A More Worldly Education

(Global Citizenship Education: Preparing learners for the challenges of the twenty-first century, Published in 2014 by UNESCO, ISBN 978-92-3-100019-5)

- S. M. Rayhanul Islam

We are living in an increasingly globalized and first changing world of the 21st century where ensuring access to education for all is still a major challenge in many countries. Nevertheless, improving the quality and relevance of education is now receiving more attention than ever. The role of education is moving beyond the development of knowledge and cognitive skills to the building of values, softskills and attitudes among learners. Education is expected to facilitate international cooperation and promote social transformation in an innovative way towards a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world. In this context, there is a growing interest in global citizenship education around the world, and in response to the increasing demand from its Member States for support in empowering learners to become responsible global citizens, UNESCO has made ‘Global Citizenship Education (GCE)’ one of its key education objectives.

What is global citizenship education? Do we learn it in school? What difference can it make? How can it be introduced and become a common feature of school curricula? The UNESCO publication “Global Citizenship Education: Preparing learners for the challenges of the twenty-first century” seeks to answer these and other questions. It represents a conceptual shift in recognizing the relevance of education in understanding and resolving global issues in their social, political, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions. It also aims to establish that Global Citizenship Education (GCE) has a critical role to play in equipping learners with competencies to deal with the dynamic and interdependent world of the twenty-first century. This publication also explores a number of enabling conditions for the promotion and implementation of GCE.