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Global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency campaigns and the Black Lives Matter movements have recently posed challenges for educationalists about their role, particularly in relation to promoting positive visions of the future. Development education and global learning has a major contribution to make within these agendas, particularly if it brings into its practices the ideas of Paulo Freire and his concept of the pedagogy of hope. Hope can often be considered an idealistic and utopian term, but if it is grounded in real life issues and challenges, then it can provide a valuable approach to learning about global issues. Recent examples in the UK and the initiative by UNESCO on Futures of Education demonstrate ways in which questions can be posed about the future of education that can be empowering to all learners.

This chapter discusses the Global Skills' framework in terms of its relevance and importance for the training and skills development of a range of professions. It outlines why to see such a term as more appropriate than 21st century skills. Reference and discussion are made to how these ideas on global skills have become a feature of his teaching at University College London, Institute of Education within the distance learning masters' program he leads on Development Education and Global Learning. Finally, the author examines the need for universities in their teaching and learning to move beyond the rhetoric of global citizenship and to bring in a closer and more direct skills element into the learning. But these need to be in a form that encourages looking at issues from different worldviews, reflecting critically on own's perspectives and approaches and equipping the learner with the skills to actively engage in society and address the current injustices that exist in the world.

The Global Citizenship and Youth Participation in Europe Report identifies the context within with the Schools for Future Youth Project takes place in terms of evidence on young people's engagement in society through Global Citizenship in formal education across Europe. The Report identifies the needs of young people and teachers to effectively engage in Global Citizenship Education through a participatory model and reviews current policies and practices that are relevant to securing more effective teacher and young people's engagement in Global Citizenship Education. The Report also proposes models of practice and specific approaches that could secure a greater and more effective engagement from young people and teachers across Europe. A full set of policy recommendations to support wider implementation of Global Citizenship Education across Europe will be available from this website in 2018. Short briefing reports are also available for Civil Society Organisations; Policy-Makers and Teachers.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a feature of academic and policy debates within initial teacher education around the world. A theme within these debates is the extent to which ESD is more than just a body of knowledge, and if it suggests different pedagogical approaches which may be prevalent in most countries. Another feature of these debates is whether ESD can be seen as suggesting a transformative approach as opposed to a transmissive approach. As a qualitative study, using examples from research and evidence gathered in England and Turkey through document analysis, this article identifies both the opportunities and challenges for teacher education courses using ESD as a means for promoting a distinctive pedagogical approach and whether they can be seen as posing transformative learning.

The global society of today is one that children and young people are aware of but this has not been fully recognised by education policy-makers despite the efforts and activities of many civil society organisations and the enthusiasm of teachers. Since 2010 in England, a government-sponsored programme, the Global Learning Programme, has been a conscious attempt to equip children and young people with the knowledge and skills to not only understand but actively engage with global issues. This programme is beginning to show the value of a ‘whole school’ approach in terms of increasing not only knowledge and understanding about the wider world but putting themes such as social justice and concern for the environment as key themes of a child’s learning.

Bourn reviews ways in which skills have been identified in relationship to achieving a sustainable society. Reference will be made to international debates, including those within OECD on ‘green skills’ and also the usage of the term ‘sustainable literacy’. Throughout the chapter whilst the aim will be to show the broader social and economic side of sustainable development, most of the examples and evidence referred to tends to focus on the environmental side.

21st Century skills have become a popular term as a way of indicating the need to respond to the changing economic, social and cultural context of today. But in reviewing the different ways in which the term is promoted and used, this chapter will suggest that the dominant discourse around it implies a lack of engagement with the social, economic and cultural context of globalisation. It above all implies an acceptance of, and working within, the dominant neo-liberal discourse. The chapter will conclude by suggesting why the term ‘global skills’ is more appropriate because it locates the debates on skills within and responding to the challenges of globalisation.

This chapter reviews the ways in which the term ‘global skills’ is promoted. This includes as a marketing tool for training courses, as a way of promoting the skills needs for graduates, as a need for companies and finally in terms of engaging in society more widely. The inclusion of the term ‘global’ is recognised in some examples as an indication of directly addressing the skills needs as a result of globalisation. The chapter discusses the different ways in which ‘global competencies’ are seen and how they relate to the definitions on global skills. Finally, Bourn demonstrates the potential opportunities created from the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the inclusion of skills and learning to respond to global challenges.

Bourn’s approach on global skills implies the need to consider broader social and political questions. This chapter considers what global skills could mean in terms of equipping educationalists to secure social change.

