What is Education 3.0?

The Global Education Leaders' Program arose out of a set of key ideas which were explored in a stream of Cisco white papers published between 2008 and 2010.

Together, Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century, The Learning Society and Learning from the Extremes present a compelling case for why the current system of schooling, developed in the age of industrialisation, is insufficient for the evolving and dynamic conditions of the 21st century.

Three drivers are challenging schooling systems around the world:

• globalisation,
• demographic shifts, and
• technological revolution.

There is a growing consensus that system transformation, not school improvement, is the necessary response, but the implications of this have not been widely understood or accepted. In 2011 a fourth white paper, Developing an Innovation Ecosystem for Education, began to explore some new ways of transforming education systems. A transformed system:

• aims to provide equitable access to higher-order capabilities;
• is achieved through holistic change because the system is complex and interdependent;
• is characterised by a transfer of ownership from teachers to learners; and
• is accelerated by collaborative learning technologies.

The outcomes of system transformation have been described as C21st learning, Next Generation Learning or, in line with the development of the Web, as Education 3.0.