Arquivo de etiquetas: Educação

Os 7 pilares da Educação – A ética como limite e a extensão do conhecimento

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

A Antropo-ética.

O último aspecto é o que vou chamar de antropo-ético, porque os problemas da moral e da ética diferem a depender da cultura e da natureza humana. Existe um aspecto individual, outro social e outro genético, diria de espécie. Algo como uma trindade em que as terminações são ligadas: a antropo-ética. Cabe ao ser humano desenvolver, ao mesmo tempo, a ética e a autonomia pessoal (as nossas responsabilidades pessoais), além de desenvolver a participação social (as responsabilidades sociais), ou seja, a nossa participação no género humano, pois compartilhamos um destino comum.

A antropo-ética tem um lado social que não tem sentido se não for na democracia, porque a democracia permite uma relação indivíduo-sociedade e nela o cidadão deve se sentir solidário e responsável. A democracia permite aos cidadãos exercerem suas responsabilidades através do voto. Somente assim é possível fazer com que o poder circule, de forma que aquele que foi uma vez controlado, terá a possibilidade de controlar.

Porque a democracia é, por princípio, um exercício de controle. Não existe, evidentemente, democracia absoluta. Ela é sempre incompleta. Mas sabemos que vivemos em uma época de regressão democrática, pois o poder tecnológico agrava cada vez mais os problemas económicos. Na verdade, o é importante orientar e guiar essa tomada de consciência social que leva à cidadania, para que o indivíduo possa exercer sua responsabilidade.

Por outro lado, a ética do ser humano está se desenvolvendo através das associações não-governamentais, como os Médicos Sem Fronteiras, o Greenpeace, a Aliança pelo Mundo Solidário e tantas outras que trabalham acima de entidades religiosas, políticas ou de Estados nacionais, assistindo aos países ou às nações que estão sendo ameaçadas ou em graves conflitos. Devemos conscientizar a todos sobre essas causas tão importantes, pois estamos falando do destino da humanidade.

Seremos capazes de civilizar a terra e fazer com que ela se torne uma verdadeira pátria? Estes são os sete saberes necessários ao ensino. E não digo isso para modificar programas. Na minha opinião, não temos que destruir disciplinas, mas sim integrá-las, reuni-las em uma ciência como, por exemplo, as ciências da terra (a sismologia, a vulcanologia, a meteorologia), todas elas articuladas em uma concepção sistémica da terra.

Penso que tudo deva estar integrado para permitir uma mudança de pensamento; para que se transforme a concepção fragmentada e dividida do mundo, que impede a visão total da realidade. Essa visão fragmentada faz com que os problemas permaneçam invisíveis para muitos, principalmente para muitos governantes.

E hoje que o planeta já está, ao mesmo tempo, unido e fragmentado, começa a se desenvolver uma ética do género humano, para que possamos superar esse estado de caos e começar, talvez, a civilizar a terra.

Actualités / News, Lectures / Readings

Os 7 pilares da Educação – Os fenómenos são complexos

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

A Condição Planetária.

O sexto aspecto é a condição planetária, sobretudo na era da globalização no século XX – que começou, na verdade no século XVI com a colonização da América e a interligação de toda a humanidade. Esse fenómeno que estamos vivendo hoje, em que tudo está conectado, é um outro aspecto que o ensino ainda não tocou, assim como o planeta e seus problemas, a aceleração histórica, a quantidade de informação que não conseguimos processar e organizar.

Este ponto é importante porque existe, neste momento, um destino comum para todos os seres humanos. O crescimento da ameaça letal se expande em vez de diminuir: a ameaça nuclear, a ameaça ecológica, a degradação da vida planetária. Ainda que haja uma tomada de consciência de todos esses problemas, ela é tímida e não conduziu ainda a nenhuma decisão efectiva. Por isso, faz-se urgente a construção de uma consciência planetária. Conhecer o nosso planeta é difícil: os processos de todas as ordens – económicos, ideológicos e sociais – estão de tal maneira imbricados e são tão complexos, que compreendê-los é um verdadeiro desafio para o conhecimento. Ortega y Gasset dizia: “não sabemos o que acontece, isto é o que acontece”.

É necessária uma certa distância em relação ao imediato para podermos compreendê-lo. E, actualmente, dada a aceleração e a complexidade do mundo, é quase impossível. Mas, faz-se necessário ressaltar, é esta a dificuldade. É necessário ensinar que não é suficiente reduzir a um só a complexidade dos problemas importantes do planeta, como a demografia, ou a escassez de alimentos, ou a bomba atómica, ou a ecologia. Os problemas estão todos amarrados uns aos outros.

Daqui para frente, existem, sobretudo, os perigos de vida e morte para a humanidade, como a ameaça da arma nuclear, como a ameaça ecológica, como o desencadeamento dos nacionalismos acentuados pelas religiões. É preciso mostrar que a humanidade vive agora uma comunidade de destino comum.

Actualités / News, Lectures / Readings

Os 7 pilares da Educação – conhecimento é incerto

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

A Incerteza.

O quinto aspecto é a incerteza. Apesar de, nas escolas, ensinar-se somente as certezas, como a gravitação de Newton e o electromagnetismo, actualmente a ciência tem abandonado determinados elementos mecânicos para assimilar o jogo entre certeza e incerteza, da microfísica às ciências humanas. É necessário mostrar em todos os domínios, sobretudo na história, o surgimento do inesperado. Eurípides dizia no fim de três de suas tragédias que: “os deuses nos causam grandes surpresas, não é o esperado que chega e sim o inesperado que nos acontece”. É a velha ideia de 2.500 anos, que nós esquecemos sempre.

As ciências mantêm diálogos entre dados hipotéticos e outros dados que parecem mais prováveis. Os processos físicos, assim como outros também, pressupõem variações que nos levam à desordem caótica ou à criação de uma nova organização, como nas teorias sobre a incerteza de Prigogine, baseadas nos exemplos dos turbilhões de Born. Analisando retroactivamente a história da vida, constata-se que ela não foi linear, que não teve uma evolução de baixo para cima. A evolução segundo Darwin foi uma evolução composta de ramificações, a exemplo do mundo vegetal e o mundo animal.

O homem vem de uma dessas ramificações e conseguiu chegar à consciência e à inteligência, mas não somos a meta da evolução, fazemos parte desse processo. A história da vida foi, na verdade, marcada por catástrofes.

No fim da era secundária, a queda do asteróide que matou os dinossauros e ressecou a vegetação desses animais enormes, matando-os de fome deu oportunidade à proliferação dos mamíferos. Assim também ocorreu com as sociedades humanas. Todas sofreram o colapso por uma razão ou outra. Nem mesmo o império romano, que parecia eterno, conseguiu sobreviver. As sociedades andinas, que eram mais potentes que seus colonizadores espanhóis e cujas capitais eram muita mais ricas que Paris, Madrid ou Lisboa, foram destruídas por espanhóis que chegaram com cavalos e armas desconhecidas.

