WT18 – the change to education systems

Workshop presentation

As much in China as in Europe, the pedestal of what each child had to learn seemed rather well codified in the past, and likewise the pedagogical means for passing on this knowledge. In the past, it was also accepted that education passed on not only technical skills, for example reading, writing and arithmetic, but also behaviours, morality, and, to sum it up, a vision of the world.

The upheavals of the last 50 years, the weakening of the great ideological systems, the introduction of doubt as to what was legitimate to pass on to children in this domain, the growing role of private schooling and the establishment of differentiation in school destinies from the earliest years of school, the intrusion of new and vast knowledge, the need to prepare young people to become integrated into a complex and interdependent world, and the very progress of neuronal and pedagogical sciences have made it so that, as much in China as in Europe, the question arises as to know what must be passed on and how to do it. The objective of the workshop will be to pool reflections in this domain.