Why Educational? Or: Education matters! 1.0

Lese­zeit: 22 Minu­ten

Note (15.02.2024): Last updated on 23.09.2021 (chan­ge­log). This page has been repla­ced by a cur­rent ver­si­on and is available here as an archi­ve for the AEL book ver­si­on 1.0 until fur­ther notice. 

“Edu­ca­ti­on is thus unders­tood as the abili­ty to make reasonable self-deter­mi­na­ti­on, which pre­sup­po­ses or includes eman­ci­pa­ti­on from hete­ro­no­my, as the abili­ty to achie­ve auto­no­my, to think free­ly and to make one’s own moral decis­i­ons. It is pre­cis­e­ly for this reason that self-acti­vi­ty is the cen­tral form of exe­cu­ti­on of the edu­ca­tio­nal process.” 

Wolf­gang Klaf­ki (2007, S. 19)1


This chap­ter descri­bes why Edu­ca­tio­nal is the cen­tral anchor point for agi­le edu­ca­tio­nal lea­der­ship. In order to achie­ve the goal of pro­vi­ding modern human deve­lo­p­ment and enab­ling the cur­rent and next gene­ra­ti­on to act in the future, the pos­si­bi­li­ty of per­so­nal growth for all and fair and free access to edu­ca­ti­on play an important role. The per­spec­ti­ves in terms of con­tent and so-cal­led future skills that can con­tri­bu­te to achie­ving this goal are shown with a view to edu­ca­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons and per­so­nal growth, as are the spe­cial fea­tures of the edu­ca­tio­nal sec­tors in the Ger­man ‘Bil­dungs­sys­tem’.

Licence2

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Educational and ‘Bildung’

The con­cept of Bil­dung , roo­ted in the Ger­man tra­di­ti­on, goes bey­ond the idea of ‘edu­ca­ti­on’ as mere know­ledge acqui­si­ti­on. It encom­pas­ses a holi­stic deve­lo­p­ment of the indi­vi­du­al, inclu­ding intellec­tu­al growth, per­so­nal and moral deve­lo­p­ment, cul­tu­ral under­stan­ding, and the abili­ty to think cri­ti­cal­ly and act respon­si­bly in socie­ty. Each of us asso­cia­tes some­thing per­so­nal with good ‘Bil­dung’. After all, we have all encoun­te­red per­so­nal growth — in one form or ano­ther — from my point of you within the con­text of the Ger­man edu­ca­ti­on sys­tem. Whe­ther through per­so­nal expe­ri­en­ces or by navi­ga­ting various edu­ca­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons, we likely asso­cia­te it with a multi­tu­de of memo­ries. The­se might stem from ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­ti­on, dif­fe­rent school sys­tems, voca­tio­nal and aca­de­mic edu­ca­ti­on, or even lifel­ong lear­ning in the con­text of adult edu­ca­ti­on and pro­fes­sio­nal development. 

Edu­ca­tio­nal
The ger­man con­cept of ‘Bil­dung’ repres­ents the frame of refe­rence for Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship, even though the term Edu­ca­tio­nal edu­ca­tio­nal is now empha­si­zed in Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship. The­re are many reasons for this. 

In the pre­sent per­spec­ti­ve, the Eng­lish term Edu­ca­tio­nal takes cen­ter stage becau­se, in its broa­dest sen­se, it encom­pas­ses what we in Ger­man-spea­king con­texts dif­fe­ren­tia­te as ‘Bil­dung’, as well as upbrin­ging, socia­liza­ti­on, tea­ching, and lear­ning, inclu­ding the asso­cia­ted insti­tu­ti­ons and orga­niza­ti­ons. For what we asso­cia­te with ‘Bil­dung’ in the Ger­man edu­ca­tio­nal tra­di­ti­on — par­ti­cu­lar­ly from a huma­ni­ties per­spec­ti­ve — the­re is no equi­va­lent term in Eng­lish3.

Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship: A Way of Under­stan­ding
The terms in ques­ti­on were ori­gi­nal­ly used in Eng­lish within the Ger­man text its­elf, which might rai­se some eye­brows. Howe­ver, this choice was made deli­bera­te­ly after careful con­side­ra­ti­on. Terms like “Lea­der­ship” and “Lea­der” are incre­asing­ly pre­fer­red in Ger­man-spea­king con­texts over their nati­ve coun­ter­parts, such as “Manage­ment” and “Mana­ger” have beco­me stan­dard in ever­y­day usa­ge. This ten­den­cy will be explo­red fur­ther in the rele­vant sec­tion, along with the obser­va­ti­on that con­cepts such as “Agi­le Lea­der­ship” or “Digi­tal Lea­der­ship” are rare­ly trans­la­ted into Ger­man any­mo­re.
The pre­fe­rence for Eng­lish ter­mi­no­lo­gy is also evi­dent in other dis­cus­sions within the edu­ca­tio­nal field, such as tho­se on Open Edu­ca­ti­on, Open Edu­ca­tio­nal Resour­ces (OER), or Open Edu­ca­tio­nal Prac­ti­ces (OEP). This is part­ly becau­se the­se terms ori­gi­na­ted in inter­na­tio­nal con­texts and part­ly to ensu­re con­tin­ued rele­van­ce in glo­bal dis­cour­se.
While some may take issue with the inte­gra­ti­on of Eng­lish terms in Ger­man dis­cus­sions — a trend also reflec­ted in this text — the dyna­mic inter­sec­tions of edu­ca­ti­on, lear­ning, and digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on natu­ral­ly inha­bit this lin­gu­i­stic space.

