“Scenarios” for global education

a project for the future outlined in the past and affirmed in the present

Abstract

The most recent reforms of the public education systems, carried out in several countries, including Portugal and Brazil, are the result of a supranational policy of several decades. In the elaborate and appealing "narrative" in which it is conveyed, the figure called "scenarios" stands out, disseminated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), based on its Schooling for Tomorrow (SfT) programme, geared towards the "education of the future", in a global scope. In this paper, two versions of this figure are retrieved, one presented at the beginning of the century and the other more recent, promoted by the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 and the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim is, with basis on this exercise, to deepen the understanding of such reforms which are believed to be globally desirable, innovative, consensual and urgent. It also aims to question its orientation with reference to the humanist designs of classical framework, which should be attributed to school education.