Category Archives: Education Futures

Education, social justice and survival in a time of crisis.

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Eddie Playfair

Based on a presentation for the CSPACE ‘1000 little fires’ conference at Birmingham City University, July 2022. A system in crisis. It is clear that we are living in a global crisis which threatens our very survival. The climate emergency, … Continue reading →

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Starting to rethink education.

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

There are different ways to think about life after a crisis. One is: ‘let’s try to get back to things as they were as quickly as possible’, another is: ‘we can’t go back to things as they were, this is … Continue reading →

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Knowledge and education for the future.

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

Edgar Morin’s seven lessons for the future. When the French sociologist Edgar Morin was asked by UNESCO for his thoughts on education for the future, he organised his proposals around seven key aspects of human knowledge and understanding. In his … Continue reading →

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The promise of a National Education Service

Posted on January 13, 2019 by Eddie Playfair

The proposed creation of a National Education Service (NES) for England offers us the possibility of a decisive break with the market model, where education is treated as a commodity and where individual and institutional competition are regarded as the … Continue reading →

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Sixth form hopes for 2018.

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Eddie Playfair

I’ve been posting new year’s wishes for sixth form education since January 2015. This started with 5 ‘modest, realistic and realisable’ hopes. By 2016 the list had been cut to 4 and was then further reduced to 3 a year … Continue reading →

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Education 2022: market or system?

Posted on June 17, 2017 by Eddie Playfair

What will education in England look like in 2022? An election is the decisive moment where we are offered, and can select from, alternative futures. Following an inconclusive general election outcome which has delivered a hung parliament, we now await … Continue reading →

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The college of the future.

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

Launch of NewVIc 2020 at The ArcelorMittal Orbit, Stratford. 16th March 2016. This is both a celebration and a launch. A celebration of what NewVIc has achieved since it opened 24 years ago and also the launch of our vision … Continue reading →

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What is powerful knowledge?

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

In Knowledge and the Future School (2014) the sociologist of education Michael Young proposes a ‘return to knowledge’ following what he regards as the ‘turn away from knowledge’ taken by some progressives including Young himself in his earlier work. This … Continue reading →

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Keri Facer and the future-building school

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

In her brilliant book Learning Futures – Education, technology and social change (2011) Professor Keri Facer suggests that we should be creating what she calls future-building schools rather than future-proof schools based on equipping young people to compete in the global economy. Keri … Continue reading →

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