The term Edu­ca­tio­nal was the­r­e­fo­re deli­bera­te­ly cho­sen for its broa­der and more fit­ting mea­ning. Ins­tead of opting for a see­mingly obvious but seman­ti­cal­ly mis­lea­ding trans­la­ti­on such as “agi­le Füh­rung im Bil­dungs­be­reich” (agi­le lea­der­ship in the field of edu­ca­ti­on), the con­sis­tent use of Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship has been main­tai­ned.
Fur­ther­mo­re, the pla­ce­ment of Edu­ca­tio­nal bet­ween Agi­le and Lea­der­ship unders­cores its cen­tral role as a bridge bet­ween the two. The term Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship thus embo­dies this par­ti­cu­lar per­spec­ti­ve and interpretation. 

Pathways through education 

In most cases, tho­se for whom edu­ca­ti­on is important or for whom edu­ca­ti­on has given them some­thing meaningful for their own path in a pro­cess of appro­pria­ti­on and deba­te asso­cia­te edu­ca­ti­on with some­thing posi­ti­ve – pos­si­bly with expe­ri­en­ces or con­se­quen­ces that can be cha­rac­te­ri­sed as descri­bed by the scho­lar in edu­ca­ti­on Wolf­gang Klaf­ki in the ope­ning quo­te, which he for­mu­la­ted in 1985. Some­thing that hel­ped them per­so­nal­ly, regard­less of their back­ground, to expe­ri­ence self-deter­mi­na­ti­on in cri­ti­cal thin­king and action as some­thing self-effec­ti­ve and empowe­ring. For in the “under­stan­ding of clas­si­cal edu­ca­tio­nal theo­ry, edu­ca­ti­on is gene­ral edu­ca­ti­on inso­far as it is sup­po­sed to be edu­ca­ti­on for all.“ (Klaf­ki 2007, S. 21; trans­la­ti­on with deeplPro, ori­gi­nal empha­sis)1

Lear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ever­yo­ne
And pre­su­ma­b­ly many peo­p­le start with their indi­vi­du­al and bio­gra­phi­cal refe­ren­ces when it comes to access to edu­ca­ti­on, in line with their ide­as of edu­ca­ti­on for all.

Abo­ve all, edu­ca­ti­on usual­ly plays an important role for tho­se for whom it meant ope­ning doors, who are less pri­vi­le­ged and, as it is said today, grew up more or less far remo­ved from edu­ca­ti­on. The­se indi­vi­du­als are often the first in their fami­lies to com­ple­te hig­her edu­ca­ti­on or pur­sue an aca­de­mic degree, which has sub­se­quent­ly shaped their lives. The­se so-cal­led first gene­ra­ti­on stu­dents are an important part of hig­her edu­ca­ti­on, repre­sen­ting the diver­si­ty of today’s cohorts of stu­dents (see the situa­ti­on of stu­dents in ger­ma­ny up to 2016)4 and in plan­ning5. For the­se indi­vi­du­als, edu­ca­ti­on is likely asso­cia­ted with the ope­ning and crea­ti­on of oppor­tu­ni­ties and access. 

he fact that this pro­por­ti­on of stu­dents has remain­ed rela­tively low to this day is well known and can be explai­ned by the low per­mea­bi­li­ty of the Ger­man edu­ca­ti­on sys­tem. The fact that the­re is still a lot of poten­ti­al in the area of per­mea­bi­li­ty has alre­a­dy been demons­tra­ted seve­ral times in repre­sen­ta­ti­ve, inter­na­tio­nal com­pa­ra­ti­ve stu­dies such as the IEA com­pa­ra­ti­ve stu­dy ICILS (Inter­na­tio­nal Com­pu­ter and Infor­ma­ti­on Liter­acy Stu­dy) 2018 (Eickel­mann et al., 2019)6 pro­ble­ma­tis­ed. Con­ver­se­ly, edu­ca­ti­on that is not made pos­si­ble also stands for the pre­ven­ti­on of deve­lo­p­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and life chan­ces. Edu­ca­ti­on is cru­cial! Edu­ca­ti­on matters! 

Sub­s­tainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goal 4 or SDG4
The social importance of acces­si­bi­li­ty beco­mes clea­rer when you look at the cur­rent 17 Sus­tainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals (SDGs)7 of the United Nati­ons, which the world has agreed to achie­ve by 2030. They are inten­ded to ensu­re sus­tainable deve­lo­p­ment on an eco­no­mic, social and eco­lo­gi­cal level and are aimed at pre­ser­ving and sha­ping the living envi­ron­ment of future generations. 

The 4th Sus­tainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goal or SDG4 is dedi­ca­ted to edu­ca­ti­on, which is con­side­red and trea­ted as a high prio­ri­ty. SDG48 is geared towards the fol­lo­wing glo­bal acti­vi­ty to pro­mo­te equal oppor­tu­ni­ties: “Equi­ta­ble qua­li­ty edu­ca­ti­on: Ensu­re inclu­si­ve and equi­ta­ble qua­li­ty edu­ca­ti­on and lifel­ong lear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties for all.” 

Agen­da “Bil­dung 2030”
In Ger­ma­ny, the Ger­man Com­mis­si­on for UNESCO is dis­cus­sing this glo­bal endea­vour for equi­ta­ble and high-qua­li­ty edu­ca­ti­on under “Agen­da Bil­dung 2030“9 and sup­port­ing its imple­men­ta­ti­on. A look at the rela­tively low pro­por­ti­on of adults with ter­tia­ry edu­ca­ti­on qua­li­fi­ca­ti­ons com­pared to the rest of the EU10 shows that Ger­ma­ny still has poten­ti­al for deve­lo­p­ment in rela­ti­on to the EU average. 

