This text is part of the special scientific Francophonie booklet
Consider possible futures and transform them into concrete actions while taking into account the economic, social and cultural realities of the countries. This is the idea behind foresight, a multidisciplinary approach discussed during the World Week of Scientific Francophonie.
According to researchers from the Walloon Institute for Evaluation, Foresight and Statistics (IWEPS), foresight is “a research and collective intelligence approach which aims to shed light on the present action in the light possible futures. In other words, it consists of imagining various representations of the future using scenarios, for example. Very often, foresight is useful for understanding complex and uncertain problems.
“We are in fairly unstable contexts where environments change rapidly,” says Martin Maltais, professor of education funding and policy at the University of Quebec in Rimouski (UQAR). This can have an impact on our systems, especially education. The pandemic, for example, has upset the practices and role of education actors. In a few months, digital tools have been stormed to adapt to forced distancing.
“If we had better imagined certain variables, we could have avoided many problems,” continues Martin Maltais. We have known for years that the health risk exists, but we have never put in place the appropriate mechanisms to prepare for it. It is therefore necessary to think about the future of the world in long cycles. To maintain and promote scientific literacy in French, for example, Mr. Maltais suggests improving the attractiveness of French-language schools, colleges and universities, producing articles and promoting access to sources of knowledge in French.
Bringing together the Francophonie
In Quebec, this practice does not yet seem very developed, but it is more widespread across the Atlantic. Discussions took place on October 27 in Cairo during the World Week of Scientific Francophonie and will serve as a basis for the Agence universitaire de la francophonie (AUF) to create a prospective observatory of the International Academy of Francophonie. scientific.
“Foresight in education means trying to anticipate the possible futures of the sector, which is constantly changing, to guide public policies and favor a chosen future rather than a suffered future”, affirms Thierry Verdel, rector at the Senghor University in Alexandria, Egypt. For Mr. Verdel, this is a natural exercise in observing trends, making it possible to reflect on the quality of education, whether in terms of curricula or teaching methods.
He mentions the example of Africa, where there is already talk of industry 4.0, even 5.0, and artificial intelligence. “People are informed,” he says. The difficulty, especially in Africa, is to have the possibility of making things happen, so the daily challenges are difficult to meet, and the means of the States are weak to respond to them. A recent survey by the AUF shows that the main challenge for the poorest and “unstable” countries is to increase the rate of accessibility to education, particularly at the primary and secondary levels.
Strategy and political action
How to set up a prospective approach? First, by mobilizing interdisciplinary research fields, in order to understand all the dimensions of a problem. “The purpose is not only cognitive, but also strategic and political”, underlines Jean-Luc Guyot, scientific director of IWEPS, in Belgium. Prospective work in education will lead to different recommendations, depending on the country or region, says Mr. Guyot, and will relate to the vision of a rectorate, parents, teachers, business management or Minister of Finance. , for example.
Be careful also not to confuse prospective and forecasting, different concepts, according to the scientific director. “It’s not about predicting […] future quantities, but to identify how a system may evolve in the future, he adds. Not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, that is to say in terms of structures, functions, resources and relationships with its environment, among others. Jean-Luc Guyot suggests several avenues for reflection to imagine the future of universities, particularly with regard to the role of education, the values it carries, or even technological developments.
For his part, Martin Maltais believes that three other issues must necessarily be taken into account, namely increasing graduation, monitoring the evolution of demand and supply at the school and preschool levels and better preparing for health, humanitarian and especially environmental crises, already engaged. In the climate context, it is no longer enough to inform decision-makers, but to “find the appropriate way for them to take the necessary – and sometimes difficult – decisions to ensure the survival of the human species”.
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