Constructivism and education; Prospects ... - unesdoc - Unesco

134 Jose’ Joaquin Brunner
mation channel with which rising generations enter into contact; the media for commu-
nicating what schools have to teach are what the teacher imparts verbally and the writ-
ten word; schools’ efficiency is demonstrated by the successful inculcation of certain
types of knowledge and behaviour, as borne out by examination; the type of intelli-
gence that needs cultivating is essentially of a logical-mathematical nature and school-
ing has the support of the family, the local community and the churches.
The contemporary educational revolution
Today, we are on the threshold of a new educational revolution. Both the context
in which schools operate and the purposes of education itself are undergoing dras-
tic and rapid transformation through the action of material and intellectual forces
beyond the control of the educational community, but with inevitable consequences
for the latter.
Indeed, on a world scale, education is facing an unprecedented period of
change and adjustment in its progress towards an information society. As Jacques
Delors points out in the Report of the International Commission on Education for
the Twenty-first Century, ‘Now more than ever as a world society struggles painfully
to be born, education is at the heart of both personal and community develop-
ment’.
While the sheer size, intensity, velocity and impact of global networks, flows
and interaction are forcing all countries to re-examine education’s links with poli-
tics, economy, society and culture, the establishment of a technology based on infor-
mation and telecommunications systems facilitates such processes and creates new
contexts in which individuals’ education will in future take place. For the time
being, the most characteristic outcome of this twofold change is a series of imbal-
ances, giving rise to what the World Bank describes as a ‘knowledge gap’, UNDP
‘networked societies with parallel communications systems’, and the United States
Department of Commerce ‘a digital divide between those with net access and those
without’.
Globalization above all means growing worldwide interconnectedness, result-
ing in phenomena described by various authors as accelerating interdependence,”
unintended consequences at a distance, I6 time-space compression” and environments
operating as real-time units on a planetary scale.18
In the realm of politics, it implies a weakening of the distinction between the
international and domestic spheres, the emergence of new forms of sovereignty and
a redefinition of the functions of the nation-State. Concerns over legitimacy in regard
to national governments are gradually giving way to a preoccupation with global
governance.”
In the realm of the economy, it implies transformation of the relationship
between states and markets, an intensification and reorganization of world trade, a
growing emphasis on the comparative competitiveness of nations and an increase
in the number of ‘systemic risks’ such as environmental destruction or the spread
of crises, especially financial crises, as it were by contagion.
Prospects, vol. XxX1, no 2, June 2001