Global Education

The Covid -19 pandemic revealed more than any other time how deep are the interconnections of humanity in terms of all aspects of life. No borders, laws, regulations, or even natural barriers including the huge oceans could stop the influence of events in the part of the world to flow to the rest of the globe. The same applies to nuclear events, economic disturbances, and political and military conflicts.

This level of inter-border interaction indicates the new nature of global relations, which restructures the world as one unit, and defines humans as global citizens. The flow of information created global traditions, that we see at least in the social media, trading, traveling, medical and health protocols, criminal justice and policing, and last but not least, although ultimately diverse, is the diplomatic and political relations.

All the above features indicate the parallel and shared tracks of all nations towards the future. Therefore, the preparation of the global human generations to live in a more consistent world, that has, more or less, similar lifestyles all over the globe, is now a mandatory need. Global education, through the online teaching/learning criteria, is not a new invention, nor that we discovered it recently. However, this pandemic mandated all education systems in the world to go virtual in no time.

By this step, plenty of windows opened suddenly to provide online instruction in almost all subjects to the students of the whole world in all languages that they can understand. On the other hand, markets of virtual educational services thrived and expanded in quantity and quality. The global market of online instruction indicates that long-term virtual teaching channels are being established. This can be viewed as the base of a global educational system, independent of governments, parties, ideological or ethnic groups.

The main evaluation criteria for such global systems will be supply and demand, in addition to the recognition of such systems by the global institutions and/or employment firms. For example, the American test for proficiency in English, namely, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), is recognized by many institutions and employers all over the world. The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), are other examples.

The need for global education rises from the unprecedented level of similarity in thinking, speaking, and interaction that dominates the current globe. Hence, the full awareness of the various nations of the interests (including needs, challenges, and ambitions) of the other nations is a matter of time. So, away from the political greed, of personal and/or partisan agendas, the benefits of such awareness, and consequently, more understanding of such interests are plenty, and will lead to a higher level of peace and cooperation.

For a long time, ignorance was a strong trigger of conflicts, even in the same nation. Under, separate systems of education, supervised by authoritarian regimes will implement multiple tales of fake “truths”, especially in history, and politics. In the global education system, this should be self-corrected by the global experts that will unveil and discuss freely and openly the different tales, so only the true version of such stories are kept.

This is one perspective of how a global system of education will lead to golden solutions to the challenging world’s problems.