Interview with Prof. Roberto Carneiro, keynote speaker in the Online Educa Berlin Plenary on “The Role of Technology in Supporting Cradle to Grave Learning”
Prof. Roberto Carneiro served as Portuguese Minister of Education from 1987 until 1991. He currently chairs the Study Centre on Peoples and Cultures and is Dean of the Institute for Distance Learning at the Portuguese Catholic University. Among his other education-related tasks, Carneiro also directs the Grupo Forum, a leading multimedia and publishing house in Portugal and is Chairman of Eduweb, an e-learning provider in Portuguese-speaking countries.
In the context of the European Union, Roberto Carneiro holds many leadership functions: He is vice-president of both the Information Society Forum and the Study Group on Education and Training; he is also a member of the EU/US Co-operation Committee eLearning Research Network, the eLearning Committee, and the Lifelong Learning Stakeholder Group, just to name a few. In addition, Prof. Carneiro has extensive international experience with the World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, Council of Europe and other development agencies.
OEB: Professor Carneiro, in a recent presentation, you favour the idea of inclusive knowledge. Could you please explain what that means?
Roberto Carneiro: The ‘old’ industrial paradigm yielded unacceptable levels of exclusion and polarisation that challenge Europe’s social model. Furthermore, in spite of all its promises, the ‘modern’ school was unable to deliver a more equitable society.
I would expect the ‘knowledge society’ to generate a more balanced society, one where the gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is bridged. With the recognition of knowledge as the new engine of wealth, innovation and value creation should lead to policies that are more inclusive and that address the distribution and generation of knowledge among peoples, nations and regions.
OEB: What's behind your concept of lifelong learning as a "communitarian approach"?
Roberto Carneiro: Paulo Freire, a leading Brazilian educator of the twentieth century, taught me that all learning is ‘dialogical’. One learns by talking back to the world and engaging with others in joint learning journeys. Meaningful learning – that which accrues sense to life and provides purpose to the human predicament – is an inevitable exchange between people who seek further understanding in a common pursuit.
Increasingly, group learning and communities of practice are being heralded as main levers of human advancement and of organisational improvement. T. S. Eliot once wrote, “What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life that is not in community”. Lifelong learning, from this perspective, is a radical communitarian adventure.
OEB: Which roles can or do technology and e-learning play in this context?
Roberto Carneiro: Technology has the potential to customise learning, making delivery much more flexible and attuned to individual needs. With e-learning, we can already witness the death of distance and of time: learning reach has been expanded considerably. The industrial mode of education, the school mill – uniform, rote, bureaucratic – has been exhausted.
We are standing at the threshold of a new era in learning approaches and itineraries where the greatest novelty of ICT resides in the full use of the C: C for community, communication and care. The emerging wave of Web 2.0, coupled with the current upheaval of social networking, bears far-reaching consequences for the future of education and for the generalisation of new learning patterns.
OEB: How well do our traditional learning institutions such as schools and universities contribute towards creating lifelong learning attitudes in students?
Roberto Carneiro: Technically speaking, school or university education is only the first stage of a lifelong learning journey. In a knowledge-driven world, formal education finds it hard to compete with an ever-increasing plurality of imparting sources and knowledge oracles. Thus, one would expect that schools and universities become less teaching institutions and more learning environments. Learning to learn is increasingly dependent on the acquisition of self-regulated skills such as the abilities to process knowledge sources or the capacity to sustain high levels of learning demands.
One day – hopefully sooner than later – we will have seamless paths between formal and informal learning. At that time, schools and universities would do well to offer their graduates ‘knowledge maintenance contracts’ designed to ensure the possibility that their former students can “return” to the alma mater to inquire about something whenever they want and wherever they happen to be …
OEB: The concept of lifelong learning is high on the European agenda and is also appearing with increasing frequency on the political platforms of individual European nations. What do you think needs still to be done by policy makers at all levels if Europe wants to establish itself as a leading knowledge economy?
Roberto Carneiro: Europe needs to agree on a comprehensive agenda capable of moving effectively from rhetoric to action. A sustainable knowledge economy would require lifelong learning policies capable of mainstreaming technology into regular education, thus enabling a new generation of technology-embedded learning modalities.
At the EU level, this implies undertaking the European Qualifications Framework and the European Framework of Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning. We have to offer programmes targeting the low-skilled and the most disadvantaged segments of the workforce - estimated at eighty million people in the EU, and there should also be a highly advanced IT skills programme for all. Moreover, we should accelerate the formation of a network of learning regions in Europe as well as strong partnerships among local learning centres. Furthermore, we should think of establishing a system of learning credits to motivate demand and provide incentives to research and innovation in new pedagogies suitable to address new modes of delivery customisation.
OEB: Prof Carneiro, many thanks indeed for your time!
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