challenges in education meaning

Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

Senior Adviser, Education

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Challenges in Education: A Student’s-Eye View

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As many teachers know, the national discussion on education is overcrowded with opinions on teacher training, salaries, tenure, and unions -- with occasional detours through iPads, textbooks, and national policy. In fact, it seems that we listen to every interested party except the one for whom education exists in the first place: students.

We've worked one-on-one with hundreds of students over the last decade, and while they always start from "my teacher hates me" or "I'm just bad at this subject," a change in their own behaviors and beliefs consistently leads to a turnaround in grades. We've seen firsthand all the ways that students can impede their own academic performance. We've seen how parents and our culture at large unwittingly sabotage students' success. And then we've seen our society give teachers full responsibility for a process that is only partially in their hands. That has to stop.

Teachers are essential and influential, guiding their students through new material, drawing out analysis and excitement about ideas. But even the best teacher is helpless against the student looking straight at the board but thinking about lunch. Students are, ultimately, the only party with the ability to truly transform the state of education. And as it turns out, what they have to say is quite telling.

What the Students Are Thinking

A year ago, we were approached by The Princeton Review to help them design a survey about Student Life in America . Rather than focusing on academic performance, they wanted to understand students' academic process. What goes through their heads when they do homework? Where do they turn for help when they're stuck? How do they think and feel during a typical school day? In short, the survey was designed to find out what only students can know: their thoughts, feelings, and goals. The results suggest that if we want to fix education, then we have to move away from blaming teachers, resources, or classroom size, and start talking seriously about what students are doing to create academic success -- and how we can best support them in that process.

Here are some of the survey's most telling results.

Too much homework or too much homework time?

Students readily reported that they spend one-third of their study time stressing out . We hear parents and students constantly complain about teachers assigning too much homework. Based on volume of hours alone, that makes sense. However, what the students have reported provides a totally different picture.

For every three hours that students seem to be spending on homework, only two are productive. Concerns about whether they'll do well, whether they're smart enough to understand the assignment, what grade they have, and how everyone else in class is doing can derail them in a major way. We could cut out that hour so that the work gets done and they can move on. Rather than assigning less homework, we should focus on helping students work more effectively. In preparing students for the modern world, that strategy is essential. In the working world, they won't have time to spend one third of their day unproductively stressing out. They need to learn how to stay on top.

They do care. . . about the wrong things.

One of the most interesting results was that 90 percent of students reported that they want good grades . For an educator, that's thrilling to hear. But only six percent of students want good grades for the sake of learning . Many students are so concerned with grades, tests, and college admissions that they've lost what's really important about school. When they're not succeeding, they feel terrible about school. The irony is that the act of learning in itself releases dopamine, the brain's ultimate feel-good chemical. That’s why those "aha!" moments feel so good. We can help students make that virtuous cycle happen. Better grades and scores matter, but you don’t get them by focusing endlessly on them. Better results come from finding better ways of working -- from improving process.

When students are so obsessed with results -- what they need to learn and what grades they'll get -- that they ignore how learning works. The frequent explanations ("math is stupid" and "my teacher just hates me") are obviously unproductive and untrue. But the survey participants made it clear that we must help students by making sure that they need to know how to learn, manage their stress, ask for help, and get that dopamine kick they deserve.

Here are just a few survey-inspired ways to help your students improve their approach:

1. Do a side-by-side comparison of cramming and learning.

We educators obviously love the subjects we teach and want kids to love learning for its own sake. However, the benefits of learning aren't obvious to students. Help them do a side-by-side comparison of learning and cramming over both the short and long term. While students' preferred strategy of last-minute cramming seems "smart" (why study every night when you can study just one night?), it doesn’t lead to long-term learning. Within hours or days, that material is forgotten, and students end up needing to relearn and refresh basic concepts, month after month or year after year. Also, by choosing to cram the material, students are denying themselves that dopamine release. Since they want to do well in school and have a non-miserable existence, once they realize that actually learning helps them do both, they'll choose it more and more often.

2. Teach your students to substitute action for stress.

Not only is spending one third of your study time freaking out unpleasant, it's a huge waste of time. Doing any small thing that gets your work closer to done is a much better use of time. Getting students to recognize when they're freaking out and substitute that worry for any small, productive action will help them massively reduce the amount of time they spend studying. Best of all, their results will improve, too!