As duas guerras mundiais destruíram muito na metade do século XX, depois da Primeira Guerra Mundial. Três grandes impérios da época, por exemplo, o romano otomano, o austro-húngaro e o soviético, desapareceram.

Isto nos demonstra a necessidade de ensinar o que chamamos de ecologia da ação: a atitude que se toma quando uma ação é desencadeada e escapa ao desejo e às intenções daquele que a provocou, desencadeando influências múltiplas que podem desviá-la até para o sentido oposto ao intencionado.

A história humana está repleta de exemplos dessa natureza. O mais evidente no final do século XX foi o projecto político de Gorbatchev, que pretendeu reformar o sistema político da União Soviética, mas acabou provocando o começo de sua própria desagregação e implosão.

Assim tem acontecido em todas as etapas da história. O inesperado aconteceu e acontecerá, porque não temos futuro e não temos certeza nenhuma do futuro. As previsões não foram concretizadas, não existe determinismo do progresso. Os espíritos, portanto, têm que ser fortes e armados para enfrentarem essa incerteza e não se desencorajarem.

Essa incerteza é uma incitação à coragem. A aventura humana não é previsível, mas o imprevisto não é totalmente desconhecido. Somente agora se admite que não se conhece o destino da aventura humana. É necessário tomar consciência de que as futuras decisões devem ser tomadas contando com o risco do erro e estabelecer estratégias que possam ser corrigidas no processo da ação, a partir dos imprevistos e das informações que se tem.

Actualités / News, Lectures / Readings

Os 7 Pilares da Educação – A compreender o social

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

A compreensão Humana

O quarto aspecto é sobre a compreensão humana. Nunca se ensina sobre como compreender uns aos outros, como compreender nossos vizinhos, nossos parentes, nossos pais. O que significa compreender?

A palavra compreender vem do latim, compreendere, que quer dizer: colocar junto todos os elementos de explicação, ou seja, não ter somente um elemento de explicação, mas diversos. Mas a compreensão humana vai além disso, porque, na realidade, ela comporta uma parte de empatia e identificação. O que faz com que se compreenda alguém que chora, por exemplo, não é analisar as lágrimas no microscópio, mas saber o significado da dor, da emoção. Por isso, é preciso compreender a compaixão, que significa sofrer junto. É isto que permite a verdadeira comunicação humana.

A grande inimiga da compreensão é a falta de preocupação em ensiná-la. Na realidade, isto está se agravando, já que o individualismo ganha um espaço cada vez maior.

Estamos vivendo numa sociedade individualista, que favorece o sentido de responsabilidade individual, que desenvolve o egocentrismo, o egoísmo e que, consequentemente, alimenta a autojustificação e a rejeição ao próximo.

A raiva leva à vontade de eliminar o outro e tudo aquilo que possa aborrecer. De certa maneira, isto favorece ao que os ingleses chamam de self-deception, isto é, mentir a si mesmo, pois o egocentrismo vai tramando sempre o negativo e esquecendo dos outros elementos.

A redução do outro, a visão unilateral e a falta de percepção sobre a complexidade humana são os grandes empecilhos da compreensão. Outro aspecto da incompreensão é a indiferença. E, por este lado, é interessante abordar o cinema, que os intelectuais tanto acusam de alienante. Na verdade, o cinema é uma arte que nos ensina a superar a indiferença, pois transforma em heróis os invisíveis sociais, ensinando-nos a vê-los por um outro prisma. Charlie Chaplin, por exemplo, sensibilizou plateias inteiras com o personagem do vagabundo. Outro exemplo é Coppola, que popularizou os chefes da Máfia com “O Chefão”. No teatro, temos a complexidade dos personagens de Shakespeare: reis, gangsters, assassinos e ditadores. No cinema, como na filosofia de Heráclito: “Despertados, eles dormem”. Estamos adormecidos, apesar de despertos, pois diante da realidade tão complexa, mal percebemos o que se passa ao nosso redor.

Por isso, é importante este quarto ponto: compreender não só os outros como a si mesmo, a necessidade de se auto-examinar, de analisar a autojustificação, pois o mundo está cada vez mais devastado pela incompreensão, que é o câncer do relacionamento entre os seres humanos

Actualités / News, Lectures / Readings

Os 7 pilares da Educação – A Identidade Humana

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

A Identidade Humana.

O terceiro aspecto é a identidade humana. É curioso que nossa identidade seja completamente ignorada pelos programas de instrução. Podemos perceber alguns aspectos do homem biológico em Biologia, alguns aspectos psicológicos em Psicologia, mas a realidade humana é indecifrável. Somos indivíduos de uma sociedade e fazemos parte de uma espécie. Mas, ao mesmo tempo em que fazemos parte de uma sociedade, temos a sociedade como parte de nós, pois desde o nosso nascimento a cultura se nos imprime. Nós somos de uma espécie, mas ao mesmo tempo a espécie é em nós e depende de nós. Se nos recusamos a nos relacionar sexualmente com um parceiro de outro sexo, acabamos com a espécie. Portanto, o relacionamento entre indivíduo-sociedade-espécie é como a trindade divina, um dos termos gera o outro e um se encontra no outro. A realidade humana é trinitária.

Eu acredito possível a convergência entre todas as ciências e a identidade humana. Um certo número de agrupamentos disciplinares vai favorecer esta convergência. É necessário reconhecer que na segunda metade do século XX, houve uma revolução científica, reagrupando as disciplinas em ciências pluridisciplinares. Assim, há a cosmologia, as ciências da terra, a ecologia e a pré-história.

Tome-se como exemplo a cosmologia, que, efectivamente, utiliza a microfísica, os aceleradores de partículas para imaginar os primeiros segundos do universo. Ela utiliza a observação e pratica uma reflexão filosófica sobre o mundo, assim como fizeram Hubert Reeves, Hawkins, Michel Cassé e tantos outros. Eles reflectem sobre o universo incrível no qual vivemos. Mas o que é importante para a identidade humana é saber que estamos neste minúsculo planeta perdidos no cosmos. Nossa missão não é mais a de conquistar o mundo como acreditava Descartes, Bacon e Marx. Nossa missão se transformou em civilizar o pequeno planeta em que vivemos.

Por outro lado, as ciências da terra nos inscrevem neste planeta formado por fragmentos cósmicos, resultados de uma explosão de sóis anteriores. Resta saber como estes fragmentos reunidos e aglomerados puderam criar uma tal organização, uma auto-organização, para nos dar este planeta. É necessário mostrar que ele gerou a vida, e a nós somos, filhos da vida.

A biologia, com a teoria da evolução, nos prova como trazemos dentro de nós, efectivamente, o processo de desenvolvimento da primeira célula vivente, que se multiplicou e se diversificou.

Quando sonhamos com nossa identidade, devemos pensar que temos partículas que nasceram no despertar do universo. Temos átomos de carbono que se formaram em sóis anteriores ao nosso, pelo encontro de três núcleos de hélio que se constituíram em moléculas e neuro moléculas na terra. Somos todos filhos do cosmos, mas nos transformamos em estranhos através de nosso conhecimento e de nossa cultura. Portanto, é preciso ensinar a unidade dos três destinos, porque somos indivíduos, mas como indivíduos somos, cada um, um fragmento da sociedade e da espécie Homo sapiens, à qual pertencemos. E o importante é que somos uma parte da sociedade, uma parte da espécie, seres desenvolvidos sem os quais a sociedade não existe. A sociedade só vive com essas interacções. É importante, também, mostrar que, ao mesmo tempo em que o ser humano é múltiplo, ele é parte de uma unidade. Sua estrutura mental faz parte da complexidade humana. Portanto, ou vemos a unidade do género e esquecemos a diversidade das culturas e dos indivíduos, ou vemos a diversidade das culturas e não vemos a unidade do ser humano.

Esse problema vem causando polémicas desde o século XVIII, quando Voltaire disse: “Os chineses são iguais a nós, têm paixões, choram”. E Herbart, o pensador alemão, afirmou: “Entre uma cultura e outra não há comunicação, os seres são diferentes”. Os dois tinham razão, mas na realidade essas duas verdades têm que ser articuladas. Nós temos os elementos genéticos da nossa diversidade e, é claro, os elementos culturais da nossa diversidade.

É preciso lembrar que rir, chorar, sorrir, não são actos aprendidos ao longo da educação, são inatos, mas modulados de acordo com a educação. Heigerfeld fez uma observação sobre uma jovem surda-muda de nascença que ria, chorava e sorria. Actualmente, estudos demonstram que o feto começa a sorrir no ventre da mãe. Talvez porque não saiba o que o espera depois… Mas isso nos permite entender a nossa realidade, nossa diversidade e singularidade.

Chegamos, então, ao ensino da literatura e da poesia. Elas não devem ser consideradas como secundárias e não essenciais. A literatura é para os adolescentes uma escola de vida e um meio para se adquirir conhecimentos. As ciências sociais vêem categorias e não indivíduos sujeitos a emoções, paixões e desejos. A literatura, ao contrário, como nos grandes romances de Tolstoi, aborda o meio social, o familiar, o histórico e o concreto das relações humanas com uma força extraordinária.

Podemos dizer que as telenovelas também nos falam sobre problemas fundamentais do homem; o amor, a morte, a doença, o ciúme, a ambição, o dinheiro. Temos que entender que todos esses elementos são necessários para entender que a vida não é aprendida somente nas ciências formais. E a literatura tem a vantagem de reflectir sobre a complexidade do ser humano e sobre a quantidade incrível de seus sonhos. Como James Joyce, por exemplo, que, ao criar um personagem, mostrava que uma pessoa pode ter sentimentos totalmente diversos. Ou como o herói de Dostoievski, em O Idiota que não sabe se a jovem está apaixonada por ele e ao fim da trama, depois de ter sofrido muito, encontra um amigo que lhe diz: “mas que imbecil é, não entendeu que ela o ama”. Isto pode acontecer com qualquer pessoa, é a dificuldade de saber o que o outro pensa e sente.

Marcel Proust mostrou, em Um amor de Swan, o que ele chamava de intermitências do coração, ou seja, que uma pessoa pode se apaixonar, esquecer-se da pessoa desejada e voltar a amá-la. Neste romance o herói sofre durante anos de ciúmes por causa de uma mulher e quando ele já não está mais apaixonado, diz: “mas eu sofri tanto por uma mulher que não me amava e que nem era meu tipo”. Podemos, então, compreender a complexidade humana através da literatura.

A poesia nos ensina a qualidade poética da vida, essa qualidade que nós sentimos diante de fatos da realidade. Como, por exemplo, os espectáculos da natureza: o céu de Brasília que é tão bonito. A vida não deve ser uma prosa que se faça por obrigação. A vida é viver poeticamente na paixão, no entusiasmo. Para que isso aconteça, devemos fazer convergir todas as disciplinas conhecidas para a identidade e para a condição humana, ressaltando a noção de homo sapiens; o homem racional e fazedor de ferramentas, que é, ao mesmo tempo, louco e está entre o delírio e o equilíbrio, nesse mundo de paixões em que o amor é o cúmulo da loucura e da sabedoria.

O homem não se define somente pelo trabalho, mas também pelo jogo. Não só as crianças, como também os adultos gostam de jogar. Por isso vemos partidas de futebol. Nós somos Homo ludens, além de Homo economicus. Não vivemos só em função do interesse económico. Há, também, o homo mitologicus, isto é, vivemos em função de mitos e crenças.

Enfim o homem é prosaico e poético. Como dizia Hölderling: “O homem habita poeticamente na terra, mas também prosaicamente e se a prosa não existisse, não poderíamos desfrutar da poesia”.

Actualités / News

Os 7 pilares da Educação – O conhecimento pertinente

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

O Conhecimento Pertinente.

O segundo buraco negro é que não ensinamos as condições de um conhecimento pertinente, isto é, de um conhecimento que não mutila o seu objeto. Nós seguimos, em primeiro lugar, um mundo formado pelo ensino disciplinar. É evidente que as disciplinas de toda ordem ajudaram o avanço do conhecimento e são insubstituíveis. O que existe entre as disciplinas é invisível e as conexões entre elas também são invisíveis. Mas isto não significa que seja necessário conhecer somente uma parte da realidade. É preciso ter uma visão capaz de situar o conjunto. É necessário dizer que não é a quantidade de informações, nem a sofisticação em Matemática que podem dar sozinhas um conhecimento pertinente, mas sim a capacidade de colocar o conhecimento no contexto.

A economia, que é das ciências humanas, a mais avançada, a mais sofisticada, tem um poder muito fraco e erra muitas vezes nas suas previsões, porque está ensinando de modo a privilegiar o cálculo. Com isso, acaba esquecendo os aspectos humanos, como o sentimento, a paixão, o desejo, o temor, o medo. Quando há um problema na bolsa, quando as ações despencam, aparece um factor totalmente irracional que é o pânico, e que, frequentemente, faz com que o factor económico tenha a ver com o humano, ligando-se, assim, à sociedade, à psicologia, à mitologia. Essa realidade social é multidimensional e o económico é apenas uma dimensão dessa sociedade. Por isso, é necessário contextualizar todos os dados.

Se não houver, por exemplo, a contextualização dos conhecimentos históricos e geográficos, cada vez que aparecer um acontecimento novo que nos fizer descobrir uma região desconhecida, como o Kosovo, o Timor ou Serra Leoa, não entenderemos nada. Portanto, o ensino por disciplina, fragmentado e dividido, impede a capacidade natural que o espírito tem de contextualizar. E é essa capacidade que deve ser estimulada e desenvolvida pelo ensino, a de ligar as partes ao todo e o todo às partes. Pascal dizia, já no século XVII: “Não se pode conhecer as partes sem conhecer o todo, nem conhecer o todo sem conhecer as partes”.

