Education in times of crisis, transformations, uncertainties and future challenges
Within the "Latin American Critical Thought Notebooks" Collection, CLACSO presents "Education in Times of Crisis, Transformations, Uncertainties and Future Challenges," by Jorge Rojas Hernández
Education in times of crisis, transformations, uncertainties and future challenges
Jorge Rojas Hernández*
Societies of uneducated individuals?
The title of this short text sounds provocative. It can be. It is truly an invitation to reflect on the threats that currently affect education in different countries, regions and at the international level. It is expressed in attacks on knowledge, social sciences, science in general, and universities, research centers, and institutions related to training, research, and education. Education has played a relevant role in modern times – indeed, since the Athenians of ancient Greece – in the process of developing personality, subjectivity, values, habits, and civic behavior. In general, public education has contributed in part to cohesion in societies, socializing in common values, history, democracy, culture, traditions, identity, and civic rights, allowing some level of integration and social mobility. Education, at its different levels, is constantly affected by social crises and upheavals, which force it to rethink and adapt to the new realities and challenges it faces in regional and global processes of transformation. Currently, education is experiencing a profound crisis and is also being criticized and dismantled by far-right conservative political groups and governments. This is manifested, for example, in high levels of youth dropout from education and in teachers' discouragement from teaching. The new right, defined in different ways: neopopulists, far-right conservatism, neofascist, technofascists. These elitist political sectors deny education, as an expression of the so-called Enlightenment movement that promoted - in contexts of socio-cultural and political struggles - the process of modernization of society, which has been historically embodied in forms of democracy, freedom and citizens' rights, of women, ethnic groups, children, young people and, in general, of the people. A system of domination without education, without democracy and lacking rights, is the strategy that mobilizes and unites this new right wing worldwide, anti-Enlightenment and anti-democracy. The current crisis in education and the threatening emergence of ultraconservative trends that deny it forces us to rethink the meaning of education, its conceptual, epistemological and methodological foundations. In this sense, the co-production of knowledge can contribute to decolonizing knowledge from the South and raising the importance of local knowledge in the construction of economic, social, ecological, cultural and institutional systems of the localities, contributing qualitatively to their own developments and therefore to society as a whole. The vocation of “building community” or educating in and for the “common good” is something that is repeated a lot in the process of modernizing education, although its implementation has always been restricted and partial, presenting enormous social and cognitive gaps, especially in the least developed countries and regions. Seeking the collective, superior narratives or those above the individual, is difficult to do in times of individualistic and consumerist character, like the present. But it is possible, by opening spaces that can be progressively expanded and deepened. In this context, the current crisis that education is experiencing, at its different levels, requires new ideas, conceptions and epistemologies. The pandemic years have also severely affected educational processes: school, secondary education, and higher education. In a way, the meaning of education, of the interaction between teachers and students in the new contexts, has been lost. Therefore, it is necessary to recover the mystique, the human intercommunication of teaching and learning, the commitment and the joy of teaching. A better and new interrelationship between teachers and students. On the other hand, the new technological revolution underway will profoundly shake the foundations of the prevailing teaching and learning system - inherited from the industrial era - and will profoundly impact the foundations of developed societies, the most backward societies, and the so-called emerging societies. It will shake them up in several ways: i) in the way of teaching and learning; ii) in the type of skills and professional profile of its graduates; iii) in institutional management; iv) in the employability of the professionals it trains in its classrooms; and v) in its relationship with society in the process of transformation and the planet in a growing and threatening situation of global ecological crisis. This transformation must also be considered in the conception of the new education. In any case, education continues to play a relevant role in the knowledge society, as a fundamental factor in the process of socialization and social and cultural mobility, as Juan Carlos Tedesco (2014) very aptly puts it: “In short, it is necessary to break the institutional isolation of the school, redefining its pacts with the other socializing agents, particularly the family and the media. But what should be the specific role of the school? In the context of the analysis we have carried out so far, it seems necessary to emphasize the idea that the school must assume a significant part of the training in the hard aspects of socialization. This does not mean advocating rigidity, memory, authority, etc., but rather accepting that their task is to consciously and systematically carry out the construction of the foundations of the personality of new generations” (Tedesco, 2014:67). This role is even more necessary and urgent in the current complexities experienced by modern society and the world, marked by multiple crises, loss of existential meaning, hyper-individualism, transformations, wars and regional conflicts, and uncertainties about the future. To better understand the complex situation in which education currently finds itself, it is important and necessary to review the prevailing model, as we will do below, with the vision of two prominent research biologists.
