In 2023 the FED co-led, with Teach for All, the UK consultation on ‘Education for Human Flourishing’ on behalf of the OECD and the Department for Education. The FED’s significant role involved collecting perspectives from the UK education community, revealing a focus on holistic education encompassing well-being and a diverse curriculum, while emphasising inclusivity for unbiased and fair access.
The FED leveraged its Learners, Business Leaders, Parents & Carers, and Practitioners Councils as well as inviting others from across the four home nations, to feed into these consultations.
The origins of the international High Performing Systems for Tomorrow (HPST) programme lie in the OECD’s wish to support PISA countries in rethinking education purposes and policies. The national partners are Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Singapore and the United Kingdom, each led by their Education Permanent Secretaries.
The OECD is developing a conceptual framework around Education for Human Flourishing, arguing that the educational goals of the modern era, associated strongly with preparing people for employment, should be relocated in a broader vision: equipping people to find their purpose in life through learning. It borrows on Aristotle’s belief that the flourishing life is reason-based, moral, meaningful, contemplative and capable of awe. We emphasise the importance of altruism and selflessness. And we propose that as robots develop greater cognitive capabilities, humans should develop social and metacognitive intelligences that complement and harness artificial intelligence.