But regard­less of this, access to edu­ca­ti­on and edu­ca­tio­nal equi­ty in the sen­se of edu­ca­ti­on for all can­not be about less or more, but always about as much, good and bet­ter as possible! 

Becau­se we as a socie­ty, and espe­ci­al­ly as stake­hol­ders in the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor, have a respon­si­bi­li­ty to pro­vi­de the next generation(s) with a good (basic) edu­ca­ti­on that enables them to deal con­fi­dent­ly with uncer­tain­ties, ambi­gui­ties and con­stant (cul­tu­ral) chan­ge, to be able to act in the future and to make sus­tainable decis­i­ons and sol­ve future problems. 

Enabling future capacity to act

After more than a year of dis­rup­ti­on in the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor, it can be obser­ved that the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor as we have known it to date, with its stake­hol­ders, is cle­ar­ly not resi­li­ent and fle­xi­ble enough under cri­sis con­di­ti­ons. So what mode could be used to bet­ter orga­ni­ze edu­ca­ti­on under the­se cri­sis-rid­den con­di­ti­ons, which will con­ti­nue to be dif­fi­cult to plan for in the future, and cul­ti­va­te a sus­tainable capa­ci­ty to act? 

The chall­enge of uncer­tain­ty
A glan­ce at the Ger­man dai­ly press and public deba­te online is enough to get a pic­tu­re of the con­tra­dic­to­ry opi­ni­ons on the next sen­si­ble steps (ope­ning vs. clo­sing), to ascer­tain oppo­sing and some­ti­mes char­ged posi­ti­ons (pre­sence vs. online) or to gain a pic­tu­re of dis­il­lu­sio­ned actors (ful­film­ent of duty vs. self-assess­ment), to name just a few facets. 

In view of the pan­de­mic and its as yet unfo­re­seeable con­se­quen­ces, but also with a view to the ongo­ing digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on as a per­ma­nent, essen­ti­al social con­di­ti­on, the cen­tral chall­enge for the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor remains to enable fair access to edu­ca­ti­on for all and at the same time to think about edu­ca­ti­on in a future-ori­en­ted way and to rea­li­se it with con­tem­po­ra­ry edu­ca­tio­nal for­mats. This refers to lear­ning and edu­ca­tio­nal for­mats that enable lear­ners to gain expe­ri­ence with com­plex chal­lenges. This includes inde­pendent­ly deve­lo­ping solu­ti­ons to pro­blems for which the­re is more than one or no stan­dar­di­zed solu­ti­on, gai­ning expe­ri­ence in com­mu­ni­ca­ting and inter­ac­ting with diver­se peo­p­le and per­spec­ti­ves, and expe­ri­en­cing that ide­as for solu­ti­ons can also fail and lear­ning from mista­kes. As it is curr­ent­ly orga­ni­zed, the edu­ca­ti­on sys­tem appears to be bare­ly capa­ble of deal­ing with uncer­tain­ties and ambi­gui­ties in a con­fi­dent man­ner, as well as pre­pa­ring stu­dents for deal­ing with com­plex pro­blems and issues across the dif­fe­rent are­as of education. 

Per­so­nal Growth
But what does it mean to enable per­so­nal edu­ca­ti­on or per­so­nal growth in a sus­tainable way or to rea­li­se con­tem­po­ra­ry education? 

It is basi­cal­ly what Wolf­gang Klaf­ki descri­bes in his quo­te at the begin­ning. It is very much about a per­so­nal per­spec­ti­ve that goes bey­ond uni­fy­ing stan­dar­diza­ti­ons or a one-size-fits-all solu­ti­on, for exam­p­le in lear­ning or edu­ca­tio­nal oppor­tu­ni­ties. In essence, it is about a per­son-ori­en­ta­ti­on or lear­ner-ori­en­ta­ti­on that does not view the varie­ty or diver­si­ty of lear­ners’ needs as a chall­enge, but rather the­se dif­fe­rent approa­ches, needs and per­spec­ti­ves as sources and resour­ces of diver­se per­spec­ti­ves and oppor­tu­ni­ties for the cour­se of indi­vi­du­al edu­ca­tio­nal processes. 

And even if edu­ca­ti­on is always an indi­vi­du­al pro­cess that is based on one’s own histo­ry, pre­vious know­ledge and pre­vious expe­ri­en­ces, some­thing as abs­tract as edu­ca­ti­on usual­ly hap­pens when the­re is an inter­ac­tion, an exch­an­ge with some­thing or with other peo­p­le. Put sim­ply, edu­ca­tio­nal pro­ces­ses take place on occa­si­ons that irri­ta­te you, per­haps even shake up your pre­vious atti­tu­des or images of the world and thus put you in a minor or major per­so­nal cri­sis situa­ti­on. A reflec­ti­ve, pro­duc­ti­ve or cri­ti­cal con­fron­ta­ti­on with such a situa­ti­on and, in the best case, over­co­ming it lea­ves its mark on us. Edu­ca­ti­on the­r­e­fo­re always means chan­ge. Gene­ral­ly spea­king, this refers to how indi­vi­du­als see and per­cei­ve the world and them­sel­ves and reflect on this rela­ti­onship. A world that is beco­ming more com­plex and places incre­asing­ly hig­her demands on our own abili­ty to reflect. This pro­cess of edu­ca­ti­on can be seen as a per­so­nal transformation. 

