New Initiative To Ensure Frameworks Are Responsive To Changing Demands of Work and Life

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QCA today launched the Futures programme, a new initiative to ensure that the national curriculum and assessment frameworks are responsive to the changing demands of work and life in the 21st century.

Speaking at the BETT Education Show in London Ken Boston, chief executive of QCA, said: “The five-year-olds that enter school next September will be the first generation not to have experienced the 20th century. They will be in the workforce, driving this countrys economy until at least 2065. A good many of them will experience the dawn of the 22nd century. The decisions we are making today about education and the curriculum, about Sir Mike Tomlinsons proposals for a diploma structure and about a framework for achievement for young people and adults, must meet the needs of individuals, employers and society well into the 21st century. Todays learners will meet a curriculum with many strengths, timeless values and purposes. At the same time, however, it cannot remain static. If we are to provide a fair deal for all learners our education system must be responsive to the changing demands of life and work in the 21st century. To help us do this job I am pleased to launch a new initiative to ensure that developments in curriculum and assessment are informed by the latest and best thinking.”

Continuing, Boston said, “Our new Futures programme, Meeting the challenge, represents one way that QCA is working to ensure that our national curriculum and assessment frameworks are responsive to changing demands. The purpose of the futures debate is to provide a backdrop against which the details of specific reform can be implemented. It is important to ask some big questions before hammering out the details of particular interventions. Changes in society and the nature of work, the impact of technology, new understanding about learning, the need for innovation within curricula and the increasing international dimension to learning are all important forces that need to inform our thinking as we shape a modern curriculum.”