EUROPEAN PAPERS ON THE NEW WELFARE

Transition from learning to work and vice-versa is not an absolute must. One job can be followed by another. This scenario indicates that a succession of jobs can amount to transition from paid work in a company to a private lucrative business, to volunteer work, to the establishment of a non-profit foundation or a consultancy, which can also mean setting up an individual practice, working for a larger firm, or serving in an international organization.
The book The double helix of learning and work has five chapters. Chapter 1 begins with a Cartesian statement: I learn, therefore I change.
In the early days of organized education, the system evidently resisted change: young people were trained to preserve and continue what their parents had started. Modern times produced the idea that education had to develop an ability to adjust to new conditions. But over the past two decades, adjustment has meant just trying to catch up with societal developments that have been changing ever more rapidly in the meantime. Education now has to face a new challenge — that of anticipating change.
The reason why educational reform has been lagging behind becomes clear once one takes a closer look at the other major requirements stemming from the current accelerated pace of history: continuing education or lifelong learning and interdisciplinarity. It lies in the rigid classification of human knowledge, with fixed boundaries between disciplines. Knowledge is still being stored and distributed in large blocks that seem to be cast in concrete. Teachers, disciplines, curricula, examinations, certificates are all operating within a stationary scheme, which is unable to overcome centuries-old inertia. Under the pressure of new information, the rigid pattern of disciplines is cracking, and the limits are becoming blurred here and there. How will the new century handle this emerging trend?
Chapter 2 is devoted to an innovation that may lead to a real anti-disciplinary revolution in the sphere of knowledge. If only knowledge could be liberated from the tyranny of the disciplines, the latter might freely follow their natural inclination to engage in combinatorial and analogical play, thus generating new knowledge. The demolition of disciplines will make room for new entities of knowledge called modules which will comprise coherent information and validation methods. The modules will be defined through their valences with the preliminary modules and with those that may follow.
No single human mind can contain all knowledge modules or draw a map of their disposition since there are tens and hundreds of thousand of them. But a computer programme can. It is the computer that will offer a display of modules to those who are interested in setting up personal learning itineraries.
The potential consequences are enormous. All the classical terms to which we have grown accustomed are going to change their meaning: university, school, classroom, teacher, subject, discipline, chair, certificate or diploma, etc. Even the structure of the compulsory ten-year primary and secondary school will change. The teacher will do little teaching, instead he or she will supervise, monitor, clarify, and he or she will also assist the pupils’ choice of modules. A school’s profile will be mainly given by the nature of its laboratories and experimental technology workshops in biology, physics, chemistry, natural or agricultural sciences, etc.
The focus on experimentation is expected to have pride of place in the new century, after a long pre-eminence of theoretical knowledge. The exercise of trying out new paths is a dimension of learning that cannot be replicated by the computer. This same exercise is also responsible for the acquisition of most practical skills.
Another evocation of Descartes opens Chapter 3, ‘I work, therefore I am’. The entire history of work speaks of its dependency on the existence of tools. The latest revolution in the sphere of tools, which was brought about by the new information and communication technologies, has produced an impact comparable in magnitude to that of a major earthquake. Still, the consequences of this revolution on work patterns are not mere effects of a single cause. Society changes under the influence of other factors as well. The service economy has become a fact of life. A shift in social values has occurred, with special emphasis on universal rights. Diversity is being cherished; flexibility has become a fundamental virtue. The computer, a tool that enhances the intellect and not the muscles, has facilitated the process. It has been present at all the turning points of the process of change, easing its spread and increasing its speed. For this reason. the debate on the future of the education-work tandem should start with the advent of the computer and its applications.
Chapter 4 focuses on this most important and topical effect produced by the current technological revolution. Human intellect, assisted by the computer, has become the most precious ingredient for material production in the service economy. The event has been announced under resounding titles: ‘the de-materialization of production’, ‘the knowledge economy’, or ‘innovation as a decisive factor’. The operation of that system requires an ever-ascending degree of qualification. Education is finally placed in a leading position, at the core of social practice. An increasing majority of jobs now require better education and training. This requirement is not simply a theoretical desideratum. The process of globalization, with its growing competition in integrated world markets, makes superior qualifications a condition for survival, and innovation a measure of success.
It has been said that all an individual needs in order to become anchored to global civilization is a computer and a modem. A single tool enables humankind to perform the two activities of the helix, learning and work, in real time and regardless of distance. Current plans for the modernization of united Europe, for instance, include distance work and other components of the information society. The progress of privatization and the predominance of services cause further differentiation in the remuneration of jobs. Part-time, occasional, and voluntary activities illustrate the emergence of an active and strong civil society.
The corresponding revolution in the twin fields of labour and knowledge entails the institutionalization of the different types of work and learning that are likely to prove both necessary and viable. In conclusion, we describe a person’s itinerary through life as a continuum of sequences devoted to learning and work and invite further meditation and discussion on the merits of an institutionalized approach to the concept of the double helix.
Why not merge the ministries of education and labour into one ministry, given that their activities are now organically intertwined? Why not have a single social security budget covering the years of learning and work and relying on a comprehensive system of individual credits? Why should we worry about unemployment instead of assisting the development of personal itineraries according to which individual effort and a caring society could each have a fair share in supporting the two fundamental activities of education and work? In a double helix approach, unemployment ceases to be the obsession of young people and the bane of adults. The governments, together with the business community and civil society, acquire a powerful tool to handle the social security problems in a sensible and effective manner.
We hope that this paper will inspire further research projects in the vast field of lifelong learning and/or work with the aim of developing a new vision of global issues and of exploring solutions that will give substance to life in the Twenty-First Century.

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