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UNESCO's Four Pillars of Learning Applied Essay

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UNESCO’s four pillars of education (learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be) are guiding principles for educational change that emphasize a holistic and sustainable approach – a higher order set of skills to aspire for self-actualization to better meet our complex and ever-changing world. The pillars cut through cultural differences and unify all ages; they emphasize the basic individual right towards a new vision of life-long learning for the 21st Century. “Lifelong learning” covers learning from preschool age to post-retirement age ; however, much attention and research have been focused on education and learning for children and youth with little attention focused on the adult aspect of …show more content…

I realized early on in my field study that the non-traditional ‘classroom’ setting of place of work was in fact an ideal source to observe evidence (or lack-there-of) of the values promoted in ‘learning to do’, the pillar I would like to highlight in this paper.
According to the UNESCO report Learning the Treasure Within (1996), the value of ‘learning to do’ not only involves acquiring “an occupational skill, but also more broadly, the competence to deal with many situations...It also means learning to do in a context of … various social and work experiences, which may be informal as a result of the local or national context, or formal, involving courses, alternating study and work.” Interestingly when this report was issued in 1996, the vision was of creating and educating competent, skilled and mature individuals who were able to positively contribute to society; however, recent financial collapses in the global market due to dishonest and irresponsible conduct of members of the workforce have influenced the importance of ‘transparency’ and ‘sustainability’ of company interactions and transactions; this in turn has created a new focus for the values of learning to do. In UNESCO’s more recent publication, the Revised Recommendation concerning

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