Taking stock of the present: Trends in education and schooling

Understanding the present helps us think about what the future holds. This chapter looks at how education’s goals and functions, structures and organisation, and processes and practices have unfolded over the last two decades. It addresses the continuing expansion of formal education in people’s first stages of life, from early education and care through to tertiary education. It explores the evolving notions of human learning and how learning objectives for individuals have changed. It also looks at the ways in which education policy and practice works to prepare teachers, schools and systems to effectively respond to such changes.