Education, Integral Human Development, and Pope Francis' Call for a Global Compact: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Ten years ago, in March 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope, taking the papal name Francis. Pope Francis has had a profound impact—some would argue a transformational impact, on the Catholic Church and on the world. To celebrate ten years of his papacy, the idea came about to put together a special issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs on one aspect of his magisterium: his vision for education and integral human development, including the idea of a Global Compact on Education. The essays gathered in this special issue consider Pope Francis’ vision and how it may be relevant for schools and universities (Catholic or not) as well as for businesses and our understanding of the economy and integral human development.

Keywords:

• Pope Francis
• education
• integral human development
• global compact on education

On March 13, 2013, the Argentine Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope, taking the papal name Francis. His election itself was an event, as he became the first non-European to be elected Pope in nearly 1,300 years, the first pontiff from Latin America, and the first to be a Jesuit. More fundamentally, it seems fair to say that Pope Francis is having a profound impact—some would argue a transformational impact, not only on the Catholic Church, but also on the world. The focus of this special issue is on Pope Francis’ vision for education, some of its link to integral human development, and his call for a Global Compact on Education.

In analyzing Pope Francis’s writings, messages, and speeches, as well as some of the practices in place in Catholic educational institutions, it should go without saying that there should be no presumption that these institutions are somehow doing a better job than other institutions at educating children and youth, or that Catholics somehow would themselves do a better job than adherents of other faiths or those with no faith. As a guest editor of this special issue, it is certainly not my intention to advocate for Catholic schools. But I believe that it is useful for various traditions, secular or faith-based, to learn about each other and their respective resources and frameworks.

It also seems to me that Pope Francis’ call for a Global Compact on Education was not primarily aimed at Catholics. The call was broader, emphasizing the role and responsibility of all of us to do the best we can to educate our children and youth. This includes resisting practices that are harmful to children and youth and undermine our trust in schools, whether Catholic or not. My hope is that the essays included in this issue may be of interest to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, including those with no particular faith and atheists. Again, while many of the ideas expressed by Pope Francis are inspired by Catholic social thought, they seem relevant beyond any particular faith. In this brief introduction, after providing some background on the multiple crises that education systems across the world are facing, I provide a brief outline of the contributions in the issue.

Multiple Crises in Education

We are witnessing today a deep crisis in education globally. The last few years have been marked by a pandemic, wars, the effects of climate change, heightened competition, and a lack of resources for education, all of which have led to a deterioration of educational outcomes for children and youth. But even before the Covid-19 pandemic and the resurgence of conflict in Europe with its global implications, according to data from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics available in the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, only three in four children completed their lower secondary education globally. In low-income countries, less than 40 percent of children did. As a result, 244 million children remain out of school according to estimates from UNESCO (Global Education Monitoring Report Team and UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2022).

Apart from low levels of educational attainment in many countries, children suffer from a learning crisis, with too many students not acquiring the foundational skills that education systems should provide. Based on data from international and regional student assessments, simulations suggests that when the likely impacts of school closures due to the pandemic are taken into account, seven in ten children aged 10 in low- and middle-income countries may not be able to read and understand a simple text (World Bank et al. 2022).

Despite efforts to improve educational outcomes and commitments made at the Transformation Education Summit held at the United Nations in September 2022, several factors may make it difficult to achieve substantial gains in coming years. Measures taken to fight inflation in high-income countries may contribute to a global recession (Guénette, Kose, and Sugawara 2022), which could affect the ability of families in poverty to send their children to school while also leading to a financial crisis in some countries that accumulated debt in recent years, especially given rising interest rates and a stronger dollar. Given higher debt obligations, the ability of these countries to invest more in their education systems will be curtailed. The latest Education Finance Watch report (UNESCO and World Bank 2022) suggested that the pandemic led to larger gaps between actual and required investments in education. The risk of a recession, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and shifts in donor priorities to respond to other crisis such as the increase in forced displacement (UNHCR 2022) will all make it harder to muster the financing needed to improve educational outcomes.

Pope Francis and his advisers are well aware of this situation. The Pope has for example referred multiple times to the plight of children who are out of school. But he has also emphasized another crisis in education, what we could perhaps referred to here as a crisis of purpose and a crisis of responsibility. Pope Francis asks us to think more deeply about the purpose of education, and about whom has a responsibility to educate. In the current discourse on education, the Pope is concerned about the risk to over-emphasize education’s role for the individual to move ahead in society, say through higher earnings in the labor market. This focus on the individual and the material benefits of education in a competitive marketplace could lead us to lose sight of the importance of education for building fraternal and sustainable societies. Education is essential for building mutual respect, tolerance, and peace. It is also essential for protecting the environment. And it matters for thinking in new ways about the economy, to reduce rather than exacerbate inequalities.

