What might the future of education look like?

According to Professor John Fischetti, an innovative and provocative academic and thought leader in education, our schools need to be educating for transformation, not an ATAR. This can be a confronting concept for Principals and parents in independent schools where HSC school rankings are readily used as a key metric of success.

It can feel risky to talk about innovation and transformation, and to seek to embrace a new paradigm of schooling in the current landscape of education in Australia. However, as we look at the generation of students before us and seek to deeply understand their future (not the one we imagine for them based on our own perceptions, experiences and values), then it is imperative that we lean into innovation in our schools.

This is a dialogue I would like us to be having at HVGS: what could schooling for the future look like? 

Professor Fischetti spoke at our HICES (Heads of Independent Co-Educational Schools) biennial conference on 30th June. He did not hold back; Fischetti challenged the experienced Principals and educators in the room to step out of our comfort zones.

He created a sense of urgency and purpose: the future is here now in our schools with generative AI and other emerging technologies. Our students need us to embrace the learning potential of these technologies and engage in transformative conversations about what learning could look like, needs to look like, perhaps must look like, if our students are to be highly competent, productive, critical and compassionate citizens of the world and the nation.  

Fischetti draws a distinction between an “old school paradigm” and a “new school paradigm”.  

The current “old school” paradigm of teaching and learning is based on students sitting passively in rows, completing a required syllabus in the order they are told to do so, and with very little choice. Assessment systems reinforce the status quo, promoting learning for “some”, rather than drive learning for all. … Currently, at least 40% of Australian students are disengaged from their schooling (Gross & Sonnemann, 2017). This disengagement is a failure for the individuals and a tragic loss of human capacity to be relevant in the innovation age where critical thinking, problem solving, adaptive reasoning and collaboration are core skills. (Source) 

It is important to reiterate that we have the capacity for innovation and that critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptive reasoning and collaboration are all competencies that our students can learn when we make room for them in the curriculum, and we value them as much as the ATAR or HSC results our students achieve. With an increasing number of students achieving unconditional university offers, the function of an ATAR will diminish more and more in the future.

This marks an opportunity for schools to embrace. It is an opportunity to talk about more than that final number as a marker of success and instead develop the assessment tools to measure students’ capacity for critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptive reasoning and collaboration. 

Fischetti describes the new school paradigm in the following way:

In the “new school” paradigm, schools will no longer be places where young people go to watch their teachers work. They are learning centres, with student engagement at the forefront and personalised learning focusing the instruction on the needs of the learner. Emerging virtual reality and artificial intelligence systems will require the reinvention of content delivery and leapfrog pedagogies to new frontiers of exploring and mastering ideas and knowledge. Students in this new school approach are the centre of the learning as they accomplish the syllabus in ways that work for each of them. (Source) 

This new paradigm is aspirational, but the need to accelerate the dialogue about what this might look like in the age of AI and virtual reality is crucial. The technologies are there, but the conversations about education in Australia are still dominated by performance on standardised tests, direct instruction and “back to basics”. A richer, more robust and courageous dialogue is required if we are to bridge the old and new paradigms at a faster pace.  

At the HICES conference, the speakers were inspirational and aspirational. The moment that grounded the conference; however, was a student panel. Four students – including two of our very own – spoke to 140+ delegates about the future of education, and below are some of the key takeaways from the student panel – they are direct quotes from the students themselves.  

• “We don’t thrive in systems; we thrive in relationships.”
• “Stop asking how we can control technology and instead ask how we can leverage it.”
• “The days of taking notes from the whiteboard are over – it’s time to change the way we learn.”
• “Our current school is preparing students for a future that does not exist.”
• “Learn with us rather than teach to us.”
• “What should schools stop doing? Basing our whole future on a 1–6 grade or an ATAR.” 

The words of our students echo those of Professor Fischetti.  Their words challenge us to listen deeply, think boldly, and act with purpose.  

In 2020, the OECD developed four scenarios that they titled “Back to the Future of Education”. (Here is a short video summary.) The four future scenarios are outlined below: 

1. Schooling Extended: In this future, schools remain the heart of learning and community life. They offer more services, support, and opportunities for students and families. Teachers are highly respected, and education is well-funded and stable.
2. Education Outsourced: Here, learning shifts away from traditional schools. Online platforms, private providers, and informal networks take the lead. Students follow personalised learning paths, often outside the classroom.
3. Schools as Learning Hubs: Schools become flexible, community-based centres for learning. They partner with local organisations and families to offer diverse, hands-on experiences. Formal and informal learning blend together.
4. Learn as you go: Learning becomes lifelong and happens everywhere—at home, at work, online. Students earn credentials through experience and short learning bursts, not through traditional schooling. Schools as we know them no longer have a purpose in this scenario. 

The OECD developed these scenarios during COVID as provocations:  

"Scenarios are fictional sets of alternative futures. They do not contain predictions or recommendations. Imagining multiple scenarios recognises that there is not only one pathway into the future, but many.” (Source) 

By listening deeply to our students and thought leaders such as Professor Fischetti, and by engaging beyond our borders with organisations such as the OECD and the IBO, as a community, we can envision multiple scenarios for the future of schooling at HVGS. Scenarios that focus on equipping our young people for a dynamic, engaging and complex future reality that is hard for us adults to imagine. This is a worthy conversation to embark on at HVGS.