of hidden talents
Learning to Be
Learning to Know
Learning to Live Together
Learning to Do 9

10. Contents and methods Renewed focus on social and civic learning
SDG 4
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education
and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Target 4.7
By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
- The FFA is based on one single agenda, Education 2030, which is encapsulated in SDG 4. Education 2030 is comprehensive, holistic, ambitious, aspirational and universal, inspired by a vison of education that transform lives leaving no one behind. It attends to the unfinished business of the Education for All goals and the education-related MDGs while effectively addressing current and future education challenges. It affirms that education is central for human and sustainable development.

11. Contents and methods Renewed Focus on Learning to Learn
The illiterate person in the 21st century
is not the person who cannot read –
it is the person who does not know
how to learn, relearn and unlearn
[Alvin Toffler]
Transferable competencies, “soft skills”, or “21st century skills”:
Critical thinking
Problem solving
Independent judgement
Under Goal 4, there are 7 associated targets and 3 means of implementation. A key focus is on learning outcomes and knowledge and skills acquisition.

12. Policy Foundational Importance of Teachers
Changing role of teachers: Guides/Facilitators of learning.
Guide through the ever-expanding maze of knowledge
Develop competencies to critically process information:
Social and ethical dimensions of learning
Reversing the de-professionalization of teachers in both North and South
Recognize the importance of educators beyond the formal
sector (community learning centers, youth groups…)
- The FFA proposes a set of strategic approaches addressing these key features as well as policies, plans, legislations and systems as well as education in emergency situations, highlighting the importance of continuing to provide education in the case of crisis and emergency.
- The FFA provides a rationale and builds a common understanding for each of the seven targets and three means of implementation under SDG 4 and also addresses gaps in the targets. It provides a set of indicative strategies for implementing each of the targets.

13. Policy Focus on Equity
An education that does not marginalize or exclude
Recognition of open and flexible lifelong learning systems
Inclusive policy-making
Protecting the right to basic education
and equal opportunity at post-compulsory levels
- Reduce disparities in educational outcomes among groups.
The FFA proposes four levels of indicators, global, thematic, regional and national.
A set of thematic indicators as developed by the Technical Advisory Group on education indicators is annexed as a working document. This is work in progress and the set of indicators is not part of the adoption today.

14. Governance Rethinking Learning in a Complex World
Complexity characterized by blurring of boundaries
between:
Formal and informal learning
Global and national policy-making
Public and private education

15. Principle of Education as a Public Good under strain
Expanded access to education and increasing pressure on public financing;
Greater involvement of non-state actors to supplement public financing and in response to a growing demand for voice in public affairs;
Changing scale, scope and penetration of private engagement into all aspects of the educational endeavour;
Risks related to commodification, marketization of education.
The FFA emphasizes that implementation is a collective effort of all key stakeholders, driven by governments.
It introduces the key stakeholders and spells out their potential contribution. The key stakeholders include governments, civil society organizations, teachers and educators, the private sector, philanthropic organizations and foundations, the research community and youth.
- The success of Education 2030 will depend on legal and policy frameworks that promote accountability and transparency as well as participatory governance and coordinated partnerships at all levels and across sectors, upholding the right to participation of
all stakeholders.

16. Education as a common good
Beyond the dichotomy of the public and the private,
the principle of education as a common good:
Reaffirms the collective dimension of education as a shared societal endeavour;
Integrates an acknowledgment of the diversity of contexts and conceptions of human well-being while reaffirming a core of shared values;
Emphasizes the participatory process of public policy formulation and implementation.
The FFA emphasizes that implementation is a collective effort of all key stakeholders, driven by governments.
It introduces the key stakeholders and spells out their potential contribution. The key stakeholders include governments, civil society organizations, teachers and educators, the private sector, philanthropic organizations and foundations, the research community and youth.
- The success of Education 2030 will depend on legal and policy frameworks that promote accountability and transparency as well as participatory governance and coordinated partnerships at all levels and across sectors, upholding the right to participation of
all stakeholders.

17. Education and knowledge as common goods
The governance of education can no longer be separated from the governance of knowledge.
Creation, transmission, acquisition, validation and use of knowledge common to all people engaged in a collective societal endeavour.
Knowledge as the common heritage of humanity.
The FFA emphasizes that implementation is a collective effort of all key stakeholders, driven by governments.
It introduces the key stakeholders and spells out their potential contribution. The key stakeholders include governments, civil society organizations, teachers and educators, the private sector, philanthropic organizations and foundations, the research community and youth.
- The success of Education 2030 will depend on legal and policy frameworks that promote accountability and transparency as well as participatory governance and coordinated partnerships at all levels and across sectors, upholding the right to participation of
all stakeholders.

18. Some Questions
Are the aspirations set out in Re-thinking Education utopian or can they be realised in practice? What actions would be needed to begin the process? What is the role of international policy agencies? What is the role of civil society?

19. Some Further Reading
UNESCO Report: Re-thinking Education: Towards a global common good? (2015), UNESCO, Paris,
Morgan, W. J. and I. White, ‘Looking Backward to See Ahead: The Faure and Delors Reports and the post-2015 development agenda’, (2013), Weiterbildung, Issue 4, (and further articles in this series).
Global policy agencies and visions for 21st century lifelong education. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 34 (5) 2015.
‘Rediscovering the Ubuntu paradigm in education’, International Review of Education, 62 (1) 2016.

20. Thank You-Diolch yn Fawr!
Professor W. J. Morgan
Wales Institute of Social and Economic
Research, Data and Methods,
Cardiff University