The economics of the school
Evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, in their work The Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, analyze the characteristics and projections of modern schooling and education, which reproduces cultures and systems of subordination and domination. They call it the “school economy”: “For children, school can be understood as the commodification of love and upbringing. In other words, it's a bit like outsourcing the latter. We have already seen many of the negative aspects and risks of reductionism. Here's another one: reductionism facilitates the commodification of things that are easy to quantify and tends to ignore those that are more difficult to count. Thus, school is reduced to a series of parameters: how much, how fast, or how skillfully does this child read? Do you know your multiplication tables? Have you ever memorized a poem? It goes without saying that reading, multiplying and knowing about poetry entails an evident and imperishable value. But focusing on speed or quantity is a mistake. What thousands of other things are not being learned in school because they resist falling victim to reductionist evaluation? The school is based on economic profitability, but lacks imagination regarding possibilities. The economics of schooling, not to mention the perverse incentives behind compulsory education, often fills children's heads with knowledge, but does not show them the path to wisdom (...) Perhaps school should fulfill the purpose of helping young people address the following question: who am I and what am I going to do about the most serious and important problem that I can solve with my gifts and abilities? Or: how do I find my consciousness, my most authentic self?... But instead of focusing on any version of these questions, modern schooling, especially the compulsory education spread throughout the WEIRD world, is more likely to teach calmness and submission” (Heying, H. & Weinstein, B. 2022: 229-230). The authors elaborate on explaining the logics of subjugation implicit in the modern school and its pedagogical systems. Its commercial reductionism and methods prevent children and young people from fulfilling themselves according to their own subjectivities, vocations and personal needs for present development with a future projection. They consider children and young people as passive individuals, objects of the educational process; devoid of character and their own interests and as mere reproducers of information and knowledge prefabricated by a system alien to their interests that seeks to dominate them. Moreover, the system operates with fear as a control mechanism, inhibiting self-development, preventing personal opinions and reflections, which ultimately denies the creative and innovative capacity of the developing human being. Interesting interrelationship: far-right conservative political groups, at an international level, also use fear to control the population and prevent the emergence of socio-cultural, labor, ethnic, feminist and environmental movements that fight for their rights, to achieve improvements in their quality of life, in the protection of nature and in the realization of emancipatory human aspirations. “Fear is a convenient control mechanism; it should not surprise us that teachers use it to subdue students of all ages. As corporal punishment lost acceptance in many places, though not all, it was replaced by psychological and emotional control, which is seen less often. Children are threatened with bad grades and difficult exams, and with having their parents told about their bad behavior… Good teachers are trapped in an increasingly profuse system of indicators imposed from the outside. “Using fear to keep children from moving from their chairs, to make them look straight ahead and be quiet, and preventing them from getting up except for a few scheduled moments each day will contribute to creating adults incapable of regulating their own bodies and senses. They will be unable to trust their ability to make decisions and will probably be prone to demand equally controlled environments in their adult lives: warnings about sensitive content, safe spaces, and so on” (Heying, H. & Weinstein, B. 2022:232). The authors also refer to higher education, analyzing what might be a prevailing model at the university when the young person joins its classrooms: “Your academic archetype had every chance of being reading a book or browsing volumes among the shelves of a library. By the time they enter university, students have already internalized this cliché. First you read, then you answer. Perhaps one day you too will write a similar volume that others will later sit down to read and answer. And so the cycle is perpetuated” (Heying, H. & Weinstein, B. 2022:236). They elaborate by pointing out that higher education should emphasize that: “Civilization needs citizens capable of opening themselves up to new possibilities and investigating. Therefore, these should be the hallmarks of higher education. As we move further into the 21st century, we increasingly need mental agility, more creativity in formulating questions and seeking solutions, and more ability to return to first principles, instead of resorting to mnemonics and folk wisdom. People are misjudging what work will be like in the future, and are specializing earlier and with greater specificity. Higher education is the natural place from which to counteract this trend and work to make students more multifaceted, nuanced, and more integrated. Students currently studying at university using the traditional method are unable to predict what their future work will be like. Another way to express it could be: what is the [unclear] when they turn seventy, fifty, or thirty years old? The faculty is where multifacetedness should be instilled” (Heying, H. & in spontaneous forms of understanding the world that would seem Weinstein, B. 2022: 246-7). Higher education should allow students to recognize the prevailing scientific and cultural patterns, stemming from the institutional-university structural past, which tend to be repeated and reproduced in the minds of young people during the formative process. The reproduction of knowledge and methodologies blocks and inhibits the creativity of young people, leaving them without new and effective tools to face the future in its different areas, dimensions and uncertainties. It prevents them from openly considering new questions and preparing appropriate answers to new challenges, such as the organization and culture of future work, influenced by digitization and artificial intelligence. In this context, the authors suggest abandoning the “classroom”, the traditional rites and established rules that cover the teaching with restrictive symbolisms that prevent the young man from being himself and her from being herself. Higher education should open new possibilities for development and train citizens and researchers for the 21st century. However, education is not an activity independent of the course and organization that society follows, as the previous authors have also pointed out. How does society exist, and how are individuals and communities perceived and situated within its structures, functions, and guiding principles?
