In November 2021, UNESCO launched the report Reimagining our Futures Together: A New Social Contract for Education, which was produced by the International Commission on the Futures of Education. This event provides an opportunity to hear more about the report from Arjun Appadurai, one of the members of the Commission.

It often seems that our species (and perhaps our planet) are headed towards some sort of cataclysm, in which climate, disease, inequality and xenophobia threaten to make the human future very short.

Education has two potentials: one is to lengthen our futures as a species and the other is to make those futures more just, more full, and more peaceful. Even if we cannot make futures as we please, education still has the potential to make our collective futures worthy of our highest shared ideals, and to realise both its potentials.

Speaker:

Prof Arjun Appadurai is Emeritus Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and the Max Weber Global Professor at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. He served on UNESCO's International Commission on the Futures of Education.

Agenda:

Chair: Moses Oketch, Co-Director of CEID, UCL Institute of Education

Welcome - Beatrice Szczepek Reed, Head of the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London

Keynote - Arjun Appadurai, member of UNESCO's International Commission on the Futures of Education

Discussant #1 - Paul Morris, Professor of Comparative Education, UCL Institute of Education

Discussant #2 - Maren Elfert, Lecturer in Education and Society, School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London

Q&A - Moderated by Will Brehm, Associate Professor of International Development and Education, UCL Institute of Education

Closing - Li Wei, Director of the UCL Institute of Education

Co-Sponsors:

Centre for Education and International Development, UCL Institute of Education

King’s International Education Research Network, School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London