Where to go: Thoughts on four scenarios for schooling -- Based on OECD Report Back to the Future of Education

• In Event: Mechanisms for Educational Change: Policy, Networks, and Accountability Structures

Proposal

Future school is an important topic in the field of future education research. In 2020, OECD released the report Back to the Future of Education, which predicted the future school organizations, and put forward four scenarios of the future school organizations: Schooling extended, Education outsourced, Schools as learning hubs and Learn-as-you-go. This research analyzed and evaluated the reform orientation reflected in four scenarios.The scenario of Schooling extended shows a conservative orientation, which is the school improvement under the modern educational concept, and is the most predictable of the four scenarios; The scenario of Education outsourced shows a capital orientation, which implies the liberalisation, privatization and marketization of neo-liberalism.This affects the public welfare and equity of education; The scenario of Schools as learning hubs presents a symbiotic ecological orientation. The report describes the picture of cooperation between urban schools and communities, but this cooperation is limited to expanding learning space and enriching learning activities, and rarely involves deeper changes in community structure and function.This ignores the fairness of regional education in urban and rural areas; The scenario of Learn-as-you-go shows the technical orientation, and attempts to use the one-way element of "technology" to drive the reform of the overall school organization.This ignores the systematic and holistic nature of school education reform Finally, based on the future school reform in China, the thinking on the direction of future school organizational form reform is put forward: As far as the technical participation of school reform is concerned, the reform should be changed from the factor oriented to the ecological oriented; As far as the reform participants are concerned, the reform should emphasize the coordination between the market and the government to promote the balanced development of school education reform; As far as the school reform in different regions is concerned, the reform should emphasize the type difference between urban and rural areas rather than the level difference to promote the differential development of school education reform; As far as the value of school reform is concerned, the reform should change from coping with crisis to human life and from urban orientation to inclusive orientation; As far as the time view of school reform is concerned, the reform should change from the linear frame to the round time horizon.This research evaluates the OECD report from the perspective of advantages and disadvantages, which is conducive to China's reform to learn from its advantages and avoid its disadvantages according to the specific situation of China's education reform.

Authors

• 丽华 陈

• Yu Feng, East China Normal University