RSA Debate

Ideas about the future matter in education. The assumptions we make about future challenges and opportunities shape all areas of education - from our ideas about what the curriculum should hold, our investment in technology and training, to the conversations we have with children about their hopes and dreams.

But what happens when our ideas of the future are in flux? What happens when the assumptions we had been making about growth, technology and globalisation come into question? In the wake of the financial shock, as rapidly evolving information technologies shift our global tectonics and as powerful strains are placed upon our planetary resources, our relationship with the future appears to be entering a period of critical disruption and insecurity.

At the same time, education itself faces its own unique crisis of uncertainty as debate rages over whether our traditional education institutions continue to serve a long term public good or simply offer a private investment in personal futures.

The RSA gathers a panel of expert commentators for an exploration of the resources that education systems will need in order to build better futures in the face of radical uncertainty. As our young people face an ever more uncertain climate beyond education, can our educators afford not to become more radically futures-aware?

Speakers to include: Keri Facer, professor of education, Manchester Metropolitan University and formerly Futurelab; Dougald Hine, writer and social activator, co-founder of the School of Everything and Space Makers Agency; Carolyn Unsted, deputy director: Education & Social Care, Schools and Educational Improvement, London Borough of Bexley.

Chair: Professor Becky Francis, director of education, RSA.

This is a free event, for further informaton and to book a place please go to the RSA website