Edu­ca­ti­on some­ti­mes takes place con­scious­ly and pur­po­seful­ly, some­ti­mes we hard­ly noti­ce it. Per­haps we only rea­li­se later that we have under­go­ne infor­mal trai­ning in cer­tain are­as. At other times, we have deli­bera­te­ly sel­ec­ted edu­ca­tio­nal pro­gram­mes and are also inte­res­ted in see­ing whe­ther and what we know or can do more of after­wards and want to have this cer­ti­fied in a sui­ta­ble form. 

Con­tem­po­ra­ry needs
When peo­p­le ask what child­ren, young peo­p­le or adults, but also seni­or citi­zens, should learn in edu­ca­tio­nal insti­tu­ti­ons today becau­se they need it in ever­y­day life and for life in order to be com­pe­tent today, but rather for the future, in order to deal with incre­asing com­ple­xi­ty, the­re is usual­ly a refe­rence to cri­ti­cal facul­ties or “being cri­ti­cal”. With refe­rence to the cur­rent digi­ta­liza­ti­on and digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on, comm­ents are often made in the direc­tion of media skills, inclu­ding chan­ged com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on skills or digi­tal skills. Not infre­quent­ly in con­nec­tion with the important refe­rence to the con­tin­ued importance of direct com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on and tog­e­ther­ness or, more gene­ral­ly, the role of per­so­nal rela­ti­onships as social glue. 

The situa­ti­on during the pan­de­mic shows very cle­ar­ly whe­re the way we will com­mu­ni­ca­te, work and live with each other in the future is hea­ding. How many of us are now able to take part in a video con­fe­rence with one or more peo­p­le via our smart­phone, tablet or com­pu­ter or use mes­sen­ger ser­vices ins­tead of wri­ting long emails as a mat­ter of cour­se? Hand­writ­ten paper let­ters or cards are now rare – and at the same time have beco­me a very spe­cial ges­tu­re among all the digi­tal forms of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. How many have casual­ly star­ted to learn, for exam­p­le, to make appoint­ments via online por­tals as a mat­ter of cour­se, to buy tickets online with an app or at a ticket machi­ne, wit­hout thin­king about how many com­pu­ters are now instal­led in our ever­y­day lives and whe­re which data is nee­ded and what hap­pens to it? In addi­ti­on, more and more online lear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties are emer­ging in a varie­ty of ways, espe­ci­al­ly for per­so­nal development. 

At the same time, in addi­ti­on to digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on, as addres­sed by the 17 SDGs men­tio­ned abo­ve, the­re are other major chal­lenges ahead of us, such as demo­gra­phic chan­ge and cli­ma­te chan­ge, and the­r­e­fo­re the ques­ti­on of how we want to live in the future and what we should have lear­ned for this. Or to put it ano­ther way, how can we prepa­re our­sel­ves as well as pos­si­ble today for a future that we can only guess at today? 

Future-Rea­di­ness and Hig­her Edu­ca­ti­on
In the field of hig­her edu­ca­ti­on, the­re is incre­asing talk of pro­mo­ting future skills, par­ti­cu­lar­ly with regard to digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on and mecha­ni­sa­ti­on, in order to prepa­re stu­dents for future pro­fes­si­ons and fields of acti­vi­ty. The spe­ci­fic focus of such com­pe­ten­ces is debatable. 

Here, they are used as an exam­p­le for the chal­len­ging task of desig­ning stu­dy pro­grams in the field of hig­her edu­ca­ti­on, which must strike a balan­ce bet­ween sub­ject-spe­ci­fic and inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry skills acquisition. 

At the same time, future skills are exem­pla­ry of how the dis­cus­sions about the rela­ti­onship bet­ween spe­cia­li­zed edu­ca­ti­on and gene­ral edu­ca­ti­on are still being con­duc­ted today, which topics are being deba­ted and which offers are ulti­m­ate­ly available to stu­dents. It goes wit­hout say­ing that all tho­se invol­ved are cer­tain­ly stri­ving for the best for cur­rent and future stu­dents and want to pro­vi­de them with the best pos­si­ble con­di­ti­ons for good uni­ver­si­ty degrees, but over­co­ming exis­ting stu­dy struc­tures requi­res a gre­at deal of com­mit­ment from many sides. 

This means that tried and tes­ted struc­tures and cur­rent neces­si­ties are some­ti­mes at odds with each other. This is becau­se to this day, sub­ject-spe­ci­fi­ci­ty or the “right” sub­ject con­tent is still gene­ral­ly given the hig­hest prio­ri­ty. Many will remem­ber the con­ver­si­on of the Euro­pean hig­her edu­ca­ti­on sys­tem in the ear­ly 2000s as part of the Bolo­gna reform, when the so-cal­led ‘tra­di­tio­nal stu­dy pro­grams’ with Magis­ter or Diplom degrees were trans­for­med into new Bachelor’s and Master’s degree pro­gram­mes based on modu­les (The ‘Staats­examen’ plays a spe­cial role in this con­text up to the pre­sent ). Alt­hough the­re was a broad con­sen­sus on the reform, it was most­ly car­ri­ed out in the form of trans­fer­ring as much cur­ri­cu­lar con­tent as pos­si­ble from the old degree pro­gram­mes into new modu­les. Cri­ti­cal scru­ti­ny and con­side­ra­ti­on of the spe­ci­fic objec­ti­ves behind the new modu­les or which sub­ject-spe­ci­fic or inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry com­pe­ten­ces should be pro­mo­ted and asses­sed and how, were negle­c­ted, espe­ci­al­ly in the ear­ly stages of the reform. Due to for­mal capa­ci­ty rest­ric­tions in the form of stan­dar­di­zed cre­dit points, which repre­sent available time units per degree pro­gram­me, degree pro­gram­mes and modu­les can­not be expan­ded at will. To this day, the chall­enge of every degree pro­gram­me reform, but also a con­stant­ly rene­wed oppor­tu­ni­ty, is to con­sider and nego­tia­te, ide­al­ly tog­e­ther with stu­dents, how many cre­dit points should be award­ed for which con­tent or com­pe­ten­ces and for how many cre­dit points, given a cap­ped total amount. 

