For Educators

And now for something a little more serious...

Two substantive books have books have recently come out, both of which I was heavily involved in, which I recommend for educators who want to get a better grip on implications for the future of education in this fast changing world.

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The first book is a major publication of the Asian Development Bank, whose team of consultant writers/experts I had the honor of coordinating for this book. ADB recognizes that "a growing body of evidence points to serious education and human resource-related problems that require urgent attention if the region is to sustain its progres... the lack of adequtate educated and trained workers has been a major bottleneck in growth and economic expansion." The study therefore frames a response to this situation. As the foreword states:

The study reaffirms that the goal of inclusive growth depends on continuous development of an adequate human resource base, and provides a stratgegic framework for ADB's work in the education sector in support of that development... and provides a framework for identifying the priorities and strategic areas of interveniton for different types of countries at different levels of development.

You can look this up in the ADB publications website, and even downoad the entire text if you want to.

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The second book is the product of a joint collaboratoin between the University of Hong Kong and the East-West Center in Honolulu. It is more visionary and less technical in tone than the first. Historically, education systems around the world evolved and were developed for societies that have since radically transformed, and yet no parallel tarnsfoermatin has taken place in the the educaton systems they spawned, unlike other sectors. As I wrote in the foreword of this book:

This book responds to the growing unease of educators and non-educators aliken about the inadequacy of most current education systems and programs to sufficiently meet the demands of fast-chnging societies. There is no doubt: education must change... There is no lack of effort, or literature, on how to improve systems or sub-sectors within them. But this book departs from that approach, and provides insights, not into how to improve existing systems, but into how to change them altogether... It provides a useful road map for the navigators of change, within which they can plot out their speicfic itineraries towards their goal. It illuminates the basic goal of education--the total and balanced development of individuals and, through them, societeis--and depicts the main featrures, the imperatives, the demands and the pitfalls of an ever more interdependent, globalzed world in which these goals must be pursued.

On a personal note, I am grateful to the editors for the dedication on the first page:

"As editors of this volume,

we would like to dedicate the book to

Victor Ordonez,

an educational leader of

global stature and rare passion,

to whom we owe special thanks for inspiring

-- as well as contributing to --

this project."