This book stems from and was inspired by past Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) work, from the original Schooling for Tomorrow scenarios, first published in 2001, to over a decade of work on Trends Shaping Education thereafter. We are indebted to David Istance, for many years a pillar of CERI and the leader of the transformative Schooling for Tomorrow and Innovative Learning Environments projects, as well as the author, along with Henno Theisens, of Trends Shaping Education 2008, the first edition in that highly successful series.
In addition, the authors would like to thank Petra Packalen (Finnish National Agency for Education, and a contributor to Trends Shaping Education 2008) and Liana Tang (Centre for Strategic Futures, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore) for generously providing examples of how future thinking works in the practice of national education policy. We would also like to thank our colleagues Duncan Cass-Beggs and Joshua Polchar of the OECD Foresight Unit, for sharing their futures thinking expertise and working with us during the writing of this report. We also want to acknowledge Guim Tió’s generous help with the book cover. Thank you.
The ideas compiled in this book benefited from many other projects within CERI and the wider OECD Directorate for Education and Skills. We would like to thank all of our bright colleagues, whose rigorous work made this analysis possible.
In addition, the authors would like to thank present and past colleagues who provided expert ideas and suggestions for improvement, to this volume as well as the overall process of developing these scenarios and our capacity to think more systematically about the future. From brainstorming analytical approaches to actively stress-testing versions of scenarios, we thank Liam Bekirsky, Mollie Dollinger, Manuela Fitzpatrick, Francesca Gottschalk, Marissa Miller, Joshua Polchar, Nóra Révai, Dhiman Talapatra, Hannah Ulferts and Ziyin Xiong as well as the numerous internal and external stakeholders who took part in our Future Labs. We also thank Andreas Schleicher, Director, and Dirk van Damme, interim Head of CERI, for their comments on the draft, and the CERI Governing Board, which provided encouragement, ideas, and feedback throughout the process. We are grateful for their guidance.
Within the Secretariat, this volume was produced as part of the work on Trends Shaping Education, under the leadership of Tracey Burns. Marc Fuster led the analysis of the report, developing the scenarios and drafting Chapters 3, 4 and 5. Tracey Burns authored Chapter 1 and contributed to the analysis and drafting of Chapters 4 and 5. Joshua Polchar authored Chapter 2 and additionally provided helpful comments on the full draft. Simona Petruzzella and Dhiman Talapatra provided the graphics. Sophie Limoges and Leonora Lynch‑Stein contributed to the final stages of preparation for publication.
Marc Fuster and Tracey Burns