About five years ago, all schools embraced the idea of global competence. Governments wanted their students to be globally competent; organizations such as the Asia Society led the development of the content of global competences, and international tests such the PISA even administered an assessment of global competence of 15 years old students in different countries in 2018.  International study tours, global exchange of students and teachers online and offline, joint global projects in teaching and research, as well as publications and conferences on global competence were all on the rise in the world. But today, global competence has become almost irrelevant in schools. I have not heard people talking about it over the past few years. What happened?

In the last five years, many things happened, and the world has changed: The COVID pandemic has significantly affected every aspect of human life in the world; the Russia-Ukraine War and the Israel-Hamas conflicts continue forced people and countries to regroup politically, economically, and militarily; the tremendous ideological divides have resulted in massive political and cultural conflicts in communities; the emergence of ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools have generated huge panic and hope across the world.

Education systems and schools have had too many local problems to resolve such as finding sufficient qualified teachers and school leaders. In a nutshell, schools have not had time to think beyond running their own schools and no education system has taken the lead to imagine the education we actually need today.

The world is now much more interconnected and interdependent. But human beings today are spending more money killing each other or preparing to kill each other than helping each other living a prosperous and happy life. Global pandemics, climate change, technology advancement, and peace and prosperity of the human race all need globally capable and globally minded people to work together in the future. Killing each other is certainly not the way toward a better future for all humans.

Technology enables learning beyond the classroom, but the majority of students are still isolated in their classrooms, without authentic interactions with people beyond their classes, schools, communities, or countries. What should schools do? Make learning global is my suggestion.