Close your eyes for a second and think of something that happened over the last 20 years and you would have never expected to occur. Be it the pandemic, smart phones or something else, the truth is that the future likes to surprise us. Our world is in a perpetual state of change. There are always multiple versions of the future—some are assumptions, others hopes and fears. To prepare, we have to consider not only the changes that appear most probable, but also the ones that we aren’t expecting. Inspired by the ground-breaking 2001 Schooling for Tomorrow scenarios, this book provides a set of scenarios on the future of schooling, showing not a single path into the future, but many. Using these scenarios can help us identify the opportunities and challenges that these futures could hold for schooling and education more broadly. We can then use those ideas to help us better prepare and act now. Whether parents or students, teachers or educational leaders, researchers or policy makers, this book has been written for all those who want to think about futures that haven’t occurred to play their part in shaping the future that will.

1. Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling
Four OECD Scenarios for the Future of Schooling
EDUCATION OUTSOURCED
SCHOOLING EXTENDED
LEARN-AS-YOU-GO
SCHOOLS AS LEARNING HUBS

2. • Adapting curricula to changing needs
• Fostering 21st century competencies
• Enhancing teacher training and career development and
attractiveness
• Improving assessment of learning outcomes
• Making governance more strategic and responsive
• Investing in new technologies for teaching and learning
Trends Shaping Education 2020
0
2
4
6
8
1970 2020 2070
Billionsofpeople
Post Secondary
Secondary
Participation and time spent in formal
learning continues to grow
Projected level of population size by educational attainment
worldwide by 2070
Meanwhile, efforts focus on improving quality
and equity…
Today, a front-end education model keeps expanding
with rising participation in formal learning early in people’s life and growing expectations of schools and teachers
…while important challenges persist
• Making systems more inclusive of diversity
• Compensating socioeconomic inequality
• Extending lifelong learning opportunities and
participation to all
Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling

3. But the future likes to surprise us
Trends slow down and accelerate, bend and break
Impact
Uncertainty
Natural
disasters
Pandemics
General Artificial
Intelligence
Economic
shocks
(cyber)
war
Energy cuts
Internet disrupted
Ageing
Data breaches
Some events are foreseeable and have a small impact…
…but there are unexpected
shocks and surprises too, which
can be highly disruptive!
Climate change
Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling

4. We must explore and learn from alternative futures
Discussing scenarios can help us anticipate, future-proof and innovate
1. PURPOSING
Establishing why
scenarios are useful
2. EXPLORING
Understanding the
characteristics and
logic of the scenario
3. IDENTIFYING
IMPLICATIONS
Considering how the user
would fare in the scenarios
4. TAKING
STRATEGIC ACTION
Returning to the present-
day actions of the user
organisation
Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling

5. Scenario 1: Schooling Extended
Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling
Participation in formal education continues to expand. International collaboration and
technological advances support more individualised learning. The structures and
processes of schooling remain.
Educational monopolies remain: Schools are
key actors in socialisation, qualification, care
and credentialing.
International collaboration and digital
technologies power more personalised
teaching and learning practices.
Distinct teacher corps remain, although with
new divisions of tasks and greater economies
of scale.

6. Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling
Traditional schooling systems break down as society becomes more directly involved
in educating its citizens. Learning takes place through more diverse, privatised and
flexible arrangements, with digital technology a key driver.
Fragmentation of demand with self-reliant
“clients” looking for flexible services.
Schooling systems as players in a wider (local,
national, global) education market.
Diversification of structures: multiple
organisational forms available to individuals.
Diversity of instructional roles and teaching
status operating within and outside of schools.
Scenario 2: Education Outsourced

7. Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling
Schools remain, but diversity and experimentation have become the norm. Opening the
“school walls” connects schools to their communities, favouring ever-changing forms of
learning, civic engagement and social innovation.
Strong focus on local decisions; self-organising
units in diverse partnerships. Schools as hubs
function to organise multiple configurations of
local-global resources.
Flexible schooling arrangements permit greater
personalisation and community involvement.
Professional teachers as nodes of wider
networks of flexible expertise.
Scenario 3: Schools as Learning Hubs

8. Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling
Education takes place everywhere, anytime. Distinctions between formal and informal
learning are no longer valid as society turns itself entirely to the power of the machine.
Traditional goals and functions of schooling
are overwritten by technology. Dismantling of
schooling as a social institution.
Open market of “prosumers” with a central role for
communities of practice (local, national, global).
(Global) governance of data and digital
technologies becomes key.
Scenario 4: Learn-as-you-go

9. Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling
Four OECD Scenarios for the Future of Schooling
Scanning the horizon: Exploring multiple futures for education
Different futures have different implications
• Accommodating diversity and ensuring quality across a common system
• Potential trade-off between consensus and innovation
• Supporting access and quality, fixing “market failures”
• Competing with other providers and ensuring information flows
• Diverse interests and power dynamics; potential conflict between local and systemic goals
• Large variation in local capacity across the system
• High risk of social fragmentation
• Potentially high interventionism (state, corporate) in all areas of life
• Tensions around democratic control and protection of individual rights
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Scenario 4
Challenges for public authorities

10. OECD
Scenarios for the Future
of Schooling
Goals and
functions
Organisation and
structures
The teaching
workforce
Governance and
geopolitics
Challenges for public
authorities
Scenario 1
Schooling extended
Schools are key
actors in
socialisation,
qualification, care
and credentialing.
Educational
monopolies retain all
traditional functions of
schooling systems.
Teachers in monopolies,
with potential new
economies of scale and
division of tasks.
Strong role for
traditional
administration and
emphasis on
international
collaboration.
Accommodating diversity and
ensuring quality across a
common system. Potential
trade-off between consensus
and innovation.
Scenario 2
Education outsourced
Fragmentation of
demand with
self-reliant “clients”
looking for flexible
services.
Diversification of
structures: multiple
organisational forms
available to
individuals.
Diversity of roles and
status operating within
and outside of schools.
Schooling systems as
players in a wider
(local, national, global)
education market.
Supporting access and quality,
fixing “market failures”.
Competing with other
providers and ensuring
information flows.
Scenario 3
Schools as learning hubs
Flexible schooling
arrangements permit
greater
personalisation and
community
involvement.
Schools as hubs
function to organise
multiple configurations
of local-global
resources.
Professional teachers as
nodes of wider networks
of flexible expertise.
Strong focus on local
decisions. Self-
organising units in
diverse partnerships.
Diverse interests and power
dynamics; potential conflict
between local and systemic
goals. Large variation in local
capacity.
Scenario 4
Learn-as-you-go
Traditional goals and
functions of schooling
are overwritten by
technology.
Dismantling of
schooling as a social
institution.
Open market of
“prosumers” with a
central role for
communities of practice
(local, national, global).
(Global) governance
of data and digital
technologies becomes
key.
Potential for high
interventionism (state,
corporate) impacts democratic
control and individual rights.
Risk of high social
fragmentation.

11. NEW GOALS
MODERNISING
INNOVATION
GLOBAL
POTENTIAL
VIRTUAL
LEARNING
OLD STRUCTURES
DISRUPTING
RISK AVOIDANCE
LOCAL
REALITY
FACE-TO-FACE
EDUCATION
Using the scenarios
Tensions and paradoxes remain and require smart responses
Trends Shaping Education 2020Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling