The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 will be holding its 12th Policy Dialogue Forum from 8 – 11 December in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Organised in cooperation with the UAE Ministry of Education and the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for Distinguished Academic Performance, the Forum will be looking at the “Futures of Teaching”.
One of the Teacher Task Force’s main concern is the world’s ability to recruit and retain more than 69 million teachers needed in primary and secondary school, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. If we do not, we will not achieve inclusive equitable education for all by 2030.
However, with our rapidly changing world, getting teachers into classrooms is not the only issue anymore. We need to ensure they are ready to face new generations of learners and the challenges awaiting them.
Why did the Teacher Task Force choose this theme?
Climate change. Migration and displacement. The rise of intolerance. The digital revolution.
With all the changes the world is facing, the global education community decided to launch a new initiative, the "Futures of Education: Learning to Become”, to reimagine how education and knowledge can contribute to the global common good.
Teaching in the 21st century has become an incredibly challenging and complex profession. Teachers share the tremendous responsibility of preparing future generations to address these challenges.
Teachers need help to meet this challenge and responsibility. They need to be prepared and supported to teach skills, knowledge, and values relevant to the changing world, including digital technologies and artificial intelligence, relevant interpersonal skills, new methods of learning, and socio-emotional development.
What will be discussed?
The 12th Policy Dialogue Forum will focus on how the Futures of Education influences the future(s) of teaching. The discussions will be organised around thematic areas to shed light on various ways teaching would evolve in conjunction with the times.
With the emergence of new trends in learning, teachers, and most importantly teacher education and preparation, need to adapt to the disruption caused by the advancement of technology as a teaching and learning tool. Moreover, technology is not just changing the skills students need to develop, but also the way they approach and acquire knowledge as well as were they learn.
The addition of a digital component to the learning environment has sparked a growing recognition of the need to change teaching practices and transformed the educational. Indeed, the tradition of a teacher standing in front of a class imparting knowledge is being more and more challenged by the xxx of putting the learner at the centre and encouraging their greater autonomy in the learning process.
In a world where intolerance and inequalities are also rising, teachers need to teach principles and values such as tolerance. While the causes of education inequalities are linked to many factors, teachers and educators can still play a transformational role in the classroom. The global education community and national governments needs to look at the skills, dispositions and knowledge necessary for the diverse classrooms of tomorrow.
What will the Forum look like?
Around 300 education stakeholders from around the world will gather in Dubai to reflect on and discuss their visions of teaching to respond to the new challenges facing teachers.
The Forum will allow the collection and consolidation of insights on the futures of teaching, including the identification and framing of emerging trends, good practices, questions and challenges related to the learning-teaching process and their implications for teacher education and continuous professional development.
His Excellency Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi will host a Ministerial round table, bringing together ministers of education from all region, to share their innovative reforms they have initiated to improve teacher training, address inequalities and introduce technological and other innovations.
They will be joined by education experts, academics, researchers, school leaders, teachers and NGO/CSO representatives from around the world who will also share their perspectives on the future of teaching and shape recommendations to national governments on how to improve teacher education to better prepare teachers for the future.