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On the strategic priorities of modern education in the face of global challenges. Education & Pedagogy Journal. 2024;2(10):5-21. DOI:

Humanity faces global challenges caused by geopolitical, economic, environmental, and other circumstances. This situation is exacerbated by the crisis pursued by the West for decades, the policy of globalization and multiculturalism. Since education is an inert system that cannot set strategic priorities for its development, it is always forced to focus on solving current problems of the past and present. As a result, education’s role in shaping humanity’s future is indirect rather than purposeful, often leading to local and large-scale undesirable disasters. The historical and cultural analysis of the situation in Russia and the countries of Western civilization made it possible to identify serious challenges that cannot be solved without the active participation of education. The first is related to the fact that in the conditions of current globalization, a new crusade of Western civilization is taking place to spread its traditions and values in the world, which are presented as universal. Modern research, historical examples, and the negative experiences of our times show that what is acceptable for some nations often becomes destructive and disastrous for others. Therefore, the first strategic priority of modern education should be to help adolescents and specific peoples understand their cultural identity, develop a respectful attitude towards other peoples’ cultures, and, on this basis, engage in productive intercultural dialogue. Another global challenge is the energy and environmental situation and the consumer psychology imposed on people from childhood, typical of Western countries, post-Soviet states, and today’s Russia. All this threatens the preservation of life on Earth in the future. In the history of humankind, two periods can be distinguished in which humans were on the brink of extinction. Each time, they were saved by finding the strength to consciously change their way of life and themselves based on commonly accepted and shared values and taboos, i.e., they showed themselves to be rational and equal spiritual beings. This aspect is insufficiently reflected in the regulation documents on education adopted in Russia and the world in recent years. Therefore, the second strategic priority of modern education should be the development of people’s environmental consciousness and the recognition of the priority of spiritual needs over material needs.

Keywords: strategic priorities of modern education, global challenges of our time, cultural identity, freedom, consumer psychology, crisis of modern education, competency-based approach