The Delors Report was a report created by the Delors Commission in 1996. It proposed an integrated vision of education based on two key concepts, ‘learning throughout life’ and the four pillars of learning, to know, to do, to be and to live together. It was not in itself a blueprint for educational reform, but rather a basis for reflection and debate about what choices should be made in formulating policies. The report argued that choices about education were determined by choices about what kind of society we wished to live in. Beyond education’s immediate functionality, it considered the formation of the whole person to be an essential part of education’s purpose. The Delors Report was aligned closely with the moral and intellectual principles that underpin UNESCO, and therefore its analysis and recommendations were more humanistic and less instrumental and market-driven than other education reform studies of the time.
The Delors Report identified a number of tensions generated by technological, economic and social change. They included tensions between the global and the local; the universal and the particular; tradition and modernity; the spiritual and the material; long term and short term considerations; the need for competition and the ideal of equality of opportunity; and the expansion of knowledge and our capacity to assimilate it. These seven tensions remain useful perspectives from which to view the current dynamics of social transformation. Some are taking on new meaning, with fresh tensions emerging. These include patterns of economic growth characterized by rising vulnerability, growing inequality, increased ecological stress, and rising intolerance and violence. Finally, while there has been progress in human rights, implementation of norms often remains a challenge.
One
of the most influential concepts of the 1996 Delors Report was that of the four
pillars of learning. Formal education, the report argued, tends to emphasize
certain types of knowledge to the detriment of others that are essential to
sustaining human development.
1. Learning
to know – a broad general knowledge with the opportunity to work in depth on a
small number of subjects.
2. Learning
to do – to acquire not only occupational skills but also the competence to deal
with many situations and to work in teams.
3. Learning
to be – to develop one’s personality and to be able to act with growing
autonomy, judgment and personal responsibility.
4. Learning
to live together – by developing an understanding of other people and an
appreciation of interdependence.
The
idea of the integrated approach to education reflected in the four pillars of
learning has had significant influence on policy debates, teacher training and
curriculum development in a range of countries worldwide.
It
is important to note that the four pillars of learning were envisaged against
the backdrop of the notion of ‘lifelong learning’, itself an adaptation of
the concept of ‘lifelong education’ as initially conceptualized in the 1972
Faure publication Learning to Be.
The evolution of enrolments therefore needs to be
managed, but it can be kept within limits as a result of secondary education
reform, along the broad lines proposed by the Commission.
Universities would contribute to this process by
diversifying what they offer:
1.
As scientific establishments and centres of
learning, from where students go on to theoretical or applied research or
teaching;
2.
As
establishments offering occupational qualifications, combining high-level
knowledge and skills, with courses and content continually tailored to the
needs of the economy;
3.
As some
of the main meeting-places for learning throughout life, opening their doors to
adults who wish either to resume their studies or to adapt and develop their
knowledge or to satisfy their taste for learning in all areas of cultural life;
and
4.
As
leading partners in international co-operation, facilitating exchanges of
teachers and students and ensuring that the best teaching is made widely
available through international professorships.
In this way, universities would transcend what is wrongly
held to be the conflict between the logic of public service and the logic of
the job market. They would also reclaim their intellectual and social vocation
as, in a sense, guarantors of universal values and the cultural heritage. The
Commission sees these as cogent reasons for urging greater university autonomy.
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