This Declaration is the result of the international initiative ‘Human Education in the 3rd Millennium’, which was launched by thinkers and educationists from across the world who are concerned at certain trends in educational policies and systems.
In 2019 Round Table Conference was held in Dharamsala, India with the participation of the Dalai Lama, following which the book was published by Springer in 2022, Humanising Education in the 3rd Millennium. Drawing on the thinking of participants and the main theses of the conference, the International Drafting Committee compiled the draft Declaration. The draft has been the subject of much discussion.
In 2021-2023 Regional Round Tables were held in Asia, Europe, Russia, Africa, North America, Latin America and Oceania, after which the extended Committee comprised of members from all over the world worked together on finalizing the text. As a result, the Declaration represents the views and hopes of the larger body of educators on how to reimagine education and address shortcomings in the prevailing educational arrangements.
The main purpose of the Declaration is to identify the major problems and challenges facing education worldwide, and to suggest aims and values of education, as well as institutional approaches and general principles of pedagogy at different levels of education. Attention is paid here to what it means to be human in the third millennium.
The primary concern of this Declaration is that of a human’s responsibility for life and for everything with which the person is connected including others, both individually and in society, Nature and all species on this planet. In this perspective, a new sense of becoming human is called for. Education in friendship, love and ethics is required, as well as education for collectivity, solidarity, coexistence in society, democracy, and criticality. It is a call for action to politicians, businesses, cultural and public figures, media, and charitable foundations and non-governmental organizations, as well as educators and educational institutions, to participate in the public debate on the future of education. Nothing less than the sustainability and the flourishing of all life on Earth is at stake here.
Background
Observations
Considerations
I.The human being, society, world, and the aims of education
II. Designing human education
III. Proposed strategy and actions
Appendix
(drafting committee, list of countries-participants)