普惠人人的优质教育是带来改变的强大动力。一丹奖创办人陈一丹为2024年国际教育日撰文，讨论如何重塑教育，应对当前世界的多重挑战。
我们的世界正面临着前所未有的多重新挑战，并以惊人的速度发生着变化。
变化可以带来发展与进步的契机，但我们仍要克服诸多障碍。联合国教科文组织的数据显示，当前有2.5亿儿童和青少年无缘校园，7.63亿成人缺乏基础识字能力。贫困和性别不平等依然是亟待解决的问题。
我们深知，普惠人人的优质教育是带来改变的强大动力。教育可以帮助我们扭转气候变化、冲突、不平等，以及就业市场重新洗牌等问题；为持久的和平奠定基础；更能激发下一代的潜力，使他们能够从容面对挑战，创造他们想要的世界。
那么，我们应该如何重塑教育，应对挑战？
推动高效学习与优质教学
通过全球优秀教育家的工作，我们对学生的学习方式及最适宜的教学方式有更加深入的了解。2023年一丹教育研究奖得奖者、亚利桑那州立大学杰出教授季清华（Michelene Chi）是一名认知科学家，她的工作为推动高效学习与优质教学提供了切实可行的实践方法。
季清华教授的研究关注如何深化学生对学习内容的理解。她所开创的“ICAP”认知互动理论将学习分为四种模式：互动型、建设型、主动型及被动型，将主动学习方面的理论整合为一个简单易懂的框架。教师可将“ICAP”应用于从幼儿园至大学等不同教学场景。季清华教授的工作展示了如何透过优质教育，培育学生在未来发展中不可或缺的思维能力。
强大的思维能力也是推动经济发展的重要杠杆。正如联合国发展专家孔岚诺（Joe Colombano）在上月举办的一丹奖峰会上所说的：“教育拥有改善经济状况、提高生活水平的巨大力量，对社会及个体带来举足轻重的影响”。教育与经济息息相关。当我们更加了解高效学习和优质教育时，可以帮助全世界的学习者更好地发挥潜能——从而推动整个社会蓬勃发展。
同时，新冠疫情暴露了教育中诸多不平等的问题，如贫困、性别、地理位置、难民身份、身体障碍及互联网资源等因素所导致的社会弱势地位。因此，我们也更加关注谁“缺乏学习的机会”。
2023年一丹教育研究奖得奖者季清华教授
打破普及优质教育的壁垒
社会各界一直关注如何提高初等教育的入学率，确保弱势儿童拥有接受教育的机会。但除初等教育以外，普及高等教育同样存在壁垒。联合国教科文组织的研究显示：2018年，低收入国家仅有10%的人拥有接受高等教育的机会。相较之下，这一数字在收入较高的国家中则为77%。该研究还显示，二十多年来，与其他收入水平的国家相比，低收入国家的入学率增长最为缓慢。教育成本是不少人难以获得高等教育的障碍之一，但大学教育名额不足、文化障碍、种族歧视、家庭及工作等原因，都是难以普及优质教育的壁垒。
这些正是2023年一丹教育发展奖得奖者夏·雷谢夫（Shai Reshef）旨在解决的问题。他建立了一所免学费、非盈利性质的在线学历教育平台。该平台汲取了远程学习灵活和易于推广的长处；同时保留了传统教育的优势，将班级规模控制在20–30人，每位学生都配有一位顾问，能得到悉心指导。
创立以来，该平台已招收全球各地的137,000多名学生，其中大部分学生来自低收入或大学名额紧张的国家，还有学生面临财务、地理、文化及政治上的障碍。许多学生通过该平台进行远程学习，包括16,500名难民学生，及3,000名在本国无法获得高等教育的阿富汗女性。
2023年一丹教育发展奖得奖者夏·雷谢夫（右）
编织教育的崭新故事线
一丹奖得奖者及明师堂教育家们共同推动一个扣人心弦的愿景：教育应如何改变，如何能够迅速、广泛而公正地实现改变。他们对早期儿童发展、游戏式学习、主动学习、集体领导力、包容力以及科技进步如何改善教学等方面，有着深刻洞见。
他们的工作使我们深信思想的强大力量。他们的共同愿景让人们深刻认识到：所有学生都有成功的潜力，且必须享有成功的机会，也激励人们重新审视并构建卓越的课堂和教学实践。
具有远见卓识的教育家们也令我们保持开放的心态，去想象教育的无限可能性。他们正在将心理学、神经科学、经济学以及科技推向新境界，绘制颠覆传统，独具前瞻性的教育蓝图。认为孩子智力潜能固定不变的陈腐思想已被打破，将女孩和少数族裔失学归咎于文化而非贫困的守旧偏见已被淘汰，将高等教育视为特权阶层专享的过时观念已被摒弃。
一丹奖教育社群正为教育编织出几年前还难以想象的崭新故事线。这些故事线展开了教育革新的新视角，重新燃起我们对教育能改变人生、改变社会的坚定信念。
这些教育家的工作彰显出优质的教育可以普惠人人。他们不仅书写了改变教育的故事线，更描绘出行动的蓝图。教育改变世界的力量，掌握在我们所有人的手中。
一丹奖创办人
陈一丹
Embracing the transformative power of education in testing times
Our world faces new challenges and is also changing at lightning speed.
