Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life, it is life itself         — John Dewey

Philosophers have long explored how education can meet the challenges of the age, extolling its power to transform lives and develop the capacity to adapt to new circumstances.

In our own era, social, cultural and economic circumstances are challenging educators to respond creatively to change. Education and training plays a key role in shaping the skills and knowledge of the new economy while it also maintains social cohesion in the face of change. Education is a key both to economic success and to individual opportunity and community well-being.

Learning is pervasive in the emerging ‘knowledge economy’ and education institutions are expected to play a larger and more connected part—connected globally and in community. More flexibility and diversity is demanded of traditional institutions, as lifelong learning becomes a reality.  Learning and development is a normal expectation of professional and organisational life. 

Adaptation demands new capacities of education professionals whether they work in formal education or in other contexts. As the Australian Council of Deans of Education has said, ‘the work of educators will be transformed’. 

Professionals need to engage critically with the ‘new learning’  made possible by information and communication technologies. Teachers are becoming designers of learning, working with new understandings of pedagogy, of multi-literacies and multi-modality. 

The Faculty aims to develop adaptive professionals from its pre-service and post-graduate programs—graduates who embrace a design-led approach to their work, who aspire to high standards and who achieve them by engaging in continuing learning. We will assist them meet the challenges of the era. Please visit our pages to learn more about—