Abstract:

What can education do in ecological civilization construction? By focusing on the work of OECD in the area of “Innovation and the future of education”, this study systematically reflects on OECD’s future-oriented skills in the context of Futures Literacy in Anticipation Theory, and clarifies the relationship between education and ecological civilization from OECD’s perspective. The study finds that OECD has proposed several future-competent competencies from a predictive perspective in response to changes in social and ecological systems, which continues the idea of education as a social function. Since 2018, OECD has started to use Anticipation Theory to develop multiple imaginations of the future and skills of education, which goes beyond the previous functional theory and highlights the feasibility and leadership of education in social and ecological systems. From OECD’s changing perspective and eclectic approach, the study believes that human beings are always the subject of ecological civilization construction, and that the path to ecological civilization construction has multiple possibilities and education can re-construct future when human beings have the knowledge and skills to “use-the-future”.

Key words: anticipation theory, ecological civilization, OECD, function of education, futures literacy