Improved ways to educate people would indeed be a very worthy goal; sadly, there seems to be little consensus (let alone controlled experiments) as to what makes a good education to whom. Is it the quality of teachers, the size of classes, the availability of technology (or the lack thereof), the homogeneity (or heterogeneity) of the subjects-to-be-taught, rigidity of the school system (or freedom the follow one’s own path), etc. etc. that help teaching/learning the most? The research points in opposite ways, and what actually happens in practice seems, to some extent, and maybe not surprising, driven by what’s fashionable rather than research.
So—improving education is very important, but existing, EU-wide, and worldwide, programs seem to have a lot of trouble to come up with clear answers.
Improved ways to educate people would indeed be a very worthy goal; sadly, there seems to be little consensus (let alone controlled experiments) as to what makes a good education to whom. Is it the quality of teachers, the size of classes, the availability of technology (or the lack thereof), the homogeneity (or heterogeneity) of the subjects-to-be-taught, rigidity of the school system (or freedom the follow one’s own path), etc. etc. that help teaching/learning the most? The research points in opposite ways, and what actually happens in practice seems, to some extent, and maybe not surprising, driven by what’s fashionable rather than research.
So—improving education is very important, but existing, EU-wide, and worldwide, programs seem to have a lot of trouble to come up with clear answers.
Essentially, my problem is that the charity I would like to support doesn’t actually exist. (Yes, I’m aware of this).
This is why I specified it for an “ambitious, visionary project extending beyond 2020.”