3. Challenge students to produce actionable feedback.

We're all familiar with good and bad tech support, and this is no different. Comments like "Math is stupid" or "When am I going to use this in real life?" often lead to arguments about the virtues of a subject. But the real issue is that when we feel like throwing our computer out the window, it's not because computers are a waste of time. It's because the thing won't work, and we have no idea how to fix it. So we should encourage students to stop discussing results and start discussing actions. Instead of letting them talk in terms of grades and ability, turn the focus to what they actually did and why:

• What steps did you take?
• What could you do differently next time?
• How did you get this answer?
• What specific piece needs improvement?

Solutions at Our Fingertips

The fixes that come from listening to kids don’t require more money, more resources, or consensus in Congress. Talking to our elected leaders doesn't seem to have fixed education. Talking to our kids just might.

How have you gotten your students to take charge of their learning in the classroom? What strategies do you use to help students manage stress? What are your policies for making sure that students can come to you for help? We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

The 10 Biggest Challenges in Education (and How to Overcome Them)

We surveyed educators across the country to discover the 10 biggest challenges facing schools today.

• Featured Podcast

About this Issue

When the Obstacle Is the Way

Repairing the Leaky Bucket

Are We Teaching Care or Control?

The Someday/Monday Dilemma

Creating Clarity on Equity in Schools

4 C’s for Better Student Engagement

Reducing Teacher Workloads

To Address Learning Gaps, Go Deeper

Let’s Talk About Mental Health

A Matter of Respect

Protecting Students’ Freedom to Learn

Grading Writing Just Got Weird

Stop Coachsplaining!

Boosting Sight Reading

Finding Joy in Black Children’s Literacy Lives

And Now for Some Good News

Making an Impact Beyond the Classroom

EL Takeaways

Listen & learn, recent issues, december 2024, november 2024, october 2024.

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• Education worldwide ›

Education: The Global Challenges Facing Schools

A new report by Ipsos on global attitudes towards education and schools has highlighted the breadth of issues that affect different systems around the world. More than 1,000 respondents took part in each of the 30 countries surveyed between June 21 and July 5, 2024.

A third of respondents in the U.S. say that political or ideological bias is the greatest challenge facing their country’s educational system today. Similarly, 30 percent of adults in Hungary and Poland felt the same. Worry over their children's safety was the second most commonly picked concern in the U.S. at 31 percent. It was also a main concern in France (30 percent), India, Mexico and Brazil (24 percent each).

In Indonesia, six in ten respondents stated that unequal access to education was the greatest issue troubling the schooling system, with the next two most commonly selected answers inadequate infrastructure (36 percent) and insufficient usage of technology (30 percent). Meanwhile, in the UK, a lack of public funding was cited by 40 percent of respondents, marking the largest share of the 30 countries polled, followed by several South American nations (Colombia at 37 percent, Chile at 36 percent and Brazil at 35 percent).

The survey also found that the most positive perceptions of education systems were primarily in Asia. Adults in several countries across the region were also more likely to say that they thought the education system in their country is contributing to reducing social inequalities. For example, the vast majority of respondents in India (72 percent) agreed with this statement, as well as Singapore (68 percent), Thailand (66 percent), Indonesia (64 percent) and Malaysia (63 percent). At the other end of the spectrum of 30 countries were Turkey (34 percent) and Hungary (30 percent).

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10 Ways to Tackle Education’s Urgent Challenges

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To America’s resilient educators:

Take a moment to reflect on your many accomplishments during the pandemic, as well as the challenges you have faced.

You’ve supported your teams, your students, your school families and communities, all while balancing your own lives. In spite of every obstacle, you pushed through because that’s what you do. Every day.

And then, this spring, the sun seemed to shine a bit brighter. The safe and reliable vaccines that were slowing the spread of the virus forecasted a return to a normal-ish school year ahead. But COVID-19 had another plan, and its name was the Delta variant.

So here we are. And it’s complicated.

The cover of this year’s Big Ideas report from Education Week and the 10 essays inside reflect this moment and the constellation of emotions we know you’re experiencing: hope, excitement, grief, urgency, trepidation, and a deep sense of purpose.

In the report, we ask hard questions about education’s big challenges and offer some solutions. Keep scrolling for a roundup of these challenges and some new ways to think about them.

The report also includes results from an exclusive survey on educator stress, what you did well during the pandemic, and more .

Please connect with us on social media by using #K12BigIdeas or by emailing [email protected] . May the year ahead be a safe and fruitful one for you.

1. Schools are doing too much

We’re asking schools to accomplish more than what their funding allows and we’re asking their employees to do far more than they’ve been trained to do. Read more.

2. Student homelessness

The pandemic has only made student homelessness situation more volatile. Schools don’t have to go it alone. Read more.

3. Racism in schools

Born and raised in India, reporter Eesha Pendharkar isn’t convinced that America’s anti-racist efforts are enough to make students of color feel like they belong. Read more.

4. Teacher mental health

The pandemic has put teachers through the wringer. Administrators must think about their educators’ well-being differently. Read more.

5. Educator grief

Faced with so many loses stemming from the pandemic, what can be done to help teachers manage their own grief? Read more.

6. The well-being of school leaders

By overlooking the well-being of their school leaders, districts could limit how much their schools can flourish. Read more.

7. Remote learning

Educators in schools who were technologically prepared for the pandemic say the remote-learning emergency has provided new opportunities to explore better ways to connect with students and adapt instruction. Read more.

8. Setting students up for success

Educators know a lot more about students’ home learning environments than before the pandemic. How might schools build on that awareness and use it to improve their future work? Read more.

9. Parent engagement

When school went remote, families got a better sense of what their children were learning. It’s something schools can build on, if they can make key cultural shifts. Read more.

10. Knowing your purpose

We can’t build resilient schools until we agree on what education’s core role should be. And right now, we don’t agree. Read more.

A version of this article appeared in the September 15, 2021 edition of Education Week as Editor’s Note

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Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching

TILT Categories

• INTRODUCTION
• WHAT IS INTERDISCIPLINARITY?
• WORKING WITH CHALLENGES
• COLLABORATION
• INTERDISCIPLINARY METHODS
• ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
• ETHICAL PRACTICE

TILT was created by the   Crossing the Line  research team. It is funded by the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme at the University of Edinburgh.  All content is licensed as CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International). © Overend, D., Choi, S., Cross, A., Cullen, C., Dures, S., Jay, D., Scoles, J., Winter, M. and Zhang, S. (2024). TILT: Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching, blogs.ed.ac.uk/tilt/. University of Edinburgh.

Unless otherwise attributed, all images including the TILT banner and logo by Zhang, S. (2024) for the Toolkit for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching, licensed as CC BY 4.0.

Working with Challenges

As discussed in What is interdisciplinarity? there are various approaches available that allow us to work between disciplines in different ways. One model that has been very popular, in a variety of educational contexts, is challenge-led learning.

Richard L. Wallace and Susan G. Clark argue that ‘[i]nterdisciplinarity is inherently “problem-oriented” – that is, its theory and methods are designed to address the complexity of social and environmental problems’ (2017, 222). Such problems, including ‘climate change, poverty and conflict’ are sometimes called ‘wicked problems’, which are ‘messy and cannot be fully defined’ (McCune n.d.). These challenges ‘have no single obvious solution, require imaginative interdisciplinary problem solving, and bring together multiple stakeholders with diverse perspectives’. It is clear to see how interdisciplinary approaches can be of value in this context.

Challenge-led learning is an approach to interdisciplinarity that often involves collaboration between academia and external stakeholders, including partnerships with industry and international organisations (Klein, 2017). This wider movement towards problem-based approaches has strongly influenced the development of interdisciplinary research and education in the modern university.

However, it is important to remember that such dominant models are not the only way of practising interdisciplinarity. While a range of positive and progressive learning outcomes can arise from ‘challenge-led’ and ‘problem-oriented’ approaches, there is a risk of a functional and solution-focussed experience, which could limit creativity and exploration. How can challenge-led learning maintain these qualities? Some of the activities suggested in this section have this aim.

With this caveat in mind, TILT offers some starting points for working with global challenges. The four subsections below each represent a different category of challenge questions: inequality and wealth , sustainability and biodiversity , peace and conflict , and global health . These categories are not discrete or exhaustive. Rather, they suggest some potential areas of enquiry, all of which interconnect and overlap in productive and generative ways.

Each category includes an overview, a suggested challenge question (which aspires to positive change), and a series of sub-questions that interconnect with the other categories. Suggested activities, resources and examples are included to inform the development of challenge-led learning in the interdisciplinary classroom.

All of these topics can be overwhelming and difficult to spend time with. It is important to consider how learners and teachers might be affected by the questions and activities. Our section on Ethical practice considers some of the positive and inclusive practices that could enhance an interdisciplinary approach to education, without causing unnecessary distress or missing the opportunity for careful and sensitive collaboration.

Inequality and wealth

According to the United Nations (n.d. a), ‘Inequality threatens long-term social and economic development, harms poverty reduction and destroys people’s sense of fulfillment and self-worth’. Inequality is a particularly powerful topic for interdisciplinary learning and teaching, because it requires a recognition of interconnectedness:

In today’s world, we are all interconnected. Problems and challenges like poverty, climate change, migration or economic crises are never just confined to one country or region. Even the richest countries still have communities living in abject poverty. The oldest democracies still wrestle with racism, homophobia and transphobia, and religious intolerance. Global inequality affects us all, no matter who we are or where we are from. (United Nations, n.d. a)

Economic inequality is just one part of a much wider, more complicated story. Nevertheless, it offers a productive starting point for work in this area. It brings us very quicky into the world of data, and visualisations such as this one offer striking representations of global wealth distribution.

Image available at https://inequality.org/facts/global-inequality/ . CC BY 3.0.

While it may be useful to start with a question related to wealth distribution, there are a range of social, cultural and ecological power dynamics that can be brought into the discussion. The sample questions here aim to bring a range of global challenges into a dialogue, suggesting that interconnectedness is at the heart of inequalities research.

Challenge question :

How can we reduce the gap between rich and poor, subquestions :, how is wealth distributed, who has access to greenspaces, what is the relationship between crime and inequality, how does inequality affect access to healthcare.

Suggested activities:

• Games – an effective way of exploring inequality in the classroom can be through card or board games, role play and simulations. Active Learning in Political Science has a collection of links to lesson plans that use games (the Economics section and the game on Global Inequality are relevant to this challenge topic on Inequality and Wealth). Games such as the 2030 SDGs Game can be used to demonstrate what is at stake if our primary goal is acquisition of wealth. Or get creative with coins, counters, cards or sweets.
• Maps – a powerful way of visualising wealth inequality, maps such as those published by the Office for National Statistics can prompt discussion and inspire further research. Explore economic inequality in the UK and ask, ‘What are the regional differences in income and productivity?’. This example also provides a dataset , which can be further explored through Methods for interdisciplinary research . Create new maps from data, such as house prices, Airbnb properties , or proximity to greenspace, and consider what this tells you about a city’s inequality.
• Intersectionality – the problem with focussing on wealth and economic inequality is that it can obscure other forms of social and cultural inequality, all of which interconnect in various ways. Intersectionality is ‘way to think about how these distinctions [of race, gender, social class, sexuality, etc.] are socially constructed such that they depend on one another for meaning’ (Cole 2016, ix). This video introduces different models of intersectionality, which can be used to introduce Ashlee Christoffersen’s framework for competing concepts of intersectionality (2021, 579). The framework can be used as a teaching resource by asking learners to work in groups, researching examples of policy and practice that align with Christoffersen’s five concepts.
• Ethical practice – the TILT section on Ethical practice offers a range of concepts, methods and resources that can be useful for any learning and teaching activities that focus on inequalities.

Sustainability and biodiversity

Sustainability incorporates a wide range of interconnected factors. As such, it is a popular topic for interdisciplinary education. There are many definitions of sustainability, and the term is used in various contexts, from economics to culture. Environmental sustainability is a key concern for many, and a useful starting point is provided by the campaigning charity, Greenpeace (n.d.):

Sustainability is a way of using resources that could continue forever. A sustain-able activity is  able to be sustained  without running out of resources or causing harm. If something is unsustainable, it means it’s using up resources faster than they’re being replaced. Eventually the resources will run out and the activity won’t be able to carry on.

As the environmentalist George Monbiot (2012) points out, there is an all-to-easy slippage from sustainability, through ‘sustainable development’ to the flatly contradictory notion of ‘sustained growth’. The term ‘green growth’ also offers a provocative topic for debate.