Aca­de­mic disci­pli­ne, per­so­nal growth and employa­bi­li­ty
To this day, the design of modu­les is hand­led dif­fer­ent­ly depen­ding on the edu­ca­tio­nal orga­ni­sa­ti­on, but sub­ject con­tent is always con­fron­ted with new inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry con­tent and skills. This often rai­ses the ques­ti­on of whe­ther inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry con­tent such as lan­guage acqui­si­ti­on, digi­tal skills, rese­arch methods or sci­en­ti­fic theo­ry should be inte­gra­ted sepa­ra­te­ly in a gene­ral stu­dies or elec­ti­ve area or in the spe­cia­li­sed degree pro­gram­mes. In addi­ti­on, incre­asing digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on is also chan­ging the sub­ject con­tent its­elf and new sub­ject are­as are deve­lo­ping, such as digi­tal huma­ni­ties in the huma­ni­ties. In many cases, the­se requi­re­ments ari­se direct­ly from prac­ti­ce or the later field of work of stu­dents who do not remain at uni­ver­si­ty and pur­sue an aca­de­mic care­er. The Ger­man Coun­cil of Sci­ence and Huma­ni­ties empha­si­s­es how rele­vant it is for uni­ver­si­ties to make con­tri­bu­ti­ons to (spe­cia­list) sci­ence, per­so­nal deve­lo­p­ment and labour mar­ket pre­pa­ra­ti­on in equal mea­su­re with a view to the indi­vi­du­al and the labour mar­ket (Wis­sen­schafts­rat 2015)11 . Howe­ver, espe­ci­al­ly sin­ce the Bolo­gna reform, the con­cept of employa­bi­li­ty of stu­dents, which was pro­min­ent­ly intro­du­ced the­re, has always been view­ed cri­ti­cal­ly, espe­ci­al­ly at uni­ver­si­ties with their con­sti­tu­tio­nal­ly gua­ran­teed right to free­dom of rese­arch and teaching. 

Despi­te incre­asing invol­vement in the social trans­fer sec­tor, uni­ver­si­ties in par­ti­cu­lar still see them­sel­ves more stron­gly con­nec­ted to the tra­di­ti­on of edu­ca­ti­on through sci­ence and the free­dom of rese­arch. This may help to explain why the rea­liza­ti­on of a con­tem­po­ra­ry edu­ca­ti­on for all, which can be simul­ta­neous­ly rela­ted to (spe­cia­list) sci­ence, per­so­nal deve­lo­p­ment and pre­pa­ra­ti­on for the labour mar­ket, is still a chall­enge for the hig­her edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor today in terms of imple­men­ta­ti­on within the frame­work of exis­ting degree pro­gram­me structures. 

Skills shaping the future

With a view to sus­tainable edu­ca­ti­on, the focus at this point is less on edu­ca­tio­nal forms and con­cepts and more on com­pe­ten­ces and sub­jects as well as the way in which edu­ca­ti­on or lear­ning can take place in a foward-loo­king man­ner within this frame­work. Always with a view to the digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on of the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor that is curr­ent­ly taking place. 

Media-rela­ted skills and data liter­acy
Sub­ject are­as that are curr­ent­ly regard­ed as new, future-ori­en­ted com­pe­ten­ces (not only) for the hig­her edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor are still what used to be refer­red to as media liter­acy and are now refer­red to for tea­chers and lear­ners in Ger­ma­ny as “edu­ca­ti­on in the digi­tal world” (Kul­tus­mi­nis­ter­kon­fe­renz 2017)12 or gene­ral­ly for citi­zens under Digi­tal Competence/ Digi­ta­le Kom­pe­ten­zen13.

Sin­ce our media-per­me­a­ted world is incre­asing­ly data­fied, i.e. data is the basis for many things such as arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence, machi­ne lear­ning and, for exam­p­le, lear­ning ana­ly­tics in the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor, and is beco­ming incre­asing­ly important, data liter­acy of all actors is of cen­tral importance.
(Schül­ler et al., 2019)14 and Edu­ca­tio­nal Data Liter­acy im Kon­text von Lear­ning Ana­ly­tics im Hoch­schul­kon­text (e.g. Ifen­tha­ler, 2020)15 .

21st Cen­tu­ry Skills and Future Skills
Espe­ci­al­ly for stu­dents, skills that go bey­ond spe­ci­fic digi­tal appli­ca­ti­ons and are gene­ral­ly bund­led under the hea­ding of 21st cen­tu­ry skills (e.g. 21st-cen­tu­ry lear­ning ((http://www.oecd.org/general/thecasefor21st-centurylearning.htm, acces­sed 31.03.2021)), simi­lar to what used to be cal­led key com­pe­ten­ci­es) are con­side­red important, alt­hough they are curr­ent­ly always con­side­red against the back­ground of digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on and a media-per­me­a­ted and data-infu­sed living envi­ron­ment for all. 

