Central Theme

The impact on education is central to our theme within BFES. It works in two directions. On the one hand, advances in seeking and transmitting information has dramatic implications for the way we learn and teach. Life in the school classroom is everywhere being transformed and even more dramatically in further and higher education.

What is clear is that the knowledge/information revolution is radically changing the life of individuals, as of the way institutions operate - whether business firms, companies, laboratories, offices, professional organizations, hospitals, schools or colleges, indeed any organization one can think of. And not only the way they operate internally, but how they relate to one another, locally, nationally, internationally. It is the purpose of our interest to the projects to speculate about these changes, and to consider how they affect - or should affect - what we demand from education.
Since knowledge builds upon knowledge, brick upon brick, one can expect that, as the years go by, we know more about societies, economies, science, technology, our environment, the universe, our bodies - indeed all aspects of life. So the sheer volume of educational content is bound to grow continually, with constant challenges to curricula reforms and teaching processes, and inevitable pressures throughout school and beyond. Whether advanced teaching methods, via information technology, relieve such pressures is a moot point.

What one could not have predicted, even perhaps a century ago, is that early advances in mathematical logic would lead to dramatic computer developments, and henceforth to advances in information technology with implications that stagger us day after day.

These advances affect literally every aspect of society and personal life. And, most relevant to BFES action plan, is that those operating these wonders are knowledge workers, or information or communications specialists. These are the people at the heart of today's growing economies, as machine workers or natural resources were in days gone by. Their skills, applied intelligence and creativity is what matters today, and the sectors in which they work - in communications, finance, computers and so forth - are fast replacing car manufacture, ship-building, steel etc. as key industries. Even these staple manufacturing industries are now dependent for their efficiency on these communications skills.