Pope Francis is concerned as well about the risk to over-emphasize the role of schools and universities in educating children and youth, possibly at the detriment of the role of the family and the community. It takes a village, the saying goes. Related to these various issues, the Pope is also concerned about an over-emphasis on performance metrics that are important to make sure that education systems actually deliver in specific areas, but may also lead us to lose sight of the need to put the person at the center of what educators do, or should do. These various concerns are some of the questions that the essays included in this issue deal with.

Contributions of the Essays in this Special Issue

The first essay is about Pope Francis’ vision for education. In September 2019, the Pope called for a Global Compact on Education, that is a broad alliance to renew our commitment to education for a more fraternal humanity.¹ It is striking that in this call, the Pope did not mention specifically the role of schools and universities. His aim was broader, emphasizing the role of all of us, including parents, communities, and societies, in educating our children and youth. The essay starts by suggesting that Francis’ vision may have been informed in part by his experience in Argentina with Scholas Occurrentes (this can be translated as Schools of the encounter), a program establishing links and providing educational opportunities for students beyond the confines of their schools. Scholas and Pope Francis have emphasized the need for education to not only focus on the language of the head, but to incorporate the language of the heart and that of the hands. As Francis put it, “Education should be directed in these three directions … . [so] that the child, the young person thinks what he feels and what he does, feels what he thinks and what he does, and does what he thinks and feels” (Francis 2015). One implication is that for Pope Francis, education can no longer be reduced to what happens in the classroom. Education must be transformative for the humanization of the world. The essay reviews key documents, messages, and speeches by the Pope to better understand his vision for education.

The second essay is about Pope Francis’ vision for educating the whole child, and in particular the concepts of cura personalis and accompaniment. The essay explores some of the theological foundations of these prominent concepts in Catholic, and especially Jesuit education. Cura personalis means the care for the whole person. Accompaniment is the process of journeying with the child and their caregivers throughout the educational process. Cura personalis reminds educators that education does not end with academic excellence: it must envision and care for the person as God envisions and cares for her or him. This requires the educator to accompany the learner with experience and strength, but also vulnerability and humility. The authors quote Pope Francis on the qualities necessary for effective accompaniment. What is needed is someone who “constantly seeks holiness; … is a confidant without judging … , actively listens to the needs of young people and responds in kind; someone deeply loving and self-aware; someone who recognizes his or her limits and knows the joys and sorrows of the spiritual journey” (Francis 2016). Accompaniment is a lateral relationship while service (even servant-leadership) may be more hierarchical. To educate the whole child, the authors argue, educators are challenged to listen, walk alongside, and spend quality time with their students.

The third essay is a case study on “going to the periphery,” a key theme in Pope Francis’ emphasis on serving the poor and others who may be disadvantaged. The essay tells the story of the opening a new Jesuit school in a disadvantaged area of Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. The Church estimates that it operates more than 220,000 Catholic preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools globally. Every week, new Catholic schools are being opened around the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where enrollment in Catholic schools is growing due in part to high rates of population growth and gains in educational attainment. This is not so much the case in Belgium, or for that matter in most Western countries where enrollment in Catholic schools has been stagnant, and in some cases declining. What is interesting about the Matteo Ricci College launched in Brussels in 2019 is that it serves disadvantaged students in a part of the city with a large Muslim population, hence the school has a large minority of Muslim students. The essay explains some of the challenges that were faced to open the school and some of its pedagogical innovations.

While the second and third essays are about Catholic K12 (kindergarten to 12th grade) schools, the next two essays are about Catholic universities. The first essay sets the stage by exploring how Catholic universities are faring in an increasingly competitive environment. Pope Francis’ vision for a global compact on education, including the role that Catholic universities should play, is in sharp contrast with the vision that dominates the higher education sector: that of producing graduates for gainful employment. But can Catholic colleges and universities rise to the challenge? The essay explores that question. Based on previous work by Mellul (2021), the essay starts by considering four trends affecting higher education, including Catholic universities, globally: (i) the impact of Covid; (ii) the technologization of higher education; (iii) the promise of employability; and (iv) the great unbundling towards micro-credentials. Thereafter, using data for the United States, the essay provides a brief and partial assessment of whether Catholic universities may be losing ground, or whether they may be able to keep their “comparative advantage.” The analysis is limited and tentative. There is a lot of heterogeneity between institutions, with some struggling and others doing well. But for the foreseeable future, the challenges for Catholic universities to maintain their identity will remain, and likely increase.

The next essay is about service-learning in Catholic universities, based on results from a global mapping survey. The idea of service-learning did not emerge from Catholic institutions, but it is highly relevant for their identity. It can be a powerful tool to implement the commitments suggested by Pope Francis under the idea of a Global Compact on Education. The practice is widely considered as high-impact for students. It can help Catholic institutions support their students’ search for meaning and purpose while strengthening the universities’ identity in a way that respects the diversity of views about faith in their student body. Service-learning may also contribute to the culture of encounter called for by Pope Francis. So, do Catholic universities provide sufficient service-learning opportunities to their students? The data suggest that while most universities engage in service-learning, these initiatives are fully integrated in only one in four university that responded to the survey. There are ways of doing better, an interest in doing so, and pathways to do so.