The end of societies? The emergence of individualism and the subject
Another relevant sign of the times we live in has to do with the sustainability of society. Alain Touraine (2016), in one of his important works, announces "the end of societies". While other authors argue the opposite: the emergence of society in times of crisis of the neoliberal model. According to this author, we are transitioning from more "collective" societies to "more individualistic" societies. “Saying that we are living through the end of the social world has such brutal consequences that we resist admitting it. Can we accept the idea of the impotence of the State or the disappearance of social actors? The damage caused by an economy that overflows all controls (today, tax havens hold capital equivalent to the total GDP of the United States and Japan) and by the increase in individualism is visible everywhere since the crisis that broke out in 2007-2008” (Touraine, 2016: 362). It would be extremely serious if societies no longer existed. A true social disaster. Imagine that there were only solitary individuals, without any societal or community reference. Billions of individuals alone, wandering the world, without fixed directions or social support. Alone in the face of the uncertainties of the future and the environmental and climatic disasters that will continue their catastrophic courses. Without society and with little State, it is very difficult to face scenarios of risks and threats of disasters and diseases, including mental and climate-related ones. In this sense, some of this reality is already happening; it can be perceived in the atmosphere of several societies, especially the most developed ones, marked by neoliberal policies, economies, and cultures. However, these are quite different phenomena, depending on the model of development of the society, which includes its social, political and cultural structure and system. In any case, individuals lacking society and community would live in depressive states, with mental illnesses, socially and humanly discouraged, aggressive, conflictive, and could also be, in part, the object of recruitment by far-right groups and strategies, in actions of democratic destabilization, as is unfortunately already happening in some countries. For his part, cognitive sociologist Gérald Bronner, professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris, author of the book “Cognitive Apocalypse” (Paidós, 2022), warns about the manipulation of the brain in the digital age. It refers to the current process of deregulation of information, commercial, which is transforming our mental availability into a mental economy: based, according to the author, on the “attention economy”. This translates into less cognitive effort, which would be chosen according to "sad passions", which would be: conflict, disgust, resentment, fear and credulity; which would manifest itself in spontaneous forms of understanding the world that would seem to be plausible but in reality are not true. As we know, this manipulative strategy of human minds is currently in full swing in several societies. The hope that remains is that the individual, ontologically and existentially abandoned, will be transformed into a subject, as historically conceived by modern enlightened thinkers with advanced critical and emancipatory thought. That scientific knowledge, together with local knowledge and innovative technology, contribute to strongly and sovereignly supporting the self-aware individual and the human being in community, society and sustainability with the natural environment. Hope is also placed in future generations who, generally, beyond the actions of oppressive forces, emerge into sociocultural life with new ideas and dreams that seek to change the prevailing reality, forging a new future.
