Schooling for Tomorrow

Henno Theisens

CERI/ OECD

WHY IS FUTURE THINKING IMPORTANT?

USING TRENDS FOR FUTURE’S THINKING

Register long-term change

Understand context

Ask the right questions

Create credibility

Be creative and rigorous

Without the data

your chatta don’t matta

Trends to:

Why Difficult

“Stocks have reached what looks like a

permanently high plateau.”

Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University

Just before the 1929 Wall St. Crash

“Airplanes are interesting toys

but of no military value.”

Maréchal Ferdinand Foch

French Marshall during WW 1

Why Difficult

From “bottom-heavy” to “top-heavy” age structures

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

0-4 5-9

10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-94 95-99 100+

2050

1950

More enter than leave OECD countries, with substantial numbers now “foreign born”

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Luxembourg

Australia

Switzerland

New

Zealand

Canada

Austria

Germ

any

United States

Sweden

Belgium

Ireland

Netherlands

Greece

France

United Kingdom

Norw

ay

Portugal

Denm

ark

Spain

Czech R

epublic

Slovak Republic

Finland

Hungary

Italy

Turkey

Poland

Stock of foreign-born as a percentage ofpopulation (2004)

Annual net migration per 1 000 population(1990 - 2004)

China and India are Catching Up

Computers becoming rapidly faster and more powerful

Number of websites worldwide increasing rapidly

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Life-long learners

Culturally sensitive global citizens

Information overload and on-line collaboration

Schooling for Tomorrow