Why global learning?
The global learning challenge
Think Global's work programme presently focuses on young people. Today's young people will go on to live and work in a truly global age. Failure to give them a global perspective through their education has major consequences:
- For children themselves, who will live and work in a truly global age, yet are missing out on essential global learning, leaving them feeling powerless, holding parochial attitudes and with damaged prospects for future success.
- For parents, who already fear that the school system does not give their children a wide enough set of skills for life.
- For communities, because it diminishes our chances of tackling the defining issues of our time: national and international poverty, climate change and racial and religious tensions.
- For society, in achieving goals related to world class education, social mobility, community cohesion, environmental sustainability and international poverty reduction.
- For employers, who are concerned about a workforce with a narrow skills base, and a ‘little England' mentality without the ability to succeed in a global economy.
The impact of global learning
Think Global / Ipsos MORI evidence shows that global learning has a very real and positive impact on children. Discussing news stories from around the world led to a 35% increase in the number of young people agreeing that it was a good idea for people from different backgrounds to live together in the same country. Discussing what people can do to make the world a better place led to an increase of 48% in the number of young people who want to understand why there are problems in the world, and an increase of 64% in the number who understood that what they do in their daily lives affects people in other countries.