Children's Rights: Future of Society
In the current global and regional political and sociocultural circumstances and scenarios, it is very important to be concerned about children and young people, about their rights. What they receive or do not receive today and in the near future will influence not only what they become as people, but also the type of society and Planet Earth that will be shaped in the future. Fundamental: create opportunities for them in school, educational establishments, university, and family so that they can develop as individuals in a welcoming, humane environment and be happy. “Every child has the right to receive an education. Primary education should be free. Secondary and higher education should be accessible to all children. Children should be supported to attend school until they complete the highest grade possible. The discipline imposed in schools should respect children's rights, and violence should never be used” (UNESCO, Convention on the Rights of the Child). Chapter 28, Access to Education). “The Convention, throughout its 54 articles, recognizes that children (human beings under 18 years of age) are individuals with the right to full physical, mental and social development, and with the right to freely express their opinions. Furthermore, the Convention is also a model for the health, survival and progress of all human society” (UNESCO Spanish Committee). Children's rights convention. 2006). Unfortunately, the rights of children are currently being severely and seriously denied and violated in different countries and regions, especially in situations of conflict and war, such as in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. They die amid bombings of the civilian population and their homes, are kidnapped and deprived of health treatment, housing, family and basic food. Death by denial of food. This situation is aggravated by the murders of people who come to obtain water or food: “At the same time, more than 1.000 people - 10 more in the last day - have been shot dead in the food distribution zones established two months ago by Israel and the United States, pushing thousands of Gazans to the dilemma of whether to risk their lives to get some food or watch their most vulnerable relatives - children, the elderly, the sick - fade away in the sun” (Cabasés Vega, J, El País, 24/07/2025). Hunger is used as a weapon of war: “Hunger has claimed another life in Gaza this Friday. He is a minor, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing sources at Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. 114 people have died in the Gaza Strip from starvation since October 7, 2023, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health… The vast majority, 82 of them, are children” (El Pais, 25/07/2025). This terrible situation to which the defenseless population of the Gaza Strip is exposed has been condemned by various countries and international human rights organizations. It is not only morally unacceptable, but also constitutes a display of cruelty and inhumanity that, along with being internationally condemnable, should be prevented—with the urgency that the gravity of the problem warrants—by the competent United Nations bodies. NUMBER 101 | SEPTEMBER 2025 | Second period In reality, in general today children suffer situations of Indeed, crises and accelerated changes force us to think about abandonment, repression or neglect in many societies, also in Latin America and in developed countries. This situation of neglect or lack of priority in public policies is observed and expressed especially in educational establishments: precarious infrastructure, lack of teachers, teaching that is not adapted to the socio-cultural reality and the needs of children and young people. Furthermore, adding new conditions of vulnerability in childhood, the Chilean neuroscientist Florencia Álamos Grau, executive director of the Kiri Foundation (which seeks to strengthen children's socio-emotional learning), researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience at the Catholic University of Chile, PUC, uses the concept of "socio-emotional malnutrition" in children. In a recent interview, he stated: “The great generational challenge we have today with children is socio-emotional malnutrition.” To address this serious problem, the neuroscientist and her team, the Kiri Foundation and the PUC, are organizing workshops in schools to tackle this problem of socio-emotional malnutrition, prevalent in many Chilean children, adolescents and young people. The central objective of these workshops is to develop socio-emotional skills in this early stage - crucial for future development - of human life. It is interesting to note that this is an open Science Impact activity that has already served more than 5.000 vulnerable students in the Metropolitan, Ñuble and Araucanía regions. Florencia Alamos, when interviewed, maintains: “It is a silent epidemic. 70% of teenagers don't know how to express what's wrong. More than half of young people have mental health problems… What we try to do is attack the problem at its root, that is, from prevention, so that children develop social and emotional skills that are critical to later be able to protect themselves from potential mental health illnesses. The way we promote this teaching is very playful and practical, and it is through sports, culture, and science, which are worlds that generate motivation and interest very naturally in children and allow them to form true communities.” When asked if the traditional educational model should include this, be more flexible and adaptive, he responds: “That is what we aspire to. Decades ago the problem was child malnutrition. The great generational challenge we face today with children is socio-emotional malnutrition, a systemic problem where everyone—school, family, and neighborhood—has a role. If this is not resolved, it is very difficult for learning to take place. One sees it in employment with the high rates of medical leave due to mental health issues. It is a problem that persists throughout life and has consequences at a personal and social level” (Álamos, Florencia). Report by Daniela Torán. 22 / 07 / 2025). In truth, the rights of children are basic human rights, internationally recognized, that guarantee that all children have the opportunity to live a dignified and healthy life, with adequate protection and the possibility of developing fully as human beings. These fundamental rights must also be extended to young people. The rights of children and young people should be considered and guaranteed in every educational system. Respect for these rights constitutes a structural and epistemological basis of a new socio-educational and cultural system, valid for any society that places at the center of its concern the integral human development of its children, adolescents and young people as the basis of the future society.
How can we think about education in times of multiple crises, transformations, and new challenges?
The transformations the world is undergoing, and their impact on modern society and individuals, also affect knowledge, shaking the structures of the epistemologies and paradigms prevailing in educational processes. These changes will likely be gradual but inevitable.
