Tag: education

Rethinking Schooling for Human Flourishing: Beyond the Human Capital Model

Let’s start 2026 on a positive note. The OECD’s “Education for Human Flourishing” framework challenges us to fundamentally reimagine what schools are for. For decades, education systems have operated under the Human Capital model, preparing students for jobs through cognitive examinations. But as PISA results flatline and youth mental health crises deepen, it’s clear this approach is inadequate for tomorrow’s world.

While the OECD isn’t necessarily our go-to for radical thinking about education, this framework offers some really productive points of provocation for those of use in the business of re-imagining education. The framework proposes a profound shift: schools should nurture broader capabilities spanning the academic, caring, and creative. Rather than merely preparing workers, education should develop adaptive problem-solvers, ethical decision-makers, and young people who can understand, appreciate, and act meaningfully in the world. This is a key shift, and the fact that the OECD are arguing for a move away from a crude approach to ‘work readiness’ is striking.

This isn’t soft pedagogy: it’s rigorous and demanding. Students need robust foundations in mathematics, science, and reading, complemented by social-emotional skills. But they also need competencies our current systems rarely address systematically: the ability to synthesize competing worldviews, appreciate beauty and nature, reason ethically about complex dilemmas, and develop genuine agency in shaping their futures.

The implications for schools are transformative. Learning environments must balance teacher guidance with experiential discovery. Curricula should be co-designed with students, not delivered to them. Assessment must move beyond standardized tests to capture the full range of human capabilities. And crucially, schools cannot do this alone. They must orchestrate learning ecosystems involving families, communities, and diverse organisations.

Perhaps most challenging is the call for educational leaders to develop new competencies themselves: championing equity, thinking systemically, managing innovation, and fostering agency in others. Teachers need professional development in facilitating deep learning, curriculum co-design, and navigating AI’s opportunities and risks.

In our age of generative artificial intelligence, this framework offers some hope for ensuring technology amplifies rather than diminishes human potential. Grounding education in human flourishing (happiness, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) means that we can do our best to equip the next generation not just to survive disruption, but to create thriving societies on a healthy planet.

The question isn’t whether we can afford this transformation. It’s whether we can afford not to pursue it.

Why Education Needs a Revolution, Not an Evolution

Why we need a new way of blending online and in-person learning in a new kind of educational community

The industrial model of education is dying, and it’s taking our students’ potential with it.

For over a century, we’ve been herding young minds through factory-line classrooms, measuring success by standardised metrics that bear little resemblance to the skills they’ll actually need in life. We’ve created a system where creativity is discouraged, curiosity is scheduled into 45-minute blocks, and individual brilliance is often sacrificed on the altar of “keeping up with the curriculum.”

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the world our students will inherit looks nothing like the world our educational system was designed for.

Today’s 16-year-olds will enter careers that don’t yet exist, solve problems we haven’t yet imagined, and navigate a global landscape that shifts faster than any textbook can capture. They need to be adaptable, creative, collaborative, and confident in uncertainty. Yet we’re still teaching them to memorise facts they can Google in seconds and to fear making mistakes instead of learning from them.

The pandemic gave us a glimpse of what’s possible when we break free from traditional constraints. Students who thrived in flexible, personalised learning environments. Educators who discovered the power of authentic connection over crowd control. Families who realised that learning happens everywhere, not just within school walls.

We can’t afford to return to business as usual. The mental health crisis among young people, the skills gap in the workplace, and the growing disconnect between education and real-world application are symptoms of a system that has outlived its purpose.

The future belongs to institutions brave enough to reimagine education from the ground up – places where students aren’t just prepared for tests, but for life itself. Where individual potential isn’t constrained by arbitrary age-based groupings or rigid timetables.

The revolution in education isn’t coming. It’s here. The only question is whether we’ll lead it or be left behind by it.

The future of learning starts with unlearning everything we thought we knew about school.