The Future of Education

Article 12 of The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) expressly states that when adults are making decision that affect children, children have the right to have their opinions taken into account and their views respected. Internationally, capturing, including and responding to the voice of children in all decisions that affect them is articulated as a key principle in education policy and practice contexts. Ensuring that the child’s voice is included in a meaningful rather than a tokenistic manner remains an ongoing challenge for education systems. The author suggests that effective teaching presupposes that the child has contributed to the process and that this contribution has been accommodated and incorporated into the teaching and learning process. Based on three research projects, that have specifically included the child’s voice, the author concludes that from the earliest stage of development, children can and should contribute to their educational experiences. These research projects explore the concept of the voice of the child through a case-study of the inclusion of children with special educational needs at primary and post-primary levels (Ring and Travers, 2005; Boland and Ring, 2016), a national evaluation of the experience of educators, children and parents at pre-primary level (Ring and Mhic Mhathūna et al., 2016) and a national evaluation of provision for children with autism from pre-primary to post-primary levels in Ireland (Daly and Ring et al., 2016). This paper suggests that at the 100^th anniversary of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education, the concept of the child as the starting point, the centre, and the end can only truly be realised in a committment to providing the child with opportunities to express his/her voice. The author argues that through adopting child-centred and innovative strategies, all children, irrespective of age, or ability can be included in this process.  This argument is supported by excerpts from research in which children were consulted and included through a methodological approach derived from the child conferences referred to by Clark and Moss (2011).