The School Education Reform Sector Development Program will help the Ministry of Education and Science undertake key institutional reforms in curricula design, teacher development, and management of school networks.  

 

Across Asia and the Pacific, the future is moving faster than many education systems can keep up with. Technology is accelerating, labour markets are changing, and the climate crisis is reshaping how and where people live. As automation causes many low-skilled jobs to disappear, the ability to reskill, upskill, and adapt to new working environments is crucial. If education and training systems can shift to a model that offers access to lifelong learning opportunities, they will help people gain the 21st-century skills needed to build resilient and productive economies.

 

For nearly 60 years, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been a champion of education and skills development across the region and today’s era of rapid change needs that development to continue, now more than ever. ADB’s 2020 report, Education, Skill Training and Learning in the Era of Technological Change, calls for education systems to better anticipate the new skills that learners need. The fact that individuals will experience many transitions throughout their working lives means that a lifelong and flexible approach to skills development is needed.

 

ADB is supporting countries in building future-ready ecosystems that connect schools, training providers, employers, and communities. By implementing actions and strategies that strengthen these important relationships, countries can equip learners with the relevant and adaptable skills they need to thrive in an increasingly complex and changing world.

 

Foresight: Seeing beyond the present, shaping what comes next

 

In today’s world, countries are grappling with unprecedented levels of economic volatility and technological disruption. Where uncertainty is the only constant, understanding what the future holds has become far more difficult. ADB has begun helping countries use foresight and scenario planning techniques to support the ongoing development of education in these uncertain times. Through its Futures Thinking in Asia and the Pacific initiative, policymakers and other educational stakeholders envision multiple futures and design strategies that can withstand the most challenging circumstances.

 

In Timor-Leste, this approach has enabled government officials, teachers, youth, and community leaders to explore how their country might be in 2030. Future scenarios have included classrooms in remote villages powered by reliable solar energy, micro-courses designed to help young people acquire new skills and diversify their income, and local technicians trained through targeted online courses. The process of envisioning their preferred future helped the country identify the steps needed to implement to make it a reality.

 

Foresight also encourages governments to think creatively. Through ADB Design Clinics and resources such as ADB’s Innovation Hub, education ministries have the opportunity to test new ideas and explore digital tools to help them reach identified goals.

 

This mindset shift, from reactive to proactive and anticipatory, lies at the heart of future readiness, helping build systems that can pivot as technology, economies, and societies evolve.

 

Systems that evolve

 

Future-ready education and training require systems that can learn and adapt, helping leadership make ongoing improvements. This requires strong governance with clear objectives, the ability to monitor and evaluate data, and the creation of curricula that are flexible, accessible, and relevant. To achieve this, and ensure that education delivers better outcomes and high-quality skills, technology and artificial intelligence (AI) play an increasingly significant role.

 

Teachers who use digital tools to create interactive lessons and administrators who utilize platforms to automate time-consuming tasks are freeing themselves up to focus on more important issues, such as strategic planning and delivering meaningful lessons. Real-time data that allows teachers to track student performance and personalize instruction is also transforming the learning experience. 

 

However, across the region, the extent to which countries can harness the opportunities offererd by technology and digital tools varies significantly.  Many countries continue to face systemic gaps in technology and digitalisation, meaning they are a long way off digital readiness. ADB’s Digital Education Readiness Framework is helping governments identify the major challenges in infrastructure, teacher capacity, and policy. Once identified, prioritised roadmaps can be developed that will improve the integration of technology into national systems.

 

Nowhere was this seen more clearly than during the COVID-19 pandemic. This global crisis highlighted significant discrepancies in planning and preparedness across the region, demonstrating how future readiness can help education systems remain resilient when the unexpected occurs.  Through its Promoting Learning and Innovation in Eduation to Future-Proof the Workforce program, ADB is now helping partners gain important insights from the COVID-19 recovery and understand how these learnings can help innovate education and training. ADB’s involvement in the International Finance Facility for Education has led to the development of a new approach to financing structures, specifically focused on supporting the development of essential skills in lower-middle-income countries.

 

By helping address issues of connectivity and accessibility, ADB is building systems that are digitally enabled, inclusive, and sustainable, ready to respond to tomorrow's challenges.

 

Curricula designed for lifelong learning

 

As the digital transformation accelerates and reshapes industries, