Please use a modern browser to access this content Exploring the Story of Education So many of us take education - and access to it - for granted, but the current state of global education is something that’s been developed over millennia. From methods of teaching, to inventions like the printing press, television, and eventually the internet, we’ve seen huge changes to the way we learn. Here’s a look at the last 1500 years of education, and an expert review of what we have to look forward to after the upheaval of 2020. The King’s School in Canterbury, Kent is Britain’s oldest public school, and arguably the oldest continually operating school in the world. The University of Al Quaraouiyine in Fez, Morocco is the oldest continually operating and the first degree-awarding educational institution in the world according to UNESCO and the Guinness World Records. The Diamond Sutra becomes the world’s first earliest dated, printed book. The University of Bologna, Italy, was Europe’s first university, and the oldest university still open today. The University of Oxford is founded in England, with teaching thought to exist in some form as early as 1096. The University of Toulouse, Italy, is the first to award a mastership. This originally meant that a teacher at one university could teach freely at any university with the same rank. The Gutenburg Press is invented in Strasbourg, France, before moving to Mainz, Germany. This piece of technology transforms access to books and written materials across Europe. The University of San Marcos is founded in Lima, Peru. It is now one of the oldest universities in the world. The University of Santo Tomas is founded in Cebu City, The Phillippines. Harvard University is founded in Massachusetts, USA. In the same year, the first public school is founded in Boston. Université Laval is founded in Quebec, Canada. St. George’s School is founded in Chennai, India. The Senate of Serampore College is founded. The University of Sydney is founded in Sydney, NSW. The first distance learning degree is provided by the University of London. Invented by Charles Babbage, and initially called the ‘Difference Engine’. Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, establishes Santiniketan, which would later evolve into an international school and world university. The first courses to be broadcast over radio are produced by Pennsylvania State University in the USA. The University of Texas broadcasts the first televised courses. Becoming the UK’s first university dedicated to distance learning. Research by Tim Berneres-Lee at CERN, Switzerland resulted in the World Wide Web. The USA reaches 1,000,000 international students in 2015. Schools, colleges, and universities worldwide move online due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Future of Education in the next 10 years “AI will support the learning of students right from a very young age. And I think it's remarkable to think of how that might complement the human teacher in the classroom.”
- Professor Susan Elliott, Monash University “In 10 years’ time, there’ll be more democracy and I think with the advancements in technology, there’ll be more accessibility”
- Sara Ali, The Hopenclass “If we come back in 10 years I think this notion of linear learning pathways will have been eroded further and possibly be almost gone”
- Dr Rachid Hourizi, Institute of Coding
In 2020, FutureLearn commissioned YouGov to undertake a global study to interrogate and explore the future of learning, including survey research and qualitative interviews with 15 experts in the fields of education, technology, and innovation. The study revealed a range of interesting findings about the future of learning and education worldwide. The top innovation in technology that people would like to see in education is virtual reality. Approximately half of adults believe education will be delivered digitally in the future. Many believe that, in the future, education will be empowering people to solve the world’s biggest issues Large proportions believe that education will help develop technology to create sustainable communities. In all countries, the social media platforms most commonly used by people to educate themselves about issues around social justice and the environment are YouTube and Facebook. Innovation in Education There are a range of innovations in technology that people in the UK, USA and Australia would like to see in the education space by 2030. Following virtual reality, the innovations people across the three countries would like to see in education by 2030, in order of priority, are: Augmented reality Education features on social media Personalised chatbots Diversity and Inclusion Half of adults in the UK (48%) believe that education will be delivered digitally in the future. Meanwhile, Australian adults are slightly more likely to believe this will be the case (57%) and American adults (43%) slightly less likely. Possibly linked with the belief around better access to education and the ability to be delivered digitally in the future, many adults in all three countries think that education will be more accessible: Many believe that future education will be more accessible and better for those with disabilities. Approx. two-fifths believe that future education will also usemore inclusive teaching methods. A quarter of Australian (24%) and American (25%) adults and a fifth (18%) of those in the UK would like to get more knowledge on human rights such as diversity, inclusivity, and gender stereotyping in the next five years. We hope you're as excited about the future of learning as we are. To explore the findings in more detail, understand where we are now and what the future of education might look like, download our report below.
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