Last September, on the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly, the young LearningPlanet Alliance scholarship holders organized a dynamic workshop focused on co-designing a new vision of higher education.
Visit LearningPlanet Youth Fellows, In response to the need for a youth-led, planetarian university, a cross-generational workshop was organized on site and online. They immediately invited youth-led networks such as AIESEC, Guardianes por la Vida, KidsforSDGs, Young Pioneers Forum and YouthxYouth. During the session, 100 participants identified what they would do, see, connect with and feel in a planetarian university; a learning institution that trains and recognizes individuals as collaborative lifelong learners, capable of tackling global challenges together.
Key words that came to mind: project, intergenerational, lifelong, fulfilling, community-based!
Co-constructing the Planetizen University: ideas from young members
“I hope to see an environment made up of a diverse and intergenerational group of individuals, a strong focus on creativity, a regenerative and sustainable infrastructure... Here, I would participate in experiential learning beyond the classroom through social impact projects, internships and programs, alongside other generations.”
- Ananya, young scholarship holder, India
“An open campus accessible to learners of all ages, anywhere in the world. Open recognition systems, flexible, competency-based learning paths, with cognitive, cultural and ethnic diversity.
- Ryan, young scholarship holder, United States
“Through collective intelligence, community building and education, young people can collaborate with change-makers to harness technology for the common good and innovate to tackle the world's most pressing social and environmental challenges. (...)”
- Daniel Persky and Matthew Persky, Young Fellows, United States
A community of partners
We were delighted to be joined by our institutional partners Stefania Giannini (Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO), Borhene Chakroun (Director of Lifelong Learning Policies and Systems) and Will Kennedy (Senior Program Manager, United Nations Office for Partnerships).
Many thanks also to the partners of the LearningPlanet community and beyond, who joined the co-design journey, including
- Education networks such as HundrEd, Teach for All, Salzburg Global Seminar, Quest Alliance Seminar, Ed3Dao, Young Pioneers, Guardianes por la Vida, Bloom.pm
- Youth-led networks, including KidsforSDGs, AIESEC, YouthxYouth
- Universities, including East Side Institute, NYU, Tufts, Oxford University, Rutgers University
Moving forward!
The event marked an important milestone in an ongoing, youth-led process to rethink higher education from the ground up. The energy and collaboration demonstrated a strong desire to transform education to empower students and drive positive change.
“Co-designing the Planetarian University has been a real privilege. I feel so empowered because I'm co-designing a new vision of higher education, which is no small feat. Participating in the workshop made me want to creatively transform education.”
- Tariq, young scholarship holder, Nigeria
“A planetary university could help us exchange experiences through intergenerational dialogues that would help us understand and bridge the gap between different perspectives and generations, and give us an informed vision of what we want our future to look like.”
- Anoushka, young scholarship holder, India
[An article from LearningPlanet Alliance blog]
Share your ideas for a planetarian university!
Find out more about Planetizen University
In the Youth Declaration of the Education Transformation Summit, the UN Secretary-General defined four ways of interacting with young people:
- Ignore
- Pretending to listen
- Dialogue
- Co-constructing the future
We are a youth-led initiative to co-construct a planetarian university, an institution that embodies the principles of ethical, inclusive and respectful global citizenship.
“Planetzens of all ages are planetzens learners because we can always continue to learn to (i) care for ourselves, each other and the planet, (ii) work together to overcome personal, local and global challenges (including the UN's SDGs) by mobilizing the collective intelligence and technologies that can help us become more sustainable, (iii) recognize our global interdependence, the limits of our planet, the vulnerability of our societies and the complexity of our world, (iv) reflect on our past, present and future, (v) be good ancestors to future generations, (vi) “plan the movement”, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as our thinking, our actions, our rights, our institutions, our celebrations and our ability to decide together how we will live together on Earth.
“Co-designing the Planetarian University has been a real privilege. I feel so empowered because I'm co-designing a new vision of higher education, which is no small feat. Participating in the workshop made me want to creatively transform education.”
- François Taddei, co-founder and president of the’Learning Planet Institute.
This publication is part of the UNESCO Chair in Learning Sciences, established between UNESCO and Université Paris Cité, in partnership with the Learning Planet Institute. The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization.
