In his poem The Right to Dream (1995), Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano imagines “how the world will be in 2025”. He dreams of a better future where there is respect for nature, equality and peace.
Unfortunately, 2025 is coming up and we are nowhere near fulfilling Galeano’s dream. In fact, we increasingly find ourselves in a situation where the survival of human civilisation is at stake. This year alone, millions of people worldwide experienced extreme climate events, groundbreaking temperatures, genocide, and deadly exposure to toxic chemicals and pollution leading to mass death, injury, displacement, poverty, and trauma.
While the near future seems bleak, our education systems are nowhere near providing children with the right tools and knowledge to help them understand it.
Schools continue to be battlegrounds for the building of societies, and education can either be utilised to uphold the status quo or to create a just and sustainable future. Across the world, far-right and authoritarian regimes have consistently attacked access to public education, books, race and gender history, and more.
Even in places where this is not happening, education systems are simply inadequate to prepare new generations for living in an era of climate change and taking action........