Foresight and education systems: Making educational policy for the future

Abstract

The article discusses the impact of futures studies and forward-looking planning on the Icelandic education system and the formulation of long-term education policy. The point of departure is Jónasson’s (2016) categorisation of types of systemic inertia that impede change in educational systems from a futures perspective. We start with a brief overview of the development of futures studies as an academic discipline and its application to education and educational policy. A study is reported in which the long-term impacts of foresight programmes on educational organisations in Iceland were examined using Engeström’s cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). Finally, we reexamine Jónasson’s categorisation of systemic inertia in the context of the results of the study and key concepts from general systems theory.

Two foresight programmes were included in the study described, the Iceland 2020 programme; implemented after Iceland’s financial crisis in 2008, and a follow-up action on the future of education, which was implemented by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2013. The study was conducted in 2017 and 2018 to explore what longterm impacts the programmes had within Icelandic educational organisations and other organisations involved in educational policymaking, including labour organisations, employer organisations, and various public and private organisations. Participants in the study included individuals who had represented their organisations in the foresight programmes. Data were collected using an online survey and semi-structured interviews. Interview data were thematically analysed while quantitative survey data were primarily used for comparison between emergent themes. Qualitative data were further analysed using Engeström’s CHAT model of activity systems, treating participants’ organisations as primary activity systems and the foresight programmes as neighbouring activity systems. The CHAT analysis provided insights into how participants in the foresight programmes transferred and communicated information and knowledge regarding possible futures in education to their organisational environments, and how that information and knowledge was processed within the organisational activity systems. The study revealed that most foresight programme participants struggled to problematise the future within their organisational environments and that, consequently, issues relating to possible futures were rapidly side-lined by more immediate concerns. The few participants who were more successful in engaging their organisations with possible futures all had prior knowledge and experience of futures studies and foresight, which they used to problematise the future in ways relevant to the organisations’ overall objectives.

In the final section of the article, we turn our attention again to Jónasson’s categories of systemic inertia in educational systems. Using fundamental concepts from general systems theory (GST) we re-examine some of the categories of systemic inertia that Jónasson (2016) describes. In particular we focus on system stability, a type of inertia in Jónasson’s categorisation. We argue that system stability is not a type of inertia, rather it is a fundamental concept in GST that describes the inherent tendency of all systems to adapt to change in order to maintain themselves. Thus, we see system stability as a feature of systems that has priority over any categories of inertia, and that categories of inertia are in fact expressions of systems’ attempts to stabilise themselves. Following this reasoning

we suggest that participants in foresight programmes who were able to problematise the future within their organisations used their knowledge and experience to present longterm thinking as an effective means of promoting system stability. Framed this way, future perspectives and long-term thinking became tools for addressing immediate and long-term concerns within the organisation, rather than having to compete with them. We suggest that more research is needed on organisational systems dynamics and how these systems react to issues and concerns that relate to long-term futures. Continuing research should focus on long-term organisational impacts of forward looking endeavours, such as foresight programmes and futures studies. When implemented, such activities need to be evaluated in the short-term, but also with follow-up studies, such as the one described here, to inform planning and implementation.