The­se include the so-cal­led 4C oder 4K (Fadel et al., 2017)16 such as cra­ti­vi­ty, cri­ti­cal thin­king, com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on an col­la­bo­ra­ti­on or so-cal­led future skills17, which go in a simi­lar direc­tion and can expand the per­spec­ti­ve to include fur­ther com­pe­ten­ci­es such as entre­pre­neur­ship, self-deter­mi­na­ti­on or decis­i­on-making skills (see i.e. Ehlers, 2020)18. For seve­ral years, the­re has been much writ­ten and said about the­se fields of com­pe­tence and, abo­ve all, con­side­ra­ti­on has been given to how and whe­re they can be sys­te­ma­ti­cal­ly inte­gra­ted into uni­ver­si­ty tea­ching, bey­ond indi­vi­du­al tea­chers or cour­ses of stu­dy that have alre­a­dy adopted them in an exem­pla­ry and relia­ble approa­ches. Howe­ver useful this com­pe­ten­ces may be, they alre also being dis­cus­sed cri­ti­cal­ly in terms of the ext­ent to which the inte­rests of aca­de­mic lear­ning or exter­nal inte­rests, such as com­pa­nies, pre­vail in deter­mi­ning what ist curr­ent­ly rele­vant. And so, in addi­ti­on to sub­ject-rela­ted and inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry issues, dif­fe­rent inte­rests are also at sta­ke here. 

Inte­gra­ti­on
Irre­spec­ti­ve of this, the chall­enge for inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry skills still lies in the sys­te­ma­tic and man­da­to­ry imple­men­ta­ti­on of such cour­ses in the lear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties offe­red by Insti­tu­ti­ons of Hig­her Edu­ca­ti­on– and in a way that also makes it clear to stu­dents that this is seen as high­ly rele­vant to the con­tent and not an optio­nal pro­gram­me that should not dis­rupt the sub­ject con­tent. Depen­ding on the uni­ver­si­ty pro­fi­le, a gene­ral stu­dies pro­gram­me or a simi­lar pro­gram­me with a dif­fe­rent name has been stan­dard for years or the­re is still a strugg­le over the loca­ti­on, timing and pro­por­ti­on of the over­all degree pro­gram­me. The fact that inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry stu­dy pro­gram­mes still count as a distin­gu­is­hing fea­ture for uni­ver­si­ties today says a lot about the sta­tus of the dis­cus­sion as a who­le and shows that the­re is still a need for the cor­re­spon­ding deve­lo­p­ment of tea­ching pro­gram­mes. A con­fi­dent ‘as well as’ of aca­de­mic disci­pli­ne, per­so­nal growth and employa­bi­li­ty, taking all inte­rests into account, can be expe­di­ent here.

21st Cen­tu­ry Skills and ‘Bil­dung’
The­se examp­les of hig­her edu­ca­ti­on can also be trans­fer­red to other are­as of edu­ca­ti­on, as the com­pe­ten­ces men­tio­ned are rele­vant for all citi­zens who have not yet had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to acqui­re them or would like to impro­ve them on an ongo­ing basis. 

In addi­ti­on to a prag­ma­tic view of what is rele­vant for sur­vi­val in ever­y­day life and in com­pa­nies or in the pro­fes­sio­nal field, 21st Cen­tu­ry Skills and other future-ori­en­ted approa­ches always take into account their respec­ti­ve con­tri­bu­ti­on to the per­so­nal growth of various actors. For exam­p­le, 21st Cen­tu­ry Skills also includes much of the demand for edu­ca­ti­on as found in Klaf­ki, whe­re the focus is on empowe­ring lear­ners to self-deter­mi­na­ti­on on the basis of reason. Cri­ti­cal thin­king and col­la­bo­ra­ti­on as well as com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on are fields that should con­tri­bu­te to inde­pen­dent and moral thin­king and the abili­ty to act, to be able to tack­le (soci­al­ly) rele­vant pro­blems with new approa­ches and not just sub­mit to pre­vious gui­de­lines (hete­ro­no­my). Self-acti­vi­ty or self-acti­vi­ty is the form of lear­ning, tea­ching or gene­ral­ly enab­ling edu­ca­ti­on that Klaf­ki empha­si­s­es for this. One could also say that being crea­ti­ve ones­elf, lear­ning from one’s own mista­kes and thus taking respon­si­bi­li­ty for one’s own actions and their con­se­quen­ces is what essen­ti­al­ly cha­rac­te­ri­ses edu­ca­ti­on. In this con­text, in addi­ti­on to indi­vi­du­al action, rela­ti­onships also play a sti­mu­la­ting role in joint action, as they are more likely in the con­text of co-ope­ra­ti­on and collaboration. 

In this respect, the new future-ori­en­ted skills are not so new, even though clea­rer demands and inte­rests are being signal­led today, such as what com­pa­nies expect from uni­ver­si­ty gra­dua­tes. Howe­ver, depen­ding on the per­spec­ti­ve and inten­si­ty of imple­men­ta­ti­on of future skills or 21st cen­tu­ry skills with their 4Cs, the core ide­as of edu­ca­ti­on, which accor­ding to Klaf­ki (2007)1 are reflec­ted in the abili­ty to self-deter­mi­na­ti­on and co-deter­mi­na­ti­on as well as the abili­ty to show soli­da­ri­ty, can also be found here. 

