Ressources

The importance of LTLT has increased in recent years. Indeed, relevant competencies appear to be gaining focus in international frameworks and educational initiatives across countries. This is all the more necessary as Voogt and Roblin (2012) argue, given the demands of our increasingly knowledge-based society in which “ideas and knowledge function as commodities” (p. 299 –300) and to which effective social and emotional skills are critical. It is perhaps all the more critical given the multivariate global challenges in the 21st Century and the need for unified global commitment to effectively combat these challenges. In this context, the significance of LTLT is reflected in both the rise of and growing interest in Global Citizenship Education (GCE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Education for International Understanding (EIU) as well as peace and human rights education. The UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative, which lists ‘Fostering Global Citizenship’ as one of its three global priorities, also implicitly recognizes the significance of LTLT as a precursor to the building of a more peaceful society, one in which discrimination is intolerable and common challenges such as climate change and abject poverty are tackled together.

Yet despite the significance of LTLT in the 21st Century, and despite numerous international initiatives to foster LTLT competencies, there is a large gap of evidence identifying how this supposition is translated into effective policy and curricula, and eventually into the reality of schools, teachers and learners. This report is a response to this gap, and attempts to understand how ten selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region – Afghanistan, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, The Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand – have reflected and integrated LTLT into their education policies and initiatives. This variety of countries aims to reflect their diverse experiences in terms of reflecting LTLT through their education systems. By exploring a number of areas, namely policy, curricula, teachers and assessment, this study aims to identify what has so far been achieved in education systems of the Asia-Pacific region in the area of LTLT.

This report is therefore targeted predominantly at education policy makers, researchers, academics as well as education practitioners of the Asia-Pacific region. Given its connection to Global Citizenship Education and other relevant international initiatives around sustainability and peace education, this report is also relevant to UNESCO’s partner organizations and the broader educational development community.

This report will first present the research framework for the study, before exploring the social and economic contexts in the ten selected countries and wider regional factors in the Asia-Pacific in relation to global challenges in Chapter Two. Chapter Three will then examine national policy frameworks, including the vision of those policies in defining LTLT in education. Chapter Four focuses on the national curriculum in selected countries and the extent to which they incorporate learning objectives, subjects, and extra-curricular activities reflecting the concept of LTLT and related skills and competencies. In Chapter Five, teaching practices are examined, including the role of teachers and teacher education, as well as teaching methods and application of media and information literacy (MIL) in the classroom. Chapter Six then looks at assessment, and how far countries have attempted to develop assessment frameworks that measure the skills and competencies related to LTLT. Finally, Chapter Seven provides reflections and conclusions based on the main findings of the study, while also identifying trends across policy domains, shortcomings and some policy considerations.