Indeed, crises and accelerated changes force us to think differently. To face thinking in a way that is different from what is customary. Hence, some authors, such as Morin, a contemporary thinker on education, refer to the need for a reform of thought, indispensable to better prepare new generations. To prepare them for life and the practice of the profession in more uncertain and complex territories: in the “inter-retro-actions” contexts in which human action is often involved in the modern world in metamorphosis. “The birth of life can be conceived as the metamorphosis of a physicochemical organization that, upon reaching a point of saturation, creates a meta-organization, the living self-eco-organization, which, although it involves exactly the same physicochemical constituents, carries with it new qualities, among which are self-reproduction, self-repair, feeding from external energy and cognitive capacity” (Morin, 2011: 32). Certainly, there are other fundamental elements, apart from those pointed out by Morin, that a new education should take into account in order to respond appropriately to the challenges of a society that is increasingly complex in its interrelations, interdependencies, uncertainties, constellations and historical contexts, social fractures and multiple crises. Of course, despite the processes of globalization and the realignment of global powers, there continue to be local, social and cultural contexts that influence and will continue to influence the specific structuring and conditioning of the formative processes of regions and countries. Local biography and trajectory: territory, culture, schools, universities, landscape, family, ethnic, gender, religious and social networks, will continue to be considered in the teaching-learning processes. The interdependence, and even the interaction of the local with the global, will make the development and scientific study of the processes of education and training of professionals even more complex. These approaches force us to rethink how we have constructed thought in our countries, they force us to deconstruct and rethink knowledge. It presents us with the challenge of distinguishing between the epistemology of the North and the South, without ignoring the enormous contributions and scientific advances of modernity. Unthinking involves reflecting on what is imposed and highlighting one's own knowledge to build quality of life and happiness from a non-alienated, freer, more communal and supportive society. In this sense, Aníbal Quijano, author of the theory of Coloniality of power, argues that: “(…)the central ideas of modernity, especially its utopian vein, equality and solidarity, also emerge with America. Consequently, the expansion and consolidation of capital, rationality, and modernity, although they occur in the course of the constitution of “Western Europe” and are, in that specific sense, “European,” are equally “American,” since America is the only dominated space-time within the coloniality of power and Western Europe the new central headquarters of control of this pattern of power… For this reason, we can speak with rigorous accuracy of Eurocentric colonial/modernity and its specific place as the first great historical mutation within the coloniality of power” (Quijano, 2012: 22-23). One of the central themes is the idea of race, a mental construct that expresses the basic experience of colonial domination. It is interesting to consider that this idea of race permeates the strategy and ideology of the expressions of the new neo-fascist extreme right currently prevailing in the world. “Incidentally, power is always a central issue in social knowledge. And for the current scientific-social debate, many of whose interested participants are gathered here today (seminar in Lima), no issue could be identified as more profoundly decisive than power in the specific historical context of the coloniality of power” (Quijano, 2012: 23). For Quijano, the crisis experienced by the global capitalist system affects the colonial power pattern as a whole. This crisis could only be overcome through a mutation of this power pattern. The movements of indigenous peoples in Latin America, and in general, the emergence of new social movements, represent alternatives for change. And although their results are unknown, these movements carry “paths of decoloniality” of power and a new historical meaning. The challenge of decoloniality/emancipation is enormous, but historically unavoidable. Another great Latin American thinker who has dealt with colonialism is the Mexican Pablo González Casanova. Internal colonialism corresponds to a structure of social relations of domination and exploitation between heterogeneous, distinct cultural groups. If it has any specific difference with respect to other relationships of domination and exploitation, it is the cultural heterogeneity that is historically produced by the conquest of some peoples by others, and that allows us to speak not only of cultural differences (which exist between the urban and rural population and in the social classes), but of differences of civilization. The author recognizes at least 17 forms of internal colonialism, which are expressed in monopolies, migration (exodus and mobility of indigenous people), forms of dependency, various forms of discrimination (political, union, agrarian, fiscal, credit, public investment, indigenous displacement by the ladino, political reinforcement of combined systems of exploitation). According to the author, this internal colonialism is driven by the "Governing Center" or the Metropolis. A question that is often raised but not always answered in sufficient depth is what existed before the beginning of the colonization process and what historically remained or survived colonialism. Often history begins with Independence and/or the creation of the nation-state. In this regard, Hannah Arendt, in her work The Freedom to Be Free, addresses the problem by analyzing the concepts of liberation and freedom in the historical contexts of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. In that sense, referring to the speeches of John Adams - statesman, member of the Federalist party and leader of the movement for the independence of the