O contexto tem necessidade, ele mesmo, de seu próprio contexto. E o conhecimento, actualmente, deve se referir ao global. Os acidentes locais têm repercussão sobre o conjunto e as ações do conjunto sobre os acidentes locais. Isso foi comprovado depois da guerra do Iraque, da guerra da Iugoslávia e, actualmente, pode ser verificado com o conflito do Oriente Médio.

Actualités / News, Lectures / Readings

Os 7 pilares da Educação

01/08/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

Os sete saberes necessários à educação do futuro não têm nenhum programa educativo, escolar ou universitário. Aliás, não estão concentrados no primário, nem no secundário, nem no ensino universitário, mas abordam problemas específicos para cada um desses níveis. Eles dizem respeito aos setes buracos negros da educação, completamente ignorados, subestimados ou fragmentados nos programas educativos. Programas esses que, na minha opinião, devem ser colocados no centro das preocupações sobre a formação dos jovens, futuros cidadãos.

por Edgar Morin

Lectures / Readings

Why Did Some Countries Advance While Others Remained in Poverty? III

23/04/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

The Role of Culture: Demography, Education, Gender

We’re making a differential diagnosis of why countries get stuck with their bad economic performance. We’ve looked at, how poverty traps can hold poor countries in a grasp preventing them from making the basic investments to move forward. We’ve looked at how physical geography, the presence or lack of fossil fuels. That the proximity to or distance to the coast.

The nature of the climate system. Can shape economic development. Very often, people turn first to culture as the explanation, of why some places are ahead, and others behind. It’s often quite glib, because,rich people like to say, we’re rich because our culture is better, rather than to say, we’re rich because we have lots of energy resources, good coastal proximity, and a healthy climate. And rich people often like to blame poor people for their problems, say, well, they’re lazy, they’re not working very hard. And throughout history, places that were once poor and they became rich were known quote unquote as lazy places, during their period of poverty. And then once they became rich, their culture was used to explain their hard working ethos. So culture can be a bit of an optical illusion. A little bit to easy sometimes, as an attribution or a cause of a countries conditions. And we should remember that cultural phenomena, people’s beliefs and attitudes, their views towards appropriate roles in society. Change over time as well. SO culture isn’t a fixed monolit. I believe culture has a role, however, though not as big a role as sometimes thought. And we should focus on those atributtes of a societies values, its norms, Its attitudes. As ways that can be promotive or barriers to sustainable development. I want to focus on three. One is on demography and population. The second on education. And the third, regarding gender[1]. When we look at the population challenge, a good place to start is this world map of the fertility rate. The total fertility rate in a country, and you’ll recall Measures on average the number of children that a woman will have during her lifetime. It looks at the age-specific fertility rates for women in a society, and then says, if women age 20 to 25 on average have this many children, women age 25 to 30 have this many children, and so forth, Then on average over the course of a woman’s lifetime reproductive years, an average woman in this society would have this number of children. What the world map shows, is the tremendous variation in our world today in the total fertility rate. In many parts of the world, especially the high-income world today, fertility rates are below two.

That means that each woman, on average, is having fewer than two children. It means, since half the children are boys and half the children are girls, On average, each woman is having less than one daughter. Or, if you say, 10 women, in total would be having fewer than 10 daughters. You can see that when fertility rates are below two. So, that, on average, each mother is not replacing herself in the next generation with a daughter. Statistically speaking that the population would tend to, be stable or declining. When the total fertility rate is above two, then the population would tend over the longer term to increase. So, if in high-income world on this map we see total fertility rates below two. We also see in some of the worlds poorest countries in notably in Africa and in parts of South Asia, total fertility rates above four and many rural areas in low income tropical Africa we have total fertility rates above six.

That is a pooe household would, on average, the woman would be having six or more children. This tremendously effects economic development because with very large populations of young children, poor families Have a very difficult time providing the basics for all of their children, maybe just the eldest son is able to go to school and the girls are married at a young age or working the fields about proper education and that means that in the next generation those young girls will grow up without the literacy and the skills that they need. To help their own lives their own children and the national economy to be productive. So countries that had made, a transition from high fertility rate to low fertility rates, have tended to have an advantage in economic development. Countries that have still today very high fertility rates tend to have much lower economic growth. To a certain extent, this is a matter of income itself. It’s not really a matter of culture. Poorer families, living on farms tend to have more kids. And have less access to family planning to contraception, the girls don’t have access to schools and don’t go to school and are married young and begin having children at a very young age, but to some extent at least fertility rates also reflect culture, lets look at one example of a society that move rapidly, From high fertility rates to much lower fertiliity rates.

That’s China. They did that by and large through a government policy known as the One Child Policy. And while it’s been very controversial, notice the implications of this policy. What has happened, in a very short period of time. Family size has come down rapidly and parents have invested intensively in their one or sometimes two children. And so that within one generation, the levels of education, health, nutrition of Chinese young population has soared. This played an enormous role in China’s very rapid economic development. So some places by virture of culture, politics, of history, have still very high fertility rates. Other places have made a rapid transition. To lower fertility rates. And the record shows very clearly that those countries experience faster economic growth, better health for the children, and higher educational attainments. Over time this fertility rate shapes the population dynamics. Whether the population is rising or declining in overall size, and the age distribution of the population shown here by the age population pyramid so called, what these pyramids show, are the numbers of boys and girls or men and women at various ages,uh showing the age structure of the population If you look at Japan’s population, for example, in 1950 when fertility rates were still rather high, The number of children at the bottom of the pyramid was much larger than the number of their parents, and far larger than the number of the grandparents. By 2005, the shape of that pyramid had changed considerably.

Japan had reduced its fertility rates. Partly as a result of culture, partly as a result of economic development, partly as a result of public policy. And so now the number of children were actually fewer than the number of parents because the fertility rate had come down below two. And the whole age structure, therefore, wasn’t a broad pyramid with a big, big base of young children. But was now much more similar in numbers of population at all ages. By the middle of this century, because of the continuing low fertility rate, the population age structure will be an inverted pyramid. Few children, many more older people. And that’s how the transition occurs when fertility rates come down. Most of today’s very poor countries have that big base pyramid. Huge numbers of very young children to be supported. How are they going to be educated? How are they going to get the healthcare and the nutrition that they need? Only if today’s high fertility countries are able, through matters of public policy, cultural attitudes, and so forth to help reduce those fertility rates. And the best way is through the voluntary choices of, households who decide to reduce the number of children so that they can invest more per child and help raise healthy and better educated children, unless that happens, then the problems of the large numbers of children outnumbering their parents will continue to make very difficult the economic development of the poor countries. Another cultural phenomenon involved attitudes towards education. Some poor societies even in a state of great poverty, by tradition, by culture, focused a huge amount of effort and attention on literacy. Korea is one such country. Korea even when it was impoverished in the middle of the last century had a very high literacy rate, and there was always great attention in Korea’s modern history to broad based literacy. Well that’s a cultural attitude as well as a government policy. And it’s done very well for Korea since the middle of the century and the terrible Korean war that took place and devastated so much of Korea. In South Korea, we’ve seen some of the most successful economic development every attained, some of the fastest economic growth And with a rather widespread prosperity. A huge part of that has been facilitated by this continuing commitment to broad based, high quality education. And indeed this shows up in international test scores. What you’re looking at here are the rankings on International testing, in science and math. Where is Korea? Right at the top. It’s not the richest country in the world, but it is right at the top ranks number one or number two, definitely in almost every, test and cateogry, within the top few countries in educational performance. This reflects not only public investments in education, but it reflects parental support for their children, urging their children to excellence. It reflects a culture that has long strongly valued education, and thereby made it possible for Korea to become a world leader in technology. And one of the fastest growing countries in the world. A third cultural attitude, that deeply influences patterns of economic development, are attitudes towards women. Do women have rights? Are women participating in the labor force? Do women face massive discrimination? So, gender equality or inequality also has, political aspects, but culture plays a significant role. Once again, as with fertility and as with education, there are big differences around the world. In attitudes towards gender equality in attitudes towards women, even in the physical safety of women from violence. One can see the many, many ways that this influences economic development. There’s probably not a society in the world where women still do not face at least some discrimination. It took Tremendous political effort, social mobilization, and a lot of courage of women to break through this discrimination even in places today that we view as close to gender equality if not fully there. But there are many parts of the world of course where women still face profound, profound barriers. To their economic participation, to their political particiiaption to hteir role in society. What are the consequences of that? A society that tries to run on half its brain power on half its human capabilities, block the role of women. In problem solving, in economic leadership, in a political role. A country that’s running on only half its human resources is bound to fall behind countries that are empowering all of their citizens, women and girls as well as men and boys. Countries where young girls may have one of two years of schooling, but then because lack of interest, lack of budget, lack of family attention and effort, are forced to drop out of school, marry young, start having children young, do not have the productivity to participate in a modern economy.

Face a tremendous amount of poverty and suffering themselves. And by dint of that are likely to be raising children in poverty as well. Now, this is an area where there have been huge changes, fortunately, in the right direction. Over the last 30 years but by no means uniformed. Look at this wonderful picture of the rowandan parliament, it may surprise you to know that rowanda’s parliament is not only more than half omen, but has the highest porportion of women in it’s parliament in comparison with the rest of the world. And women’s participation in politics has soared in Rwanda and it is rising in other parts of the world, though still with the huge inequalities and still a tendency towards men dominating. Political power. In Rwanda you can see the wonderful benefits of this turn towards women’s empowerment. and Rwanda has made astounding progress in reducing child mortality. It’s making big progress in improving education. Social conditions have improved dramatically. And while there are many factors that are contributing to Rwanda escaping the poverty trap, the role of women in the parliament in my opinion has played a significant role, Not only are, these women powerful role models for young girls in Rwanda, and I think Rwanda’s success. In light of this experience is a very powerful nessage for countries that are still lagging behind. Don’t try to develop with only half of your citizenry. Take the lesson that a country that is mobilizing all of its citizens, its girls, women, as well as its. Boys and men, is a country that’s going to have more success in the 21st century

[1]http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/ng-interactive/2014/feb/04/womens-rights-country-by-country-interactive

Lectures / Readings

Education and Susteinable Development III

09/04/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

The Rising Returns to Education and the Supply Response

We’re taking a life cycle approach to human development and the accumulation of human capital. Human capital measuring the investments in health nutrition and education, which enables us to be productive citizens and productive members of the economy.

We’ve seen that it’s crucial to make investments in all stages of the life cycle, especially not missing the early years. We’ve seen, as well, that primary education has gotten a big boost. Especially during the millennium development goal period. While there are still tens of millions of children, especially in conflict areas, not in school, though of primary school age. Enrollment rates have increased markedly and enabled a closing effectively of the gender gap as well so that young girls, like young boys, are in primary school. But we know that the investments in education have to continue, that there remains a significant gap into secondary education, which should, like primary education, be targeted for universality. Of coverage access and results during the next phase of the global development goals as part of presumably the sustainable development goals of 2015 to 2030.

There’s plenty of evidence that the benefits to society of helping the young people not only complete secondary school, but go on to higher education, are very, very high. We’ve already looked at this graph that you are now looking at again. The wage premium for college graduates compared to high school diploma holders. We can see, remembering the forces of globalization and technological change, how since 1979 onward that wage premium for getting a university degree has soared. And this is a market signal not only in the United States, but around the world that to the extent feasible children should aspire to complete primary, secondary education, and then go on for some kind of higher level education. Whether vocational training, specialized skills, craftsman, skills, artisanal skills or to go on to a higher degree in a tertiary university. Now when the market sends the signal that something, some activity or some kind of project has a high rate of return, you would naturally expect a, an increased supply of that activity in other words, more investments in that high return activity. You would expect, therefore, for example, in the United States where the returns to higher education have soared, that more kids would be completing a bachelors degree.

To some extent, that’s happening, but something odd is also happening, and for the United States a very notable phenomenon. Have a look at these, this graph showing the percentage of 25 to 29 year olds. That is completing a college degree. For high school level, the top curve, you see nearly 100% high school completion. Unfortunately, not at 100%, because there are still too many kids not even getting a high school diploma. Which, in the context of the U.S. society, and U.S. labor market, is almost a, a guarantee of poverty and trouble. Look at the lower curve, which is the curve showing the proportion of kids getting a four year bachelor’s degree. Now what this is measuring is a specific age cohort, 25 to 29 year olds. And asking of, in any year of the 25 to 29 year olds, what fraction of that age group has a four year bachelor’s degree. What you can see is that from 1940 to around 1975 that proportion increased a lot, from around 5% of that age cohort to around 20% of the age cohort. The line went up gradually but persistently so that more and more young people were going to a four year university getting a degree, and we know enjoying the higher earnings that came along with that. But then that upper sloping curve has a kink starting around 1975. It’s still rises but very, very slightly. There’s almost a stability in the share of the 25 to 29 year olds with that four year degree. Something doesn’t make sense. Just when the returns are going up, the proportions of young people actually completing the four year degree stop rising, or at least stop rising at the pace that they had been rising. And so, while at a bit over 20% in 1975 have a four year degree, by the time you reach 2009, 2010, maybe it’s 30%, but it’s not much above that. And so the proportions have really stopped increasing at anything like what we would expect from the signal that the benefits of going to university are so high. What’s going on?

Well, there’s clearly some kind of bottleneck on the supply side. And the next graph gives us some suggestion of the nature of that bottleneck. Tuition costs are large and also rising and so, just when society ought to be helping young people to make that investment in higher education. Tuition costs and bottlenecks in the university system are holding back the supply response. We see here the sharp increase of net tuition costs in this case for public institutions of higher learning and in general by almost any category again in the US context especially there have been soaring tuition costs. What’s the implication of this? The implications are two and they really are quite troubling. One implication is that a very large part of our, our young people even in a very rich country like the United States, are not able to enjoy the benefits for themselves and for society of a complete higher education. Still, two thirds or higher proportion of young people don’t make it through a four-year degree, even though the markets are screaming out, if you want to be part of the middle-class, you want a stable job, go to university.