This opens up opportunities to develop and progress, but there are still many barriers to overcome. By UNESCO’s measure, 250 million children and youth are out of school, and 763 million adults lack basic literacy. Poverty and gender inequality remain urgent problems to solve.
Yet we know the most powerful driver for change: quality and inclusive education, accessible to all. Education can help us change the course of existential threats such as climate change, conflicts, job-market shifts, and inequalities. It can equip individuals with the skills to lay the foundations for lasting peace. And it can unlock the potential of the next generation to navigate and meet such challenges and, indeed, to build the world they want.
So how can we reshape education to rise to the challenge?
What it means to teach and learn well
We now know a lot more about how students learn and how best to teach them. And we have practical methods to apply that knowledge, thanks to the work of innovators like Professor Michelene Chi, a cognitive scientist and Regents Professor at Arizona State University and recipient of the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Research.
Chi’s research focuses on how to foster deep understanding in the classroom. She has developed a ground-breaking theory of cognitive engagement that identifies four different modes of learning: interactive, constructive, active, and passive (ICAP). She has unified multiple theories of active learning into a coherent framework that teachers can embed in classrooms worldwide at every level, from kindergarten to university and beyond. In essence, Chi’s work gives us the blueprint for the thinking skills at the heart of a quality education—and with it, the keys to one of the fundamental levers for economic development.
At the most recent Yidan Prize annual summit, UN development expert Joe Colombano reminded us that “Education holds the transformative power to enhance economic status and improve outcomes, shaping societies and the lives of individuals”. Education is innately connected to our economic systems. So when we know what it is to teach and learn well, we can unlock potential for learners everywhere, transforming societies.
We also know a lot more about who is learning. The pandemic laid bare many inequities in education opportunity—disadvantages rooted in poverty, gender, geography, legal status of refugees, disability and internet access.
Dismantling barriers to quality education
Many efforts rightly focus on increasing enrolment at primary level and keeping vulnerable students in schools. But there are also enormous barriers to entering higher education. Only 10% of the world’s lowest-income populations had access to higher education in 2018 compared to 77% of higher-income populations, according to a UNESCO study. This also found that, over two decades, the lowest-income countries had the lowest participation increases. Cost is one deterrent, but there are many others: a shortage of university places for qualified students, cultural barriers, gender discrimination, family and work commitments—all limit access.
These were exactly the issues Shai Reshef, the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Research Laureate, sought to address when he founded University of the People. It’s a tuition-free, non-profit, American-accredited online university. Courses build on the strengths of virtual learning, particularly flexibility and accessibility. Under Reshef’s leadership, University of the People retains some of the beneficial aspects of a more traditional experience, such as class sizes of 20–30, personalised attention and a dedicated adviser for each student.
Since its launch, enrolment has grown to over 137,000 students globally. Most come from countries where low incomes and relatively scarce university places make accessing higher education a struggle. Others face financial, geographical, cultural, or political hurdles. Some 16,500 students are refugees and 3,000 Afghan women—banned from higher education in their country—are studying online from their homes.
Writing a new storyline on education
Yidan Prize laureates and luminaries advance a compelling vision of how education could and should change, with speed, scale, and justice. They offer profound insights into the transformative power of early childhood development, play-based and active learning, collective leadership, inclusion, and how technological advances can improve teaching and learning.
Their work reinforces my belief in the transformative power of ideas. Their collective vision leads us to understand that all students can and must succeed. They challenge us to reconsider what good classrooms and good teaching practices look like.
These visionary educators also remind us to keep an open mind and imagine alternative futures. They are pushing the frontiers of psychology, neuroscience, economics, and technology to construct a vision of education that upends conventional thinking. Gone are the ideas that a child’s intelligence is fixed, that culture rather than poverty keeps girls and minorities out of school or that higher education is the domain of a privileged few.
They are writing new storylines for education that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago; storylines that shape new futures and renew our faith in education’s power to change individual lives and societies.
These educators demonstrate that good education can be available to everyone. They provide not just stories, but also blueprints for action. The transformative power of education lies in our collective hands.
Dr Charles CHEN Yidan
Founder, Yidan Prize
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2023国际教育日陈一丹撰文
《教育如何推动社会发展与公平》
