The Future of Education

Thinking about education is something that has been happening over time at different perspectives. However, thinking together and giving voice to the different actors in an educational community is something that does not happen very often. The initiative launched by UNESCO to rethink the future of education, made a group of students and teachers from the Pedagogical Council of a Higher Education Institution in Portugal, come together to reflect about this topic. Throughout the 20th century till now, the concept of education has been consolidated as a right. Not only fundamental right but also an universal one^[1]. As Menendez reminds us, “With the turn of the century, approaches to the inclusive school have also broken through. Society understands that the right to education must also extend to all (…). The challenge of inclusion is still far from being resolved, but at least it is already on the public policy agenda in many countries of the world”^[1]. Authors such as Vasconcelos et al.^[2]  argue that collaboration can be used as a learning process for social transformation. In this sense, collaboration, and cooperation between actors/areas of knowledge, cross the concept of education for global citizenship. When it happens in a model, such as the focus group, learning is seen as a constant and transversal process. This methodology gives one time to reflect about these issues and emerge as a structured, objective and transparent dialogue. Thinking about the construction of collaborative knowledge that comes from different worldviews, is allowed by UNESCO's proposal, that constitutes in this specific case, as a pedagogical process itself. Based on the focus group methodology proposed by UNESCO, a session guide was created and a virtual focus group of 8 persons was carried out, during an hour and a half, according to 3 starting questions/topics: 1) How do you view the future? 2) Broad Purposes of Education and 3) Implications for Learning. More than the result of the discussion itself, this work shows the importance that the Pedagogical Council (PC) has in a future path to think about education. Once PC is acting as proactive partner instead of a reactive one, and just to answer to requests of others, its goal becomes giving voice to teachers and to students.