But, the tuition costs are so difficult. That, that proportion has leveled off. The second very troubling aspect of this is that those who make it, of course, are those who are coming from wealthy families. And so there is an exacerbation of income inequality in the United States, and a reduction of social mobility as a result of this bottleneck. If one looks at the proportions of kids according to ethnicity that achieve a four year university degree in the United States of white non-Hispanic kids, it’s something around 35%, with the tendency we’ve seen for that number to rise. For African-American kids young people age 25 to 29, only about 16% have a completed four year degree. For Hispanic young people age 25 to 29 it’s only around 11%.

This means that this bottleneck in society is not only holding back the benefits that technology and globalization have given to more training, more specialized knowledge in an information society, but are creating a kind of filter making it even harder for poor, young kids to make it. And thereby reducing social mobility as well as increasing inequality in society because those who do make it coming from more prosperous families are getting the added boost of earnings and job security. And it’s the poor kids from the poor families who aren’t making it. There’s another irony to all of this. And that is that the mechanism that the United States at least has used, to this point, to address this crisis, has really proven to be inadequate. The US by virtue of its libertarian traditions always looking for the market solution, even when the market solution isn’t necessarily very wise. Essentially said to the generation of young people, go to university, and take debt, borrow, in order to do it. And the government helped to create a rapidly rising level of student loans. The double irony of this is, of course, it’s the poor kids who take the loans because the kids from wealthier families are able to afford the tuition straight out usually from the household, the parents providing the tuition. And the added burden, which has created a real mess for millions of young people, is that poor kids are taking student loans and then also not completing the four year degree. Maybe taking enough loans for one year or two years, but not able to make it all the way through university. Then the calamity is obviously multiplied because the benefits of those added years of schooling from the point of view of earnings are quite small, but the burden of the debt is enormous. And this graph that you’re looking at shows how rapidly the debt has been growing in recent years, from an estimated $250 billion total of student debt in 2003, to 10 years later a fourfold increase to the point where there is $1 trillion of student debt outstanding.

Much of this debt owed by young people who did not complete a four year degree and will not complete it and will not have the means; therefore, out of that expanded income to repay what they borrowed. It’s a calamity. It’s a rather serious miscategorization of public policy, looking for a market solution where a market solution is not all that adequate and there’s going to have to be innovation in approach. One important aspect of innovation, I think can be obvious even in the way that we right now are interacting. You’re watching me online, and what that means is something I think with potentially great significance more generally. Online information technologies which continue to fall in price, and with new innovations of best ways to combine online and in the class, and in person education. Give the chance to end that bottleneck through dramatic reductions of the cost of tuition. Making it possible to reach many, many more young people, I hope all over the world. We can envision within reach, I think big breakthroughs in all of our acts as to new information, new ways to learn and new kinds of university settings. That gives us the hope that, just as society and the markets are sending signals. Gain skills, get an education, go for more advanced training. Those same technologies that are giving the added returns to education, are going to give us the ways to also give the added supply to make it possible for education to reach everybody using the wonders of information technology. Hope it’s working for you because I hope that it can work generally for young people around the world

Bilhetes

Education and Susteinable Development II

09/04/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

Early Childhood Development

One of the most significant advances in our understanding of human capital over the life cycle is the absolutely crucial role of early childhood development. So much focus 20 or 30 years ago was on the formal public education system. That there was not the understanding of the pre-school environment for the young child. The health and nutrition, the safety of the physical environment. And the, preschool preparation for school itself. Research has shown, startlingly important effects, of the early childhood, especially during the first three years when the brain develops in so many dynamic and important ways. If those first three years are period of environmental stress great stress of the child maybe in an unsafe environment in, in dangerous, noisy, stress-filled environment.

If there’re periods of chronic infection or, or under nutrition or lack of cognitive stimulus and preschool preparation ,the liabilities that a young child will bring to even the entry to primary school itself. May be impossible to overcome in practice. Investing in the early health, well-being safe environment and cognitive development of young children turns out to be absolutely crucial. This is an area where this concept of cumulative investment, is so essential. Scientists studying brain development of young children and overall physiological, development have come to the view that the cumulative amount of stress that young children. Face shapes the formation and the, the help of the neurological system, and if there is an over accumulation of stress, biophysical pathways in the body can mean a lifetime o Physical and mental difficulties. This is shown in this graphic from one of the great laboratories of early childhood at Harvard University, where the biology of health is emphasized to be cumulative over time. And embedded during very sensitive periods, especially during brain formation. Now, several studies have tried to take a look at the overall evidence that has been gained on what this great Period of risk really means in terms of raising a, a healthy child that meets potential. Exposure to biological and psycho-social risks, being in an unsafe environment, in a violent environment, in a noisy environment. Can affect brain development and compromise the subsequent development of the child, both cognitively and physically. That inequalities of childhood developments start at a very, very young age. And a child that is raised in an unsafe environment will come already, by age six or age seven.

To primary education with the huge, disabilities and liabilities relative to what those children fortunate to be raised in, in a safe and secure environment. That means as the studies show and as this study summaries that reducing inequalities across the children required integrated and very early interventions in safe environment and cognitive development and preschool learning and proper nutrition and healthcare for young children. And that the time for those investments is at a very young age because these investments are very, very hard to make and much less effective if made as a rescue for a child already five or six or seven years old. So, societies have their work cut out for them. Don’t lose the child early on. The consequences can last for generations, can last throughout the entire subsequent life of that child. And the consequences for society, can be absolutely enormous. A partner study to that study, also published in 2011, In Lancet emphasized therefore, that early childhood development should be envisaged as an integrated strategy, one that looks at all of the different aspects holistically of the child’s environment.

From the point of view of safety, from the point of view of low stress, from the point of view of stimulus for brain development, for preschool, for early awareness of numbers and letters at age three and age four is a preschool readiness of children being read to, of. Hearing lots of words and beginning to socialize in ways that will help them to be successful as they enter the formal school system. This report also summarizes the evidence that making those investments. Which requires leadership of government to ensure that even very poor families, those that don’t know, or wouldn’t be able to afford these interventionson their own, has a tremendous social return, one that has very large gains for the society in many, many ways.But ultimately, as measured even in the national income, because of the productivity of the population, the ability of children well raised in a healthy environment to become highly productive members of the Work force when they become adults. One of the economics profession’s leading scholars, Professor James Heckman, a Nobel laureate economist at the University of Chicago, who’s been studying this issue of investing in human capital, throughout his career, has mad a graph of the kind that you are looking at now. On the horizontal axis is age. And on the vertical axis is the rate of return to investing in human capital. And look at where those returns are. Absolutely the highest in the preschool age. And then as the age of the child and the individual is higher, the returns that one can achieve by incremental investments in human capital are lower. Missing a year of investment. In human capital when a child is two cannot be made up by that same investment when the child is six. Too late. The returns are very high in the formative years of the brain and early socialization and development of personality and that cognition and scholastic aptitude, and physical well-being. And cannot simply be replaced by investments, later on. Now, this means that, societies that succeed in making investments broadly in the preschool years of children, are likely to see many benefits, not only in higher productivity, but also in a more inclusive society. Because which children are bound to be disadvantaged by the lack of public investments? It will be the poor children. Children growing up in wealthier households typically will have a safer physical environment. A better access to nutrition and more stimulus for cognitive development and more school readiness by virtue of of the. environment, that these children are raised in. And so, the next graph shows something really quite interesting and quite important. Compare societies according to how they differ in the equality or inequality of educational attainment. Consider in a country for example the, average educational attainment of kids that are, growing up in the poorest 20% of the population, versus the, richest 20% of the population. So look at a country. Divide the households into so called quintiles or 20% units. Look at the education achieved by the poorest group and by the richest group. Look at how big that gap is. Countries that are unequal, that are not inclusive, will of course By definition have a very big education gap. Now, consider the extent of preschool early childhood development. So some kind of pre primary school enrollment in, in a preschool education. In this graph, on the horizontal axis is the measurement in a country of how much pre-primary education enrollment there is. On the vertical axis is the extent of the education inequality, or education gap between the richest and the poorest. And what you see here is a scattering of countries, but basically, a downward-sloping line, a tendency that for countries that have more coverage of pre-primary school programs, there will be a smaller gap on average. Of the attainments of the richer children versus the poorer children. In other words, investing in preschool lowers the extent of inequality, and in the right way, not by pulling down anyone from the top, but by raising kids from the bottom who otherwise won’t have the opportunity. The Perry preschool program, which gives intensive help to poor kids in preschool, that has been measured with a tremendous amount of specificity. To show that the returns to these investments, just as in Professor Heckman’s downward-sloping graph. Are indeed very, very high. And in a way somewhat unexpected. This Perry preschool program, as an example of a specific pre-primary or early childhood development education program Has expected benefits in one area, and that is raising the annual earnings of these children by the time they reach the labor market. And so this is a longitudinal study, means that it’s taken over a long period of time. And children that were enrolled in this program have higher earnings by the time they become adults and enter the workforce. But there’s another major category of social gains to this program, and that is the reduced cost of crime. Both the direct costs of crime and all of the costs of a criminal system. In the United States, where tragically so many people and an excessive number of people are locked up in prison. One finds that a lot of the prison population are young Kids simply without skills. Without literacy, for example. Without the ability to hold jobs. And often, their difficulties trace all the way back to having grown up in very, very poor neighborhoods, perhaps, with a father who was illiterate or in, in prison, Himself so that the poverty is replicated across generations. And what we know is that investing in a young child so that that young child has a chance at school to stay up with their class level, to be able to graduate, Primary and then secondary school to be able to get vocational or higher education training. Has a huge effect in reducing the probability that they will be caught up in crime and themselves end up in the criminal justice system. And this means big savings for society because this is a, not only a human tragedy, it is a huge economic cost. When young people are not productive and when society is spending a fortune actually in a penal system of courts and prisons and – And other programs that would have been far better spent on early childhood development in the first place, where the returns are truly high, and where you’re helping to ensure that the child gets on a healthy and productive path of life. Conclusion, Societies around the world are recognizing now based on rigorous biophysical evidence, the evidence brought by pediatricians and psychologists and physiologists, as well as the evidence that economists are bringing to bear, That investing at young ages, even before primary education is reached, in an integrated way, in the safety of the environment, in a low-stress environment, in decent nutrition, in freedom from chronic infection and other blows to health. And in preschool readiness is the best investment that society can make. It is the investment in society’s own people, in their own children. And not only does this lead to efficiency in the sense of high returns, But it is the single best pathway to social inclusion as well, to ensure that every child has a chance, a real chance, so that by the time they enter the public school system, they can keep up, and then use their education productively To become productive citizens and productive adults.

Lectures / Readings

Education and Susteinable Development I

08/04/2015 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

Life-Cycle Approach to Human Development

Economic development, we know, depends on investment. Countries achieve economic growth when they have the roads, the ports, the rail. The fiber optics, the power grids that give them the basis for, developing industry and expanding the economy. We know that investments in infrastructure are crucial. Investments in factory and machinery.

In transport equipment. Crucial. But the most important kind of investment that an economy makes is in its own people. And especially the investment in its children. Economists have come to use the language of investment when talking about education, healthcare, nutrition And the other inputs to a healthy, productive life. It’s a bit of a strange language. The idea of human capitol. Because we talk about accumulating the capitol of a person in the same way that we. Talk about a society accumulating more paved roads or more kilometers of fiber for its communication system. But the idea of human capital has turned out to be a, a very, very useful and productive idea. It conveys one thing very important. And that is that the abilities of an individual and the health of an individual depend on a cumulative process. A cumulative process of good health and access to healthcare. Cumulatively living in a safe environment. The accumulation of education step by step and the building of skills. The accumulation of on the job experience and so the evidence is quite strong that as individuals accumulate. More education, more on the job, training, more work experience. Their productivity in the labor force, as indicated for example most directly by earning, also rise. And similarly investments in health, cumulate. Investments in a child’s health help to provide the basis for health as an adult. And indeed, in this process of accumulating human capital, certain periods of life are most crucial. Of course, staying alive. A safe child birth. Neonatal survival within the first few weeks of life are crucial. But many parts of our lifetime that have absolutely determinative effects on all of our lives and our Capacities, the early childhood extraordinarily important because that’s the time, not only when we learn many of the social and human skills that will be needed through life, but the time of the formation of the brain itself, and, the health that we can enjoy. Physical health and In mental health throughout a lifetime. So the concept of human development includes two related ideas. One is the cumulative investments in human capital in the health, the nutrition, and the skills of an individual through education, training, and experience. And the second is the idea of the life cycle, the idea of thinking for each of us of a whole life span, and of how our capacities, our health, our productivity in terms of the economy, depend on the choices that are made at earlier stages of. That life cycle, and how each stage sets up the conditions for the stage that follows. The more we learn, the more the scientists delve into these matters, the more that the very early stages of life matter. Indeed, even the health of our parents before conception, before we even exist as an embryo, as a fetus much less as a newborn are very important. Bad health, poor nutrition can actually transmit across generations even aside from. Genetics. This is a, a finding that has surprised many, many scientists, but is now becoming part of the scientific research findings. Of course, the safety of a mother in, in pregnancy the Intrauterine development as I mentioned earlier of a fetus. The healthy childbirth and a very good start in life with nutrition and freedom from multiple infections say from worm infections or infections from malaria or other. Childhood diseases is extraordinarily important for survival and also for subsequent development. From those early ages, a more formal kind of investment in human capital takes hold, and that is the education system. We know tend to think of that as starting even before the formal primary education, because more and more children around the world, fortunately, are gaining access to a formal pre-k, as we would say in the United States, pre-kindergarten education. A pre-school even before primary education. But then, of course, there is primary education. A core target of the millennium development goals which calls for universal primary completion. That is followed, presumably and desirably, by secondary education. From there, there are many tracks of course, many Children in the world still don’t finish secondary education. Those that do may go on to a kind of vocational training to learn particular skills craftsman type skills. Others may go on to a two year degree, which in the United States we call an associates degree. Or may go on to a four year university degree which we call a Bachelor’s degree in the United States. In other countries it may be a three year degree and then from there to further professional training or a PhD degree or other kinds of higher education. From there it doesn’t stop because there is, of course a training for specific jobs, on the job training. And I hope for, most of us, adult learning because we have a lot of learning to all through our lives. This is the entire life cycle. That we need to keep in mind in thinking about the role of our public institutions in health, and especially in education, in training and job skills that are so essential for individual human development and for the success of an economy. In achieving, inclusive, and, sustained economic growth. We have seen, some progress. And the big progress has come at least, in raising to. At near universality, the access to the primary education system. The data show that as of 2010, the enrollment rates at the primary level, that is taking the number of children in primary education divided by the primary school age population Has reached close to 100%. It doesn’t mean by any stretch that all children are in school still, or that they’re completing primary education, but you’ll see from this graph that there has been a very, very notable improvement of the situation. Back in 1970, you see that the low-income countries were. Still at about 50% gross enrollment rate. And by, 2000, that had increased to around 80%. With the extra push of the millennium development goals, that has increased to more than 100% What does it mean to have an enrollment rate of greater than 100%? That’s a special feature of this kind of measure. We’re measuring the number of children of any age attending primary education decided by the population size of the primary school age – Group. And since some older kids are in primary school, maybe they started late or were held back, that can give a ratio of more than 100%. In any event, what this graph shows is that at least at the primary level education has become Nearly universal. And another aspect of this that’s extremely important, from millennium development goal two on education to millennium development goal three on gender equality, it’s also the case that at the primary level, at least, not at the higher levels of education. That 100% signifies a essential closing of the gap of enrollment rates of boys and girls. Girls throughout the world at the primary school age are now by and large going to school. Of course, with important exceptions, still millions, tens of millions of kids, not in school, often in conflict zones. Preventing them from access to education. But have a look at how big the improvement has been in the in the, in the gender equality. recently as the 1990, while probably around 90% plus of boys were enrolled at the primary level. For girls it was just 60%. As we can see as of 2010 the gender gap has essentially closed. When we look across the life cycle however Maybe it’s at the primary level, where the most important progress has been made and in a life cycle perspective, where we would like to see all societies investing at all ages in the human capital of their citizens.

We see that we now have to branch out from the primary level Earlier, into the preschool ages and, safe childbirth and safe pregnancy and even before. And then move forward to a more satisfactory situation at secondary school level tertiary education and beyond. Have a look at the map, for example, of secondary education. You can see that much of the world now has relatively high secondary school enrollments. But in tropical Africa and in parts of Asia, places where we know extreme poverty persists, we see that the secondary education levels remain Absolutely insufficient. While the millennium development goals focused on universal primary education, my hope is that the sustainable development goals for the period 2015 to 2030 Will focus on achieving universal, secondary eduction so when we look at a world map like this one, we’ll see a near-uniformity of success in a near-universal enrollment rate around the world. When we look at higher levels of education, the situation, of course, is even more disparate. The poorest countries in the world still have very, very low tertiary education levels, and this is becoming a major impediment To their economic progress. It used to be thought by some, erroneously that a poor country should universalize its primary education and not too worry much about higher education. Then move on to secondary education. Then move on to tertiary education. We now know how limited and naive that perspective is. Every economy at any level of development needs a significant presence of secondary and higher-level institutions. The higher-level institutions, if nothing else, are necessary to ensure that their teachers that are qualified in the country. But of course, it’s more than that, as I will emphasize. Tertiary institutions have an enormous role to play in many different aspects of sustainable development. And of course, secondary institutions high schools and the equivalent, are extraordinarily important, not only for producing high school graduates, but also for producing that throughput of young people and talented youngsters who will go on to higher education. So the millennium development goals has focused on one part of the life cycle, but now we have to branch out to the earlier years, with the focus on early childhood development, and then absolutely with a, a tremendous focus, branch out into The later years, secondary education, tertiary education, the extraordinarily challenging and crucial transition from schools to employment, an unsolved problem in many parts of the world.

Bilhetes, museologia informal

Que Lugares para a Educação?

16/12/2014 Pedro Pereira Leite Deixe o seu comentário

que lugares para a Educação ? uma Conferência Internacional promovida pelo Programa Descobrir da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, que se realizou em 16 de dezembro de 2014.

Com uma palestra de Charles Esche interroga a dimensão Educativa da ação cultural.

A partir do Perigo (danger) imagem que fundamente no trabalho de Walter Benjamim “Sobre o Conceito de História”, publicado em 1940, num contexto de guerra na Europa.

Retomamos a tese

“6
Articular historicamente o passado não significa conhecê-lo “como ele de fato foi”.
Significa apropriar-se de uma reminiscência, tal como ela relampeja no momento
de um perigo. Cabe ao materialismo histórico fixar uma imagem do passado, como
ela se apresenta, no momento do perigo, ao sujeito histórico, sem que ele tenha
consciência disso. O perigo ameaça tanto a existência da tradição como os que a
recebem. Para ambos, o perigo é o mesmo: entregar-se às classes dominantes, como
seu instrumento. Em cada época, é preciso arrancar a tradição ao conformismo, que
quer apoderar-se dela. Pois o Messias não vem apenas como salvador; ele vem
também como o vencedor do Anticristo. O dom de despertar no passado as
centelhas da esperança é privilégio exclusivo do historiador convencido de que
também os mortos não estarão em segurança se o inimigo vencer. E esse inimigo não
tem cessado de vencer. “

A partir desta ideia do perigo, como elemento catalisador do momento critativo, avança na discussão sobre o momento atual. Um momento muito eurocentrico, visto como o mundo em excesso, com o fim das formas do estado secular clássico, financiador das organizações culturais, dominado por um poder oligárquico aparentemente democrata, mas sem base de representação.

Neste contexto, a percepção do perigo cria uma nova forma de mediação nas artes, que exige novo tipo de respostas que se confrontam entre o local, o internacional e o global. este é o desafio das instituições da arte.

Global Heritages

Arquivo de etiquetas: Educação

Os 7 pilares da Educação – A ética como limite e a extensão do conhecimento

Os 7 pilares da Educação – Os fenómenos são complexos

Os 7 pilares da Educação – conhecimento é incerto

Os 7 Pilares da Educação – A compreender o social

Os 7 pilares da Educação – A Identidade Humana

Os 7 pilares da Educação – O conhecimento pertinente

Os 7 pilares da Educação

Why Did Some Countries Advance While Others Remained in Poverty? III

Education and Susteinable Development III

Education and Susteinable Development II

Education and Susteinable Development I

The inclusion of community knowdlege on territorial development