A Pact for the Future of Education

Anyone who has the responsibility of leading a big organization, whether they run a company or a government, should be expected to have the ability, and above all the will, to build a future for those that will follow. Thinking about growth and striving to create the proper conditions for it should be the mantra of their everyday work.

Human resources are the key element of any growth plan. They should be trained to face the challenges that today's world and the world to come will have in store on a daily basis.
When pursuing the goal of growth, democratic-minded corporate leaders must therefore also be human resources directors capable of choosing a team, inspiring individuals and connecting groups for shared goals and actions. Most importantly, however, they need to be forward-looking enough to invest in human resources who are not yet part of the organization. They need to anticipate the company's need for skills and have a clear plan for resource recruitment and development.

Similarly, government leaders need to be able to orchestrate policies that can benefit Generation Z and the generations that follow – even in countries such as Italy, second only to Japan in terms of age of population. These are the only generations that will be able to ensure long-lasting growth over time.

Both government and corporate leaders who are concerned with growth must therefore invest in education. They must create conditions for generating a new form of education that can provide future generations with the skills needed to understand the world and the right amount of empowerment so they can navigate the great sea of information.

In a world with more and more stimuli, in which knowledge and information follow increasingly divergent paths, the only system that can ensure both skills and empowerment will be education capable of moving towards customization. In this system, teachers will once again be the personal coaches of their students, like Aristotle and Plato.

As a professor and as a parent, I dream of one day waking up, turning on my iPad, opening my favorite information-based website and reading the top headline announcing that a pact for education has been signed. A pact that will benefit our children and our children's children.