The next set of two essays is about the business world and the economy. In his message for the virtual event launching the Global Compact on Education, Pope Francis (2020) encouraged all educators to make seven commitments: (1) to make human persons the center; (2) to listen to the voices of children and young people; (3) to advance the women; (4) to empower the family; (5) to welcome; (6) to find new ways of understanding the economy and politics; and (7) to safeguard our common home. The sixth commitment is about the role of education for rethinking the economy as well as politics, including to reduce inequality and ensure that economic approaches support rather than harm people. This relates to the role that education can play in promoting integral human development, understood as the development of all people and of the whole person. Because of this focus, two essays are included on the economy and the business world.

The first of these two essays is about Blueprint for Better Business, an initiative in the United Kingdom for advancing the common good through purpose-led business practices. In 2012 a group of business leaders approached the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster about a perceived breakdown of trust between (big) business and society. Blueprint emerged as a response to this challenge. Funded by charitable foundations, corporate donations, and individuals, Blueprint works with leadership teams in large companies to support and challenge them, and help change expectations of the role of business in society. The essay recounts how the initiative developed, drawing attention in the process to Catholic social teaching including Pope Francis’ encyclicals Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti, although both were written after Blueprint was founded.

The second essay is about the Economy of Francesco (EoF) initiative. As Pope Francis explained it in a recent video message to participants at an international event of the EoF initiative, “today, a new economy inspired by Francis of Assisi can and must become an economy of friendship with the earth and an economy of peace. It is a question of transforming an economy that kills into an economy of life, in all its aspects” (Francis 2022). As the authors argue in their essay, EoF is a cultural and experiential process held through online and in-person events to explore with young economists and other youth the limitations of homo economicus. This includes challenging methodological individualism (or even egoism, the authors would argue) and procedural rationality. The essay highlights some of the strengths of EoF as well as potential areas of improvement, looking both at what has been accomplished by the movement so far and what still needs to be accomplished.

Finally, the last two essays consider issues affecting education in Africa, the region of the world where the presence of the Church through its educational institutions is largest.² The penultimate essay in this issue considers petty corruption which remains prevalent in schools in many African countries, and more generally in low-income and conflict-affected settings. In his recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pope Francis urged African youth to shun corruption. The essay measures the extent of corruption in schools in Africa using data collected by the Afrobarometer. More than one in four respondents have encountered problems to obtain the education services they need for their children and nearly one in five have had to pay bribes or do other favors for education providers. This proportion does not appear to have declined significantly over the past decade. The analysis suggests that different household characteristics are associated with the likelihood of having difficulty obtaining the services they need and the likelihood of being a victim of corruption. Interestingly, while the particular faith affiliation of individuals does not seem to affect whether they accept to provide favors to obtain the education services they need for their children, religiosity does appear to matter—suggesting a potential role for faith leaders in the fight against petty corruption.

The last essay is about the need to protect our common home, a central theme of Pope Francis. This may be nowhere more important than in Africa, a continent that is already today highly vulnerable to climate shocks due in part to high levels of water stress, food insecurity, and forced displacement, among others. The essay illustrates how educational outcomes in Africa are especially vulnerable to weather shocks. In addition, the essay notes that policy prescriptions on how to tackle climate change, whether through mitigation or adaptation, tend to focus on issues related to food systems, water management, and energy use. These issues are clearly fundamental, but education to climate change and sustainable development should also be a priority. Unfortunately, many African countries have not yet managed to mainstream education to sustainable development in their national curricula. This is discussed in the essay, pointing to the need of “greening” education, as called for in September 2022 at the Transforming Education Summit held at the United Nations in New York.

Conclusion

As for any (faith) leader, it will take time to assess the impact of Pope Francis’ papacy on the Catholic Church and more broadly on the world. But it seems likely that Pope Francis will continue for years to come to be a transformational figure, and may also be seen as such in the future, including in the global south where his influence is great, as witnessed recently by the warm welcome he has received in his latest trip to Africa.

To mark ten years of his papacy, the idea came about to put together a special issue of this journal on just one aspect of his magisterium: his vision for education and integral human development, including the idea of a Global Compact on Education. While some of the essays in this special issue rely quite a bit on Catholic social thought and theology, others do not. The hope is that the essays will be of interest not only to Catholics, but also to others who may wonder about the meaning of the Global Compact on Education called for by the Pope. That call may have special resonance for Catholic educators, but it is meant more broadly to inspire all of us, Catholic or not, to think about the purpose of education, and our responsibility to educate.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and may not represented the views of UNESCO, the members of its Executive Board, or the countries they represent.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Quentin Wodon

Quentin Wodon is Director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa. Previously, he worked at the World Bank, including as Lead Economist, Lead Poverty Specialist, and manager of the unit on values and development.

Notes

1 On the Global Compact on Education, see Congregation for Catholic Education (2020).

2 As noted by Wodon (2021), one in seven primary school students in sub-Saharan Africa is enrolled in a Catholic school.