Par­ti­cu­lar­ly with regard to our social, demo­cra­tic coexis­tence, aspects such as diver­si­ty and the abili­ty to show soli­da­ri­ty are once again of enorm­ous importance in view of social deve­lo­p­ment in the cour­se of the digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on. And we have this respon­si­bi­li­ty for the next generation(s) – to pro­vi­de them with a frame­work for edu­ca­ti­on that allows them to deal con­fi­dent­ly with the uncer­tain­ties and chal­lenges of the social, digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on and to think about and deve­lop smart, sus­tainable and new ide­as for a shift in the labour mar­ket or new forms of (lifel­ong) lear­ning. Bil­dung matters! 

Agile Educational Leadership in the education sector

Whe­re and how we con­scious­ly or casual­ly per­cei­ve edu­ca­ti­on depends enti­re­ly on the edu­ca­tio­nal con­text in which we find our­sel­ves. In other words, whe­ther we are in a more infor­mal edu­ca­tio­nal con­text (such as a muse­um or a vir­tu­al com­mu­ni­ty) or more in a non-for­mal (such as an adult edu­ca­ti­on cent­re or a free­ly acces­si­ble online self-stu­dy cour­se) or for­mal edu­ca­tio­nal con­text (such as a school or vir­tu­al Master’s degree cour­se). The for­mal or insti­tu­tio­nal edu­ca­tio­nal con­text, which is the par­ti­cu­lar focus here, is still cha­rac­te­ri­sed by the fact that insti­tu­tio­na­li­sed lear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties are offe­red here in a struc­tu­red man­ner along frame­work spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons and with the pos­si­bi­li­ty of pro­of in the form of cer­ti­fi­ca­ti­ons or certificates. 

Ecu­ca­tio­nal con­text: hig­her edu­ca­ti­on
The con­cep­tu­al and prac­ti­cal idea behind Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship is to take a cri­ti­cal and con­s­truc­ti­ve look at values and prac­ti­ces from the con­text of Agi­le Lea­der­ship in par­ti­cu­lar with regard to their adap­ta­bi­li­ty for the various edu­ca­tio­nal con­texts – abo­ve all, howe­ver, in the for­mal or insti­tu­tio­na­li­zed edu­ca­tio­nal con­text and here exem­pla­ry for hig­her education. 

A basic assump­ti­on is that agi­le edu­ca­tio­nal lea­der­ship can be adopted by indi­vi­du­al actors in the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor across all edu­ca­tio­nal are­as, from ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­ti­on to work with ado­le­s­cents and young adults to seni­or citi­zens, as well as in the enti­re school and ter­tia­ry sec­tor, inclu­ding fur­ther edu­ca­ti­on and a lifel­ong lear­ning per­spec­ti­ve. The hig­her edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor can also be included here. 

Fol­lo­wing the Bolo­gna reform descri­bed abo­ve, a par­ti­cu­lar chall­enge in the deve­lo­p­ment of tea­ching and thus edu­ca­tio­nal pro­gram­mes in the hig­her edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor is that suc­cess in tea­ching is less pres­ti­gious for uni­ver­si­ty lec­tu­r­ers than suc­cess in rese­arch. Accor­din­gly, the com­mit­ment to impro­ving tea­ching and stu­dies and enab­ling con­tem­po­ra­ry edu­ca­ti­on is always a per­so­nal con­side­ra­ti­on for par­ti­cu­lar­ly inte­res­ted lec­tu­r­ers. Thus, com­mit­ment to tea­ching tends to take place at the micro level of spe­ci­fic cour­ses or at the meso level of cour­se and pro­gram­me plan­ning. At the macro level, simi­lar trade-offs are made bet­ween tea­ching and research. 

Limits of adap­ti­on
The edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor is a spe­cial frame­work in terms of its dif­fe­ren­tia­ti­on, its struc­tures and also in rela­ti­on to the actors invol­ved. It quick­ly beco­mes clear that approa­ches from manage­ment theo­ry, cor­po­ra­te manage­ment and pro­ject deve­lo­p­ment, for exam­p­le, can­not be appli­ed to other non-cor­po­ra­te con­texts wit­hout hesi­ta­ti­on. This is pre­cis­e­ly why the edu­ca­tio­nal aspect is of cen­tral importance in the Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship approach on which this is based. It is the­r­e­fo­re important to take the­se par­ti­cu­la­ri­ties into account when adap­ting and deve­lo­ping your own con­text-rela­ted agi­le prac­ti­ces in the edu­ca­ti­on sector. 

This is whe­re the first balan­cing act ari­ses: a good balan­ce is nee­ded for this adapt­a­ti­on per­spec­ti­ve in order to take account of the exis­ting struc­tures in the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor on the one hand, so that points of cont­act beco­me visi­ble and can be uti­li­zed. On the other hand, it also requi­res open­ness to allow the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­ti­on of new prac­ti­ces. It is the­r­e­fo­re a ques­ti­on of ‘both and’. 

Start­ing point aktors
Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der­ship, which goes hand in hand with both an atti­tu­de and a com­pe­tence that is not clas­si­cal­ly lin­ked to a posi­ti­on at manage­ment level, starts at the point of ‘both and’. Rather, the idea of lea­der­ship can be sup­port­ed by every actor in the respec­ti­ve edu­ca­tio­nal orga­ni­sa­ti­on and con­tri­bu­ted to joint action. This means that ever­yo­ne can be an Agi­le Edu­ca­tio­nal Lea­der in their own area. 

