Improving relevance of education

Adapting education to the challenges of contemporary society
Enriching relevant educational opportunities
Improving accountability in education
Relevant education curricula

Description

Improving relevance of education involves aligning curricula, teaching methods, and learning outcomes with current societal needs, labor market demands, and technological advancements. This strategy ensures that education equips learners with practical skills, critical thinking, and adaptability, remedying mismatches between education and employment. It fosters partnerships with industry, updates content regularly, and integrates real-world problem-solving, thereby enhancing employability, social participation, and lifelong learning in rapidly changing environments.

Context

Education should help societies perpetuate and renew themselves. In view of their rapid evolution and growing complexity, in view of the ever more rapid changes in and the fragmentation of knowledge and its applications, education must preserve the humanistic dimension of real development and the values of tolerance, solidarity, respect and openness to others; stress should be laid on the intercultural context of education in all its forms. The act of educating, however, cannot be reduced to setting out precepts applicable in the societies of the past. It is with an eye to tomorrow's world and its different cultures that the subject-matter and methods of an internationally oriented humanistic education should be revised.

Implementation

UNESCO's programme includes the following elements: improvement of the content and process of basic educational programmes; improvement of the quality of primary school teachers, literacy workers and other basic education personnel; improvement of the knowledge base concerning the various factors affecting learning in basic education.

Claim

It is in the area of science and technology and in higher education that education must be firmly turned to face the future. It is not merely a matter of giving more importance to scientific and technical education but rather of ensuring that subject-matter and curricula keep pace with progress in those fields.