United States - "the revolution took place before the war began" not because of a specifically revolutionary or rebellious spirit, but because the inhabitants of the colonies had "constituted by law corporations or political bodies" with "the right to meet... in their own town halls and deliberate about their public affairs," since it was indeed "in those assemblies of municipalities or districts where the feeling of the people was first forged." To tell the truth, in France there was nothing that could be compared with the political institutions of the colony, but the mentality was the same; what Tocqueville called in France “passion” and “taste” was in the United States a manifest experience from the early times of colonization, in fact, since the Mayflower Compact (Agreement made by the pilgrims embarked on the Mayflower in 1620, by which they agreed to constitute themselves as a society and to be governed by rules agreed among themselves), became a true school of civics and public liberties” (Arendt, Hannah, 2018: 27-28). As this interesting work demonstrates, the topic of the constitution of the people is of great antiquity, even long before the emergence of modern society and its revolutions or reforms. Arendt even mentions that both the authors of the colonies in the United States and those of the French revolution dedicated themselves to "scrutinizing the records of Antiquity" (Rome, Athens). In Latin America and the Caribbean, there is a return to the history, practices and knowledge of the cultures of the Indigenous Peoples who created their own civilizations, prior to the modern era. In this sense, the anthropologist Georg Vaillant, in his work, The Aztec Civilization, explains and highlights the importance of agricultural activity in the sociocultural life and in the development of the Mesoamerican and Andean communities, historically driven: “In the New World there were two centers of intense agricultural development: Mesoamerica and the Andean region, which represent the highest peaks of the social and material culture of the American Indian. The development of agriculture, in America as everywhere else, liberated man from the incessant search for food. Its constant supply, which could be increased by cultivating new lands, allowed for population growth. The precarious balance that nature maintained between population and food abundance became more stable, and man enjoyed leisure time to invent techniques and develop rules of social conduct. It became possible to sustain communities large enough for the community to carry out public works, such as irrigation systems and temples” (Vaillant, Georg: 2018: 17-18). In this same sense, Elisa Loncon also maintains this in her work, Azmapu, when explaining and deepening the contributions of Mapuche Philosophy and its traditions: “Just as in the Mapuche people there is a paradigm of knowledge that teaches how the world, things and coexistence are organized, there is also a way in which knowledge is built, why it is learned and what is learned; that is, a method that allows us to build knowledge, learn and explain why wisdom is necessary. Today, faced with the climate crisis and the crisis of dispossession of knowledge, we as peoples can return to the questions that our ancestors asked themselves at the beginning, and answer for ourselves what the meaning of knowledge is, why wisdom is important, how it is born. We inherited a knowledge that does not imply suppressing diversity or destroying the Earth, but one that gives us clues to continue being Mapuche, to fulfill the mandate given to us at the beginning of life, to take care of each other, to take care of the Earth and to speak our language. As we know, the Earth is being destroyed by the extractive mindset. Indigenous peoples are also losing our own knowledge, the diversity of languages and cultures; with this we also lose our imagination and the intelligence of the other beings with whom we cohabit on Earth. The individualism instilled by the capitalist system annihilates our minds, the human capacity to show solidarity with others. It is necessary to decolonize our minds and return to our humanity and brotherhood with the beings of the Earth, this implies returning to dialogue with our knowledge, recovering the episteme of our peoples…(Loncón, Elisa, 2023: 71). To continue in this deep and diverse reflection, it is also interesting to consider the current opinion of Florence Gaub, a prominent Franco-German political scientist and researcher of the future. In a recent interview about the reality of political systems, democracy and institutions, in the sense of strengthening them and making them more attractive to the population, so that they trust them more, he responded: “The more strongly people participate in the decision-making processes, the less they will feel controlled by others. Therefore, democracy should be participatory.” Asked what politics currently needs to improve its functions in modern society, she replied: “A vision for the future. Politics should convincingly convey how to effectively address the ongoing transformations that are causing fear among the population. Whether it's climate change, artificial intelligence, or migration. Politics should not only talk about duties, renunciations or demands, but promote motivations about the future. Because a pro-climate policy also means and requires a healthy environment, cities worth living in that offer economic opportunities” (Gaub, F. Brand ein magazine, June/July 2025: 54. Translated from German by the author of this article). Political systems have a profound influence on education, whether they provide it with a particular philosophical orientation, lock it into an inflexible system, forget about it, or try to reform it. It depends on the vision for the future – if one has one – as the author Gaub rightly points out. For its part, UNESCO defines higher education as a provider of public goods: “Higher Education as a public good and an imperative strategy for all levels of education and a foundation for research, innovation and creativity must be a matter of responsibility and economic support for all governments. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit” (Article 26, Paragraph 1) (World Declaration on Higher Education in the 21st Century, UNESCO, Paris, July 2009). NUMBER 101 | SEPTEMBER 2025 | Second period that the individual would specialize according to his ability and so that UNESCO defines as mission and value of higher education “to contribute to sustainable development and the improvement of the whole – Teaching earthly identity: Knowledge of the develops society”, declaring that “public support for higher education and research remains fundamental to ensure that educational and social missions are carried out in a balanced way. He adds: “The State retains an essential role in that financing.” For UNESCO, overcoming poverty is also a central objective of higher education. These UNESCO proposals are complemented by the concept of interdisciplinary education, which promotes a paradigm shift for 21st-century education, introducing relevant definitions for the three levels of education:
Primary:
Teaching to Know: Rather than suppressing the natural curiosities inherent in any awakening consciousness, we should begin with fundamental questions: What is a human being? What is society? What is the world? What is truth? By questioning human beings, we would discover their dual nature, both biological and cultural. Teaching to Know
Secondary:
Teaching research skills: a holistic vision. Learning what true culture should be—one that establishes a dialogue between the humanities and sciences, not only by reflecting on knowledge and the evolution of science, but also by considering literature as a school and a life experience. Holistic Vision
College:
Interdisciplinary training: The University must be the center of innovation, research, reflection, and contributions to development. It must have a cross-sectoral mission and function. Interdisciplinary training (Morin, E. Teaching to Live. 2015: 92-94). Indeed, UNESCO, as the central international organization for Education, has published and disseminated relevant aspects, dimensions, and functions of contemporary education, renewing and expanding its themes and projecting them into the future. An example of this was the definition of the Five Pillars of Education. Jacques Delors proposed the first four pillars, and UNESCO later added the fifth pillar: Learning to Transform Oneself and Society, which is very important.
1) Learning to Know
2) Learning to Do
3) Learning to Live with Others
4) Learning to Be
5) Learning to transform oneself and society
(Source: UNESCO, 1996:4-6).
These five pillars remain fully valid and important, in general terms, as guiding principles for education. Furthermore, UNESCO published Edgar Morin's work, "The Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future," which also constitutes an important contribution to the renewal of educational processes.
- The blind spots of knowledge: error and illusion: Knowledge of knowledge should appear as a primary necessity that would serve as preparation to face permanent risks of error and illusion that do not cease to parasitize the human mind.
- The principles of relevant knowledge: It is necessary to develop the natural aptitude of human intelligence to place all information within a context and a whole. It is necessary to teach the methods that allow us to grasp the mutual relationships and reciprocal influences between the parts and the whole in a complex world.
- Teaching the human condition: Human beings are simultaneously physical, biological, psychological, cultural, social, and historical. It is this complex unity of human nature that is completely fragmented in education through its disciplinary structures, making it impossible to learn what it means to be "human."
Teaching Earthly Identity: Knowledge of the developments of the planetary era that will increase in the 21st century, and the recognition of Earthly Identity that will become increasingly indispensable for each and every one, must become one of the greatest objectives of education.
- Facing uncertainties: Strategic principles should be taught that enable individuals to confront risks, the unexpected, and uncertainty, and to modify their course based on information acquired along the way. It is necessary to learn to navigate an ocean of uncertainty through archipelagos of certainty.
- Teaching comprehension: However, education for understanding is absent from our teachings. The planet needs mutual understanding in every sense. Mutual understanding between humans, both those who are close and strangers, is now vital for human relations to emerge from their barbaric state of misunderstanding.
- The ethics of humankind: Education must lead to an "anthropo-ethics," considering the ternary nature of the human condition: individual <-> society <-> species. From this, the two great ethical-political goals of the new millennium emerge: to establish a relationship of mutual control between society and individuals through democracy, and to conceive of humanity as a planetary community. Education must not only contribute to an awareness of our Earth-Homeland, but also enable this awareness to translate into the will to realize global citizenship (Morin, E. UNESCO. 1999: 1-3).
Overcoming multiple crises requires collective and individual efforts, innovation, policy renewal, a new culture, and a strengthened education adapted to our changing times. In this sense, universities, research institutes and groups, as well as educational institutions, can play a significant, active, and innovative role in the search for a sustainable future. This requires communication and dialogue to find common ground and humanity in lived history, in the practices and traditions of communities and regions, in accumulated bio-knowledge, in research, in sustainably populated and productive territories, in democratic cultures and institutions, in human and social rights and freedoms, in the evolution and development of ideas and professions within universities, and in the socio-institutional and ecological footprints that have accompanied the development of communities and societies. Present in the decolonizing and emancipatory efforts, historically forged by each country, community and society, still present and renewed by new generations, who also fight to live, develop and be happy in the only habitat we have: Planet Earth.