The wide-reaching purview of sustainable development is highlighted by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Again, the interconnectedness of global challenges is emphasised, as ‘ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests’ (United Nations n.d. b).

All of the 17 SDGs could offer productive topics for interdisciplinary education. For example, the goals for ‘life below water’ and ‘life on land’ raise some important questions about biodiversity that can be used effectively to structure interdisciplinary learning and teaching. Some exciting, difficult, and cautiously hopeful projects can emerge from an interdisciplinary response to the biodiversity crisis, which is strikingly illustrated by the Living Planet Index:

The global LPI as presented in the  Living Planet Report 2024 (WWF) shows that a subset of 34,836 populations of 5,495 species has declined by an average 73% in abundance between 1970 and 2020 (WWF and ZSL 2024).

There is a lot to ask about this data. Why 1970? Which regions are omitted or underrepresented? Which species are left out of the picture? Nevertheless, the striking decline in biodiversity over half a century of data collection, is a provocative starting place.

These sample questions aim to highlight the ways in which biodiversity is impacted by, and makes an impact on, other global challenges such as inequality, conflict and global health.

How can we enhance biodiversity?

How and in what ways has biodiversity been impacted by globalisation, who owns the land and controls its use, what is the impact of conflict on ecosystems, how is wellbeing affected by biodiversity.

• Biodiversity sampling – moving outside the classroom into local greenspaces is a valuable way of connecting learners to the natural world. Sampling can be conducted using string and tent pegs to demark sampling areas. A 12m long string can be folded into 4 and arranged in a square using 4 people in a team at each corner. Groups can spend 20 minutes at a number of separate locations and use a spreadsheet to record data sightings. They can use the recommended apps (Woodland Trust app, Merlin, Picture Insect and Google Lens) to help with species identification, which they can download and familiarise themselves with prior to the workshop. Discussion can then focus on overall impressions of biodiversity and questions of land usage at the site. (For an interesting interdisciplinary discussion of using quadrants, see Sanders and Davies (2023). This chapter connects to the discussion of Karen Barad in the TILT sections on What is interdisciplinarity? and Ethical practice , by bringing Barad’s theory into the use of quadrants in outdoor learning and ecology education.)
• Biodiversity footprints – while the calculation of carbon footprints is widely practised across multiple sectors, the concept of biodiversity footprints is developing. An individual or group activity could identify a particular source of biodiversity decline (an arts project, a class or an individual’s commute, for example) and calculate biodiversity impact. Lasse Miettinen (2024) provides a valuable step-by-step guide which could be adapted for a learning project. This involves: collecting data on the subject to be measured ; deriving pressures on nature ; deriving impact on biodiversity ; and combining these impacts to calculate the biodiversity footprint .
• Biodiversity resources – The World Wide Fund for Nature has a wide range of biodiversity resources for educators , primarily aimed at grades 6-8, but adaptable across learning levels. This includes workshop plans for role-playing activities, creating news reports, and designing products. The disciplinary alignment is indicated (science or art, for example), but there is a productive slippage between approaches in many of these tasks.
• Cards – WWF also provides a collection of wildlife species cards , which provide learners with a fun way to learn about animals, their importance in their ecosystems, characteristics, lifestyles, and the threats they face. Use these cards as a stand-alone resource or to supplement other lessons.

Peace and Conflict

Conflict can be explored at different scales: from large-scale global warfare to local political events, to individual struggles that we experience every day. These forms of conflict are not distinct or discrete categories. Rather, there are myriad complex interconnections between our everyday lives, sense of identity, membership of communities and international contexts. Interdisciplinarity can be a powerful model for learning across and between these different forms of conflict.

There is a huge amount of data on global conflict, some of which can provide an effective starting point to address this topic. The Center for Preventive Action (USA) manages a useful Global Conflict Tracker , which provides ‘an interactive guide to ongoing conflicts around the world of concern to the United States’. This includes contextual information and a range of resources on almost thirty global conflicts.

Yuval Noah Harari and Itzik Yahav offer some valuable resources for learners and educators through their social impact company, Sapienship . These questions can orientate a learning community addressing a challenging topic:

• Is your country at war? If so, do you see a way out?
• What are some of the reasons countries go to war?
• Is there such a thing as a just war? What distinguishes a just war from an unjust one?
• People often believe that some wars will last forever. Why do you think that is?
• Can you think of something that lasts forever? If yes, what is it? If not, why do you think nothing lasts forever
• Yuval Noah Harari once said, ’The single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.’ What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree?
• Are you afraid of change? What kind of change do you fear the most, and how do you cope with it?