There has been a resurgence of interest in numerous policy initiatives around the world to make reference to equipping learners with the skills and competencies to engage effectively in the globalised economies and societies of today. Bourn reviews these debates and gives a rationale for the value of the term skills over that of competencies. The chapter clarifies how the concept of skills will be explored and used within the volume. This will include discussions on different ways in which the term ‘skills’ is interpreted. Bourn questions what he calls an artificial distinction between soft and people related skills and harder and more technically based skills. Skills are proposed as needing to incorporate both elements and to be located within specific social and cultural contexts.

The focus of this chapter is on the relationship of globalisation to changing educational priorities and skills needs around the world. It discusses the different interpretations of globalisation and looks at their relevance to debates on education. A theme is the need to consider globalisation in a social and cultural sense as well as an economic sense. Evidence will be shown from students of their responses to what is meant by globalisation. Reference will be made to the neo-liberal forces that have influenced educational programmes in formal, further and higher education. The chapter concludes with a rationale as to why skills need to be a focus of educational debates to make sense of global influences.

Engineering is clearly a global profession and this discipline has witnessed a major expansion of the impact of globalisation in terms of skills needed to work around the world and to recognise the value of broader interdisciplinary skills.

Bourn outlines the evolution of his theoretical conceptualisations of global skills. The work of Ulrick Beck is noted as a key influence. Reference is made to the influence of transformative learning and critical pedagogy and the importance of understanding of globalisation, developing a global outlook and critical thinking. A theme of his framework is the need to move beyond an intercultural perspective and one that recognizes the complexities of living and working in a global society.

The health profession has become more global in recent years. There is greater recognition that health issues need to be situated in a global context. Globalisation has resulted in a greater movement of peoples around the world which has had a consequential impact on diseases and skills needed to respond to these challenges. More and more professionals in health have seen the value of having experience working in another country to broaden their skills and knowledge. Bourn outlines why, what and how the health profession is beginning to consider global skills as integral component of training and being a health professional.

This article explores the extent to which it is possible to incorporate global learning within the further education (FE) curriculum, drawing on the findings from the ‘Global Learning for Global Colleges’ (2009–2012) research and development project, funded by the Department for International Development (DfID). Against a background of increasing pressures on the FE sector, the project worked with six colleges in England to develop initiatives to promote global learning in the curriculum. Qualitative data were collected through observations, interviews, questionnaires and phone or email conversations with staff. The research defines global learning as not just a focus on developing skills for responding to an increasingly globalised world, but an approach to learning based on a concern for social justice, developing learners who see the relevance of their learning about global issues for their everyday and future lives. A number of factors are identified as having an influence on the process of incorporat...

Over the past decade, many universities have re-evaluated their roles and approaches towards learning in the context of a globalised society. Some institutions have responded to globalisation by marketing themselves more effectively internationally. Others have responded by promoting ideas such as graduates as global citizens or by focusing on specific challenges associated with globalisation, such as sustainable development. Using UK examples, this article reviews the different ways in which universities are responding to globalisation. It will suggest that a framework of global perspectives, based on initiatives developed at Bournemouth University, can play a role in challenging orthodoxies about internationalisation and globalisation in higher education. Through the experiences of UK higher education in engineering, it will discuss the challenges and rewards of pursuing global perspectives as a response to globalisation.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an initiative that dates back to the early 1990s. Whilst policy statements at this time referred to ESD as a bringing together of environmental and development education, in the UK, as in most other industrialized countries, it has been the environmental agenda that has tended to dominate. In the UK, policy-makers have since 1997 played an increasingly leading role in promoting ESD, particularly within schools. However, the drive behind these initiatives poses wider questions about their ultimate purpose: a learning agenda or one based on seeking behavioural change? Development education has always been the junior partner in the ESD debates in the UK, in part because of its low academic profile but also because of the policy separation by governments.This has, however, begun to change through the merging of policy initiatives around ESD and global citizenship which, by their very nature, are again posing the wider questions about the purpose and goal of these agendas.

Teachers are seen as key actors of change within programmes and projects on global learning. But all too often they are regarded in an instrumental way or as promoters of some form of ideal global teacher. Evidence from the UK and elsewhere suggests that if a pedagogical approach is taken to the role of teachers within the process of learning, then three distinct locations of teachers as change agents can be identified. These are as change agents within the classroom, within the wider school, and within society as a whole.