Scenario Planning for Scotland 2025 - a world-leading learning nation

The reports from a programme of work by Scotland's Future Forum and the Goodison Group in Scotland were launched at a gathering in the Scottish Parliament on 4th February.   The programme had involved a series of seminars, roundtable discussions and workshops with a wide range of stakeholder groups across all stages of education, business, the voluntary sector and young people to provide an evidence base.  PASCAL had participated in a workshop bringing together international perspectives as part of this process. 

On the basis of the views expressed in the evidence phase, the programme prepared a number of scenarios for the future development of education and learning strategies in Scotland until 2025.  The launch meeting was presented with 4 such scenarios highlighting the different relationships and paths which need to be understood and acted upon in the short annd medium term if the scenarios are to be realised, or indeed, avoided. The scenarios were labelled 

• market-driven learning society
• local learning society
• global learning society, and
• divided learning society

Each of these scenarios emphasised particuar aspects of the education scene in Scotland, and indeed in many other countries.  Thus the market-driven scenario gave particular prominence to higher education serving the needs of business and the economy,  the local learning society emphanised social justice concerns, the global learning society emphasised the role of teachers and learning, and the divided society was an essentially no change position.  Each of these scenarios is itself complex, and in discussion, it was clear that many in the audience would wish to 'pick-and-mix' some features from different scenarios.  The Scottish Minister for Education, in his contribution, captured this view when he decalred he hoped none of the scenarios as presented was realised, but a further scenario selected the best features of several.

The papers presented an interesting attempt to prompt policy-makers, business leaders and educationalists to test and compare their current assumptions.  There was a concern to ensure that this debate took place on as an inclusive basis as possible, although anxiety too about how that was to be achieved and sustained.

From PASCAL's point of view, there is much of interest in these scenarios in relation to future programmes of work.  It is important to participate in work of this kind, as one important way of trying to stimulate informed policy development.

The project outcomes are available on-line.  There are links to a series of papers relating to the outcomes of particular evidence workshops (including the PASCAL led workshop on international perspectives), and also to the final reports.  These set out the scenarios in more detail, provide some questions which might be explored, and also includes a toolkit outlining different ways these scenarios might be explored in stakeholder organisations.

It would be interesting to know if readers in other countries recognise these scenarios. Why not join the discussion.