As with many of the topics introduced in this section, work on conflict can be very difficult and upsetting, particularly for those who have had direct experience of war. The Red Cross have issued a valuable guide, How to talk to children and young people about conflict . While this resource is age-specific, read alongside some of the ideas and activities in the TILT Ethical Practice section, it is a useful prompt towards careful and ethical approaches to learning and teaching about conflict.

How can shared values reduce conflict?

How has conflict changed in the 21st century, what forms of inequality emerge in fragile or conflict-affected economies, why is peace necessary for sustainable development, how does conflict affect mental health.

• Preparing to discuss conflict – Share the conflict questions from Sapienship (above) with learners before a class. Ask them to reflect on them individually in preparation for a group discussion. During the class, ask whether anyone would like to share their thoughts in response to any of the questions. This ensures readiness and willingness to talk about potentially challenging topics, which may include lived experience of war.
• Quiz – introduce international conflict with this interactive quiz by Gapminder, which usefully challenges common misconceptions about global conflict.
• Case studies – Using the global conflict tracker, ask small groups of learners to research a specific conflict in order to present an overview of key issues to the rest of the class. Encourage a critical consideration of how and why the data is presented in the way that it is. Are there any biases apparent in this resource?
• Conflict resolution activities – There are many conflict resolution games available, each of which offers different ways of exploring conflict that may be appropriate for the interdisciplinary classroom. One good example is the Conflict Resolution Network’s Conflict Resolving Game , which ‘asks participants to build on, and add value to, each other’s points’. The game ‘rewards creative response to another’s statement, rather than opposing it’ and as such can foster interdisciplinary dialogue and integration. It is also important to reflect on what the final goal should be in conflict resolution. The TILT section on Ethical Practice refers to Wolfgang Deitrich’s (2014) discussion of ‘elicitive transformation resolution’, a method of conflict resolution which challenges notions of a finalised stage called ‘peace’. Could this approach be incorporated into activities, which sometimes obscure the cultural and ideological differences that might be important to identify and avow?

Global health

Interdisciplinarity has become an important approach to addressing the challenge of global health. For example, The Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh brings together researchers in epidemiology, statistics and modelling, informatics, computer science, clinical science, sociology, social policy, governance, ethics, politics, medical law psychology, economics, geography, health promotion and medicine. These researchers are working together to improve the health and wellbeing of patients, communities and populations locally and globally.

There is great potential in addressing global health as a challenge for interdisciplinary learning and teaching. A good place to start is the World Health Organisations series of Fact Sheets, which cover a wide range of topics, from Climate change to Food safety . As with all the topics in this section, it soon becomes clear that global challenges are interconnected. Collaboration across knowledge areas is essential.

Exploring global health data soon reveals massive inequality. This chart, available on the Our World in Data page for Global Health, summarises the available data on life expectancy over the last few centuries:

For an interactive version of this chart, see https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy

As always, any encounter with data opens up more questions than it answers. Life expectancy is a difficult thing to measure, because it is only possible to consider a historic cohort (those who have already died) or take a hypothetical approach to a period, even though mortality rates are changing all the time (Ortiz-Ospina 2017). These data also raise questions about why there is a difference in global regions, what the different causes of mortality rates might be, and what factors might impact results (for example, inequality, sustainability and conflict). The following questions suggest ways of bringing these global challenges into a dialogue:

How can we improve global health?

What is an interdisciplinary approach to health care, how is healthy life expectancy distributed, what is the connection between biodiversity and global health, what are the effects of conflict on regional health.

• Public health resources – Ablconnect at Harvard University includes public health learning activities, including: Humanitarian Funding Simulation – learners participate in a simulation of groups proposing grants to a funding agency to deal with a humanitarian crisis. Adopt a Country – learners ‘adopt’ a country to follow and research for the semester.
• Debate – CFR Education from the Council on Foreign Relations (USA) provides a list of questions on global health , for example: ‘How well prepared for a major disease outbreak is the world?’. These can be used to prompt debate between groups, or offer starting points for independent research tasks.

Posted by David Overend

2 June 2024

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