The World Is Changing, and Education Is Changing with It

In this chapter, we will discuss global challenges and trends which may not seem directly related to education, but nonetheless have important implications for it. We will look at changes in the labor market, as well as the changing environment for child development, both of which have a direct impact on education. We then proceed with a brief overview of the many attempts to identify a set of knowledge, skills, and personal traits that help face the challenges. In the concluding section of the chapter, we describe how education has responded to these challenges and trends. Highlighting the transition to complex professional and everyday tasks—which can no longer be reduced to “subject” knowledge—we argue that many questions, such as the definition and selection of foundational knowledge, as well as the assessment of key competences, have yet to be resolved.