SPIEF 2021: Leading for the Future. Education in a Multi-Pandemic World

5 June 2021

5 June 2021

June 5^th, the session "Leading for the Future. Education in a Multi-Pandemic World" was held at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2021.

In 2015 Irina Bokova, the first female Director General of UNESCO, anticipated the unprecedented disruption wrought by the COVID-19 crisis five years later, when she aptly observed that education today must be about «learning to live on a planet under pressure.» This entails both cultivation of skills and competencies needed to thrive in all facets of life — socially, economically, physically, and mentally — and engagement in domains outside the traditional purview of education, including societal and environmental justice.

Now, spurred on by the pandemic, a new generation of education leaders, practitioners and policymakers alongside, is deploying innovative tools and ideas to shape the next class of global citizens and leaders, who promise a path to a brighter future. This session explored the future of leadership and what the next generation of education leaders needs to know to be ‘future-literate’ and lead the future of learning in light of the uncertainty brought about by multiple, concurrent global pandemics, including public health crises, systemic social injustice, economic inequality and climate change. More specifically, how can leaders and policymakers use this once in a generation disruptor — COVID-19 — as a starting point to practically and meaningfully change systems and mindsets, which in many cases and contexts have never served our students or our world well, to redesign learning so it is both relevant and impactful to learners?

The session had for speakers the President of the University of Qatar Hassan Rashid Al-Derham, the Director for Research of the World Innovation Summit for Education Asmaa Al-Fadala, the Vice-Rector for Strategic Development of MGIMO Artem Malgin, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Digital and Technological Development Dmitry Peskov, the Vice- President, Director of the Digital Education Platforms at Sberbank Marina Rakova.

The meeting was moderated by Anton Stepanenko, partner of BCG.