To truly support the next generation to thrive, we need to be bold and reimagine what is possible, then work together with young people to transform their experience of education and learning. We work in the UK and globally, with diverse allies in and beyond formal education systems, to explore and challenge old assumptions about what education is and can be, who and what it is for.
Together we are creating a new education story for our times.
A New Education Story: Three drivers to transform education systems is
the result of global research led by Big Change with OECD, Teach for All, HundrED and RewirED. It makes the case for transformation not reform, setting out why and how to shift the purpose of education (goals and outcomes), power (voice and agency), and practice (unlocking innovation).
A year of listening to the public, including through the educip Conversation national campaign, tells us that 77% agree that now is the time to rethink the purpose of education and change the system for the better. Read the insights and find out more about Subject to Change, a national project that will empower young people and the public to shape a new direction for learning in England.
Read our research onTo prepare all young people for their futures, we need to set our sights on transformation, not reform. Reform focuses on incremental improvements to a system that is no longer fit for purpose. Whereas transformation creates and moves us towards a new purpose and vision for young people’s learning.
Established during the last industrial revolution, for a Victorian society and economy, the English system doesn’t support the breadth of young people’s talents and potential, with a narrow focus on “in the moment” academic achievement, rather than on what young people and communities need for their future success.
This ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work for young people or those who support them. Diversity and individuality are not valued, injustice and unfairness is baked into the system, and teenagers’ wellbeing too often comes at the cost of “doing well” in high-stakes exams.
Too many children are left out through exclusion or left behind, locked in a game of catch up that they cannot win. Despite a decade of focused effort to close socioeconomic achievement gaps, progress has been slow, and may have been wiped out entirely by school closures.
Since 2017 Big Change has had the privilege of bringing together global partners who share a commitment to reimagining education with and for young people. At the end of 2021 we launched new global research that brings together the wisdom of global contributors (including OECD, RewirED, HundrED, Teach for All) to share A New Education Story: Three drivers to transform education systems.
At this moment, when education leaders, policymakers, and funders in every context are making decisions about how to restore learning and education, we want to offer a provocation. To say that it is simply not enough to “go back”. The publication is an invitation to education system leaders and decision makers to step back, to ask big questions, and to think differently about both what we are aiming for, and how to get there.
This is not to say that the job of transforming education is theirs alone. The nature of transformation requires a new mindset and set of approaches that work with those across the system – educators, students, parents, communities and peers. Working with global partners and contributors, we have identified three drivers to transform education systems, along with nine actions and real world stories that show how to make progress.
The drivers require us all to think differently about; purpose – the goals and outcomes of education; power – expanding who has voice and agency in education; and practice – unlocking innovation that has transformative potential. They encourage leaders and funders to act in new ways, with a greater focus on the wider ecosystem.
Across June and July 2021, we ran a national campaign called the Educip Conversation to get people talking about what education is really for and how it should change for the future.
From Zoom rooms to classrooms, school runs to Facebook groups and podcasts to cafes, over 25,000 people and organisations came together to debate important topics in education. Over 4,000 ideas and opinions were submitted that were each read, systematically coded and analysed by our team of youth activists, former teachers and parents.
Educip, IPPR and their partners have taken the findings of the Educip Conversation and used them to set-up an ambitious 5 year project, led by young people, parents, teachers and employers. Launching in 2022, Subject to Change is a new national project that combines powerful insight, collective action, and public engagement to create a new direction for learning.
Educip is to fill the gap between Academia and Industry by ensuring world class curriculum access to our faculties and students. We want to completely disrupt the teaching methodologies and ICT based education system in India.