Regional experience. Danlí Campus, National Autonomous University of Honduras, UNAH. Danlí Region. Republic of Honduras.
Within the framework of a regional work in the Republic of Honduras, as an international guest professor of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, UNAH, Dr. Rojas was part of an interesting fieldwork project in the DANLI Region and the UNAH University Headquarters. On his journey, Dr. Rojas carried out an activity together with the German Cooperation Agency, GIZ, organized by Dr. Gunhild Hansen-Rojas, German specialist in technical and vocational education and training at GIZ. This activity was carried out within the framework of the Honduras Technical Training Promotion Project (FOPRONH), a program promoted by the German Cooperation Agency, GIZ, in agreement with the government of the Republic of Honduras. The project's objective was to determine the level of knowledge acquired by young people in technical study centers, identify areas for improvement in these centers, assess employability prospects and the integration of beneficiaries into the labor market, identify mechanisms for strengthening the management of selected vocational training centers to implement labor market-oriented training programs, and propose potential changes to institutionally strengthen the labor market-oriented vocational training system, in accordance with the "Public Policy on Technical and Vocational Education and Training" and the "National Qualifications Framework". Dr Rojas participated in the event as a guest to sociologically interpret the testimonies of the young people who participated in the focus groups organized in the technical centers: with this participatory methodology, the aim is to understand the impact of technical training on young Hondurans who are part of the non-formal system. In general terms, the topics addressed with the young people were the following: 1) reasons why they chose the profession; 2) quality of the training received; 3) possibilities of job placement and 4) future personal career dreams. at the Loyola Technical Training Center in San Pedro Sula and in Santa Barbara. Dr Rojas, Dr. Hansen-Rojas and GIZ staff visited Santa Barbara and the Loyola Technical Center, located in the center of El Progreso, Yoro, a school belonging to the Fe y Alegría Foundation. The population served at the Loyola Technical Center ranges from 15 to 25 years old. The areas of study are very varied: Industrial mechanics, gastronomy, automotive mechanics, welding, barbering, call centers. This project has 300 young people, who benefit from equipment and materials for their professional training in various areas of study. Summary of the general perception of the testimonies given by young people in the technical training centers of El Progreso and Santa Bárbara: “The young people showed a great level of identification with what they learn and practice as a profession, which in many cases corresponds to a family and/or local tradition; they feel great respect for the professional quality of their respective centers and for the professional and human quality of their teachers and directors; the vast majority do not think of migration (to the United States) as a solution to their problems; on the contrary, they are always thinking about how to create independent and innovative spaces in order to develop themselves. He also added that “the young people have the desire to get ahead and work for their families, their environment and the community, for which they want to develop their own ventures, giving many concrete examples of how to do it.” For the professor, this contact with young Hondurans from technical training centers constituted an extraordinary experience about the value, concerns and deep desires for personal fulfillment with a social sense that motivates these young people from the regions visited. For the same reason, he concluded by mentioning that the University and its Campuses - as well as public and private institutions - should support these self-initiatives, the creativity of young people who, along with developing as individuals, want to become self-employed to support their families and the local communities in which they live. This activity was combined with interesting experiences with students from the UNAH/DANLI Headquarters who carry out professional support activities in agricultural activities, for example, coffee and other activities, in their respective Region and with the support of community institutions and productive cooperatives of farmers in the Region (UNAH Pedro Sula Regional Headquarters). Presence. July 2023). The regions of Latin America, the Caribbean and the world, as demonstrated by the experience in Danlí, show their own capacities for independent and interconnected development with higher and community education institutions, decolonized. These unique regional capacities are generally established prior to the processes of colonization and capitalist modernization. Therefore, they should be revalued and strengthened by society and public policies as bases for sustainable development alternatives and integrated into socialization processes, as well as bases for the renewal of educational institutions at all levels, including higher education.
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* Master of Arts in Sociology and Political Science, PhD in Sociology, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. Full Professor, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Concepción. Research Associate, CRHIAM/ANID/FONDAP Center 15130015 / ANID/FONDAP 1523A0001, University of Concepción. Expanded article from the presentation given by Dr. Rojas at Panel 19: Education in Times of Crisis: Methods, Local, Border, and Decolonial Knowledge. X Latin American and Caribbean Conference of Social Sciences, Bogotá, Colombia, June 9-12, 2025. Co-coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group “Emancipatory Praxis, Common Goods, and Alter-Global Decolonial Methodologies.” ORCID ID 0000-0001-6869-8984. [email protected].
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