 
  1. Klaf­ki, W. (2007). Neue Stu­di­en zur Bil­dungs­theo­rie und Didak­tik. Zeit­ge­mä­ße All­ge­mein­bil­dung und kri­tisch-kon­struk­ti­ve Didak­tik. (6. Aufl.). Wein­heim und Basel: Beltz. [] [] []
  2. Licence: https://de.freepik.com/psd/mockup”>Mockup PSD by Vec­to­ri­um — de.freepik.com; book-cover by Kers­tin Mayr­ber­ger, Lizenz CC BY 4.0 []
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildung, retrie­ved on 31.03.2021 []
  4. https://www.bmbf.de/de/der-studierendensurvey-1036.html, acces­sed on 31/03/2021 []
  5. https://www.die-studierendenbefragung.de, acces­sed on 31/03/2021 []
  6. Eickel­mann, B., Bos, W., Gerick, J., Gold­ham­mer, F., Schaum­burg, H., Schwip­pert, K., Senk­beil, M. & Vah­ren­hold, J. (eds.) (2019). ICILS 2018 #Deutsch­land Com­pu­ter- und infor­ma­ti­ons­be­zo­ge­ne Kom­pe­ten­zen von Schü­le­rin­nen und Schü­lern im zwei­ten inter­na­tio­na­len Ver­gleich und Kom­pe­ten­zen im Bereich Com­pu­ta­tio­nal Thin­king. Müns­ter: Wax­mann. Retrie­ved 16.03.2021, from https://www.waxmann.com/?eID=texte&pdf=4000Volltext.pdf&typ=zusatztext []
  7. https://sdgs.un.org/goals, acces­sed 31/03/2021 []
  8. https://www.eda.admin.ch/agenda2030/de/home/agenda-2030/die-17-ziele-fuer-eine-nachhaltige-entwicklung/ziel-4-inklusive-gleichberechtigte-und-hochwertige-bildung.html, acces­sed 31/03/2021 []
  9. https://www.unesco.de/bildung/agenda-bildung-2030/bildung-und-die-sdgs, acces­sed 31 March 2021 []
  10. https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/europa/299805/hochschulabschluss, acces­sed 31 March 2021 and https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1099110/umfrage/bevoelkerungsanteil-in-den-eu-laendern-mit-hochschulabschluss/, acces­sed 31 March 2021 []
  11. Wis­sen­schafts­rat (2015). Emp­feh­lun­gen zum Ver­hält­nis von Hoch­schul­bil­dung und Arbeits­markt. Bie­le­feld. Acces­sed 16.03.2021, from www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/4925 – 15.pdf []
  12. Kon­fe­renz der Kul­tus­mi­nis­ter der Län­der in der Bun­des­re­pu­blik Deutsch­land. (2017). Stra­te­gie „Bil­dung in der digi­ta­len Welt“ (Reso­lu­ti­on of the KMK of 08.12.2016 in the ver­si­on of 07.12.2017). Ber­lin. Acces­sed 16.03.2021, from www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/pdf/PresseUndAktuelles/2018/Digitalstrategie_2017_mit_Weiterbildung.pdf []
  13. Dig­Comp 2.1; https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/digcomp-21-digital-competence-framework-citizens-eight-proficiency-levels-and-examples-use, retrie­ved 31.03.2021 []
  14. Schül­ler, K., Busch, P., & Hin­din­ger, C. (2019). Future Skills: Ein Frame­work für Data Liter­acy – Kom­pe­tenz­rah­men und For­schungs­be­richt. Arbeits­pa­pier Nr. 47. Ber­lin: Hoch­schul­fo­rum Digi­ta­li­sie­rung. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3349865) For both per­spec­ti­ves, gene­ral media-rela­ted com­pe­ten­ces and data com­pe­ten­ces, sepa­ra­te edu-com­pe­ten­ces are again named for tea­chers or actors working in the edu­ca­ti­on sec­tor in gene­ral, buil­ding on the respec­ti­ve per­so­nal com­pe­ten­ces, as in the Euro­pean Frame­work for the Digi­tal Com­pe­tence of Edu­ca­tors, the Dig­Com­pE­du (Rede­cker, 2017) ((Rede­cker, C. (2017). Euro­pean Frame­work for the Digi­tal Com­pe­tence of Edu­ca­tors: Dig­Com­pE­du. In E. Punie (ed.), EUR2877S EN. Luxem­burg: Publi­ca­ti­ons Of- fice of the Euro­pean Uni­on. Acces­sed 31.03.2021 from http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reposi- tory/handle/JRC107466 []
  15. Ifen­tha­ler, D. (2020). Lear­ning Ana­ly­tics im Hoch­schul­kon­text – Poten­zia­le aus Sicht von Stake­hol­dern, Daten­schutz und Hand­lungs­emp­feh­lun­gen. In R. A. Fürst (ed.), Digi­ta­le Bil­dung und Künst­li­che Intel­li­genz in Deutsch­land. Nach­hal­ti­ge Wett­be­werbs­fä­hig­keit und Zukunfts­agen­da (S. 519 – 535). Wies­ba­den: Sprin­ger []
  16. Fadel, C., Bia­lik, M. & Tri­ling, B. (2017). Die vier Dimen­sio­nen der Bil­dung. Was Schü­le­rin­nen und Schü­ler im 21. Jahr­hun­dert ler­nen müs­sen. Ham­burg: Ver­lag ZLL21 e.V []
  17. see i.e. https://www.future-skills.net/, abge­ru­fen am 31.03.2021 []
  18. Ehlers, U.-D. (2020). Future Skills. Wies­ba­den: Sprin­ger VS []
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