Transforming the World in Which We Live: Laureate's Transnational Civic Learning Project

William M Plater

doi:10.18870/hlrc.v7i1.374

Abstract

<p>Higher education serves as an agent of social change that plays a significant role in the development of socially conscious and engaged students. The duty higher education has toward society, the role for-profit educational institutions play in enhancing the public good, and the prospect of making social change an element of these providers’ missions are discussed. Laureate’s Global Citizenship Project is introduced, highlighting the development of the project’s civic engagement rubric and the challenges of assessing civic engagement.</p>

Highlights

Laureate Education, Inc. (Laureate) has begun an ambitious project drawing on the strength of its global network of colleges and universities to address directly one of the great challenges of the 21st century: how to adequately prepare leaders for a precarious and uncertain future, one in which the very sustainability of the planet depends on the ability and will of nations and their peoples to work together across national borders, languages, cultures, religions, politics, and economic ambitions for shared goals and values
Education and the Global Common Good In December 2015 the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued an important report developed over several years, Rethinking Education: Towards a Global Common Good? The question mark in the report title is prophetic
The Global Citizenship Project (GCP) civic learning expectations, treat the common good and the public good as interchangeable terms; in both instances, the global nature of the societal good is what is being addressed. This project is ambitious and is intended to be a contribution to UNESCO’s call for dialogue across the board, across the world, and across the sectors that are so deeply engaged in providing postsecondary education: “... to be both aspirational and inspirational, to speak to new times.”

Summary

Introduction

Over 100 years ago, John Dewey made a prescient statement that resounds more strongly today than it did in 1900: One can hardly believe there has been a revolution in all history so rapid, so extensive, so complete Through it the face of the earth is making over, even to its physical forms; political boundaries are wiped out and moved about as if they were only lines on a paper map; population is hurriedly gathered into cities from the ends of the earth; habits of living are altered with startling abruptness and thoroughness; the search for the truths of nature is infinitely stimulated and facilitated and their application to life made practicable but commercially necessary. Fast forward to the present, and society faces similar but more urgent conditions This time, the role of education is important, but its very forms must change as rapidly as world events, politics, climate, and technological innovations. This is essential if the world is to be made safe and if the very idea of the common good is to be preserved against snarling and competitive forces unleashed by uncertainty, fear, anger, anxiety, and distrust

Education and the Global Common Good

Open Access

Conclusion