MISSIONCHALLENGINGTIMES

HIGHER EDUCATION FOR GOOD FOUNDATION MISSION

Youth has always been confronted with difficulties. But today’s challenges are of a distinct magnitude: growing inequalities, climate change, biodiversity losses, sanitary crisis, energy crisis, A.I. revolution, to name but a few. Considerable efforts are necessary to foster youth capabilities and ensure that present and future generations can anticipate coming challenges and work to create sustainable solutions.

Education does more than merely serve a changing world. It has the capacity to transform it. About 300 years ago, the Enlightenment contributed to reinventing education through principles such as the sharing of knowledge, the elevation of reason, and the promotion of science. But since then, experts agree that our education models focused almost solely on utilitarian and siloed knowledge transmission, have only slightly evolved.

The Foundation’s mission is to help higher education institutions transform their curricula to meet the needs of the mid-21st century and ensure a more sustainable future.

What do we mean by new Higher Education Models?

New Higher Education models should go beyond acquiring work skills. They should empower young people with the means of self-realization, and encourage a systemic world- view in which humankind co-habits in harmony with other living beings within planetary boundaries. By focusing on human dignity and collective well-being, they should foster both individual flourishing and sustainable ways of living together.

A “sustainable society” is considered to be a society that is economically viable, environmentally sound and socially responsible.*

*Adapted from the Sustainable Society Index (European Commission)

“The complexity of the environmental, economic, and societal challenges we are facing is testing the limits of our current top- down educational models. They appear obsolete because they are no longer adapted to the challenges youth are facing but also because they are based on and convey values that do not seem to make sense anymore for the new generations. These models must be replaced by bottom-up approaches that will embrace and enable young people’s own and new priorities. These observations are especially true when it comes to higher education.”

Alice Guilhon, Chairperson