Education, edited by Marcelo Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco (introduction)

INTRODUCTION The Global Compact on Education M A R C E LO S UÁ R E Z- O R OZCO

T

he fundamental mission of education is to cultivate healthy, flourishing, and engaged children. In the Platonic tradition, education endeavors to nurture logic and science (truth), ethics and justice (goodness), and aesthetics (the creation and appreciation of beauty). In the face of growing inequities, creating a more inclusive, just, and sustainable world is education’s urgent challenge. In the words of Pope Francis, a “summons to solidarity” with the next generation, with each other, and with our ever-more fragile planet is the ethical imperative of our times. This volume engages education as a path for a more humane, sustainable, and equitable future.1 In the Kantian sense, our full potential unfolds from and with education— “Man can only become man by education.”2 Homo sapiens. Sapiens—the knowing, the wise member of the genus Homo—is born of knowledge. “When a human being is not educated, his or her telos is thwarted, as when a plant not does not flourish to the point of blossoming. The intellectual dimension of humans entails that even a healthy and strong person without education is somehow dwarfed with regard to his or her humanity. Of course, there is also in the overwhelming majority of children a subjective desire to be educated” (chapter 9).

Basic primary education in schools has become a normative ideal the world over. In the last five decades, schooling has emerged globally as the most important societal institution for the education of the next generation. There is a lot of good news: “Enrollment of children in primary education is at present nearly universal. The gender gap has narrowed, and in some regions girls tend

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to perform better in school than boys and progress in a more timely manner.”3 Progress in the participation of children in schools is a laudable achievement, yet the work ahead is significant: “Enrollment does not translate directly into education, and education does not translate directly into good education, which is often the real catalyst for engaged citizenship, emotional awareness and human sensitivity, and a tolerance of the other, along with enhanced potential for working collaboratively, productively, and innovatively” (chapter 2). Education is freedom, and it is “far and away the single most empowering investment for individuals. It is for that reason that the world has long regarded education as a basic human need and as a basic human right. Yet we have not yet achieved universal education” (chapter 1). Indeed, millions remain out of school, and illiteracy remains rampant: 781 million people over the age of fifteen remain illiterate—and women make up well over half of those who are illiterate.4 While much remains to be done, education is widely viewed as the main pathway for sustainable development and a driver of wellness (chapter 2).

“Seen as part of the global commons, knowledge, learning, and education represent humanity’s greatest renewable resource for responding to challenges and inventing alternatives” (chapter 20). Ample evidence suggests that education— almost any form that nurtures and supports basic literacy—generates powerful virtuous cycles.5 As UNICEF researchers have concluded: “An education is perhaps a child’s strongest barrier against poverty, especially for girls. Educated girls are likely to marry later and have healthier children. They are more productive at home and better paid in the workplace, better able to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and more able to participate in decision-making at all levels. Additionally, this . . . furthers [the sustainable development goals of] universal primary education and gender equality.”6 Woefully, however, the COVID-19 pandemic halted and reversed progress in the schooling and education of children the world over. For millions of children, the pandemic represents a long-lasting “catastrophic education emergency,” robbing them of the daily attending-school ritual with all that entails: learning opportunities, socializing with other children, seeking supports from teachers, physical education, accessing health care and nutrition, and the various other scaffolds needed for developmentally appropriate socio-emotional, cognitive, and metacognitive growth. The pandemic stunned education systems with geologic force: by early 2020, approximately 1.5 billion students were no longer attending in-person school, as school closings became mandatory in some 160 countries (chapter 20). And as millions of children would eventually

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continue their learning remotely, UNICEF data suggest that “for at least 463 million children whose schools closed due to COVID-19, there was no such thing as ‘remote learning’ ”7 (chapter 20). Millions lacking access to electricity, technology, and internet access could not engage in online learning.

Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is estimated that over 830 million students did “not have access to a computer at home.” As Bridgit Barron notes, “Although unequal access to information technologies had been documented well before the COVID-19 pandemic, dramatic school closures have brought a significant digital divide into sharp relief and exposed the ongoing cost of inequities, as teachers across the world scrambled to continue the education of millions of children. Radio, television, and the internet were deployed in an attempt to connect schools and homes. Learners in rural areas, citizens from less affluent countries, families who have less wealth, and female students were the least likely to have access to any of these forms of remote learning” (chapter 18).

In many low-and-lower-middle-income countries, school closures put children on the streets. “Families are desperate for money. Children are an easy source of cheap labor.”8 Because of the pandemic, “An additional 100 million children could fall below the minimum proficiency level in reading. . . . Lost learning is being counted in months and taking a rising toll on the mental health of students. Progress made towards narrowing gender gaps in education over past decades could be reversed, with girls at increased risk of exposure of early marriage and drop out” (chapter 20).

By the first quarter of 2021, more than 160 million children “around the world have missed school for nearly a year due to COVID-19 restrictions.”

Fourteen countries “worldwide have remained largely closed since March 2020 to February 2021.” Two-thirds of those countries are in Latin America and the Caribbean.9 Bloom and Ferranna summarize COVID-19’s impact on education, “School closures and difficulties in implementing effective remote learning generally reduce the pleasure of learning, hinder children’s socialization opportunities, degrade the emotional and mental health of students, and increase the risk of domestic violence and abuse. In addition, school closures disrupt immunization and other health services that are often provided at school and prevent many children from accessing the only nutritious meal of their day. School closures also exert considerable pressures on parents, who have to balance childcare, home schooling, and work duties” (chapter 2).

The COVID–19 pandemic laid bare for the world the deepening inequalities of opportunities to learn that flow from country-of-origin, race, ethnicity, and

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immigration background. COVID-19 sent another 100 million human beings into deep poverty—brutally intensifying extreme poverty and reversing years of progress.10 Indeed, poverty is the other pandemic exacting a heavy toll on children and youth across the world. The consequences on children are chilling. “Different poverty indicators are associated with lower cognitive and academic performance during several stages of development. Psychological and neural evidence generated in recent years suggests the need to review the interpretations of these associations in the sense of deficit, and to consider the occurrence of adaptive processes instead” (chapter 3). Poverty, war and terror, structural racism, unchecked climate change, the “globalization of indifference,” an extreme form of which is modern child slavery, thwart the opportunities for healthy development and wilt the flourishing of millions of children.11 Indeed, they represent the most significant undertow toward meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal of reaching universal basic education.12 As Pope Francis and ample research suggest, it is by nurturing socio-emotional learning—including “patient listening,13 constructive dialogue and better mutual understanding,”14 the values and virtues of engaged citizenship, and by imparting the new skills to prepare youth for the ever-evolving world of work—that schools become meaningful vehicles for collective empowerment and positive social action. “In order to educate, one has to be able to combine the language of the head with the language of the heart and the language of the hands. In this way, the student can think what he or she feels and does, can feel what he or she thinks and does, and can do what he or she feels and thinks” (foreword). Education must endeavor to inculcate in children and youth humane sensibilities, empathy and perspective-taking, communication and collaboration skills, and higher-order cognitive skills for critical thinking, as well as the metacognitive abilities to become lifelong learners and civic agents. Today, paraphrasing the words of Damon and Colby (chapter 10) fostering a sense of purpose in young people must be a key educational mission.

A humanistic ethic of care (chapter 20)—and not simply a reductive utilitarian logic of market efficiencies—must animate the work of education in troubled times.

Twenty-first-century economies and societies are predicated on increasing complexity and diversity—the twin corollaries of an ever more globally interconnected, miniaturized, and fragile world. This book minds the gap between what education is and what it needs to be to build a more humane, equitable, and sustainable future for all.

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THE CRISES IN EDUCAT I ON WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT C H A L L E N GE S TO E DU C AT IO N TO DAY?

First, quality education—from early childhood (chapters 14 and 15) onward remains an elusive mirage for millions of children. It is a scandal that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, over 260 million children and youth were not enrolled in primary and secondary schools. That is the equivalent of the population of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country. For those who are enrolled, the little education provided—especially in the form of literacy (chapter 17), will be vital but perhaps not enough to thrive to their full potential.15 Too many children in low- and lower-middle-income countries are falling further behind their peers in the wealthy nations. We examine the role of literacy—especially “deep reading” (chapter 16) and the opportunities and limitations of new technologies (chapter 18) to reach children who otherwise have few opportunities for formal learning.

The second challenge facing education is unfolding at the vital link between the wealthy countries in the northern hemisphere and the metaphorical Global South. Schools are struggling to properly educate and ease the transition and integration of large and growing numbers of immigrant and refugee youth (chapters 4 and 5) arriving in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and elsewhere; many immigrant and refugee youngsters are marginalized as racially, ethnically, religiously, and linguistically marked minority groups. The disparagement of immigrant and refugee youth is ubiquitous. Their social belonging is thwarted (chapter 6). More broadly, the invasion of incivility and intolerance in schools is creating new challenges to teachers and administrators the world over (chapter 11). The virus of anti-Blackness continues to spread unabated and with no vaccine on the horizon.

The third challenge education faces is how to educate students to address our ever more fragile planet (chapters 12 and 13). Unsustainable development is a global threat. The admirable Sustainable Development Goal (SDG4.7) to provide “education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles” remains lamentably elusive for the majority of students.16 At a time when education must communicate values, virtues, and purpose, we find ourselves reticent and unsure of how to proceed. Yet when it comes to values and purpose (chapter 10), children and youth are clamoring for an integral education outlined by Pope Francis (foreword). We are proceeding with too

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much caution at a time the education needs “a bold humanistic vision, based on human rights, social justice, dignity, cultural and social diversity, and intellectual solidarity. This vision reaffirms a set of universal ethical principles and the need to strengthen moral values in education and society. It starts with people of all ages and the analysis of development contexts. It is inclusive and equitable, and informed by interdisciplinary research across the sciences, arts and humanities. Finally, it is participatory and international in scope” (chapter 20).

The world is facing multiple crises—pandemics, environmental and climate change catastrophes, racism and xenophobia, growing inequality, and extreme poverty. Stefania Giannini (chapter 20) argues, we have “an education crisis that mirrors a wider global crisis, one that is social, moral, and environmental.”

Tired-old claims, silver bullets, and magical thinking will no longer do. Nor will averting our gaze to growing inequities in education. Schools, the world over, must endeavor to educate the whole child for the whole world. “Through a humanistic and holistic vision of education and development, which cannot simply be framed in terms of economic growth, learners need the knowledge and the values to live meaningful and purposeful lives in harmony with others and the planet” (chapter 20). Schools need to be laboratories reclaiming the shared ethical principles of reciprocity, solidarity, equity, inclusion, and fighting all forms of discrimination.

In this volume, we examine new levers to make education in public schools more humane, equitable, and caring; more engaging and fulfilling; and more relevant to the disparate needs of economies, societies, and the students they serve around the world. Above all, education needs to be at the forefront of creating a sustainable world. Ours is a plea for a new global compact. Success will require significant national and global donor investments (chapter 1; afterword). It will also require stakeholder cooperation and coordination across multiple sectors (chapter 19). Just as literacy and technologies are key resources, cooperation and coordination are foundational interpersonal and interorganizational resources for improvement and implementation.

PL A N OF THE BOOK PA RT I: ADDRESSING OUR MOST VULNERABLE

In part I, we examine the education of our most vulnerable populations. The values and virtues flowing from quality education have been named and

“In an age of ever mounting challenges, it is essential to reimagine and transform our approach to education to equip learners with the knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors necessary for sustainable development. The Global Compact for Education calls on all of us to prioritize inclusive and transformative education for a sustainable tomorrow.”

—BAN KI-MOON, EIGHTH SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND COCHAIR OF THE BAN KI-MOON CENTRE FOR GLOBAL CITIZENS

“Imagine: education for all would employ the languages of the head, heart, and hands.

It would give us purpose in life. It would infuse us with the motivation to pursue truth, goodness, and creativity while working to mend the fabric of human relationships. This book makes me want to make that vision reality.”

—YO-YO MA

“Pope Francis’s urgent call for a new compact on education is timely and should serve as a wake-up call. While many heads of state play their power games, hundreds of millions of children suffer and miss what they so obviously need: a solid education. This authoritative book sketches out what should be done and shows how. Clear-eyed about contemporary crises of pandemic, climate change, and heartbreaking migration, the authors offer an impressive range of educational insight and reform.”

—JERRY BROWN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA

“This book brings together some of the very best minds from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to address critical issues in education today. This is a book for our times, as we strive to educate children across the world for purposeful lives.”

—KATHLEEN MCCARTNEY, PRESIDENT OF SMITH COLLEGE

“This timely, engaging, and compelling book examines how education can be reformed so that students can attain the knowledge, skills, and values needed in a diverse, complex, and changing world. It deserves a wide and influential audience.”

—JAMES A. BANKS, KERRY AND LINDA KILLINGER ENDOWED CHAIR IN DIVERSITY STUDIES EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

“This important book combines rigorous cutting-edge research and a strong ethical foundation. It is both a clear-eyed assessment of the present state of education and a clarion call to work toward a better future.”

—MARY C. WATERS, PVK PROFESSOR OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AND JOHN L. LOEB PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

MARCELO SUÁREZ-OROZCO is chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston. CAROLA SUÁREZ-OROZCO is professor in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard.

They are the cofounders of Re-Imagining Migration. cover image: © Robin Hammond/IDRC/Panos Pictures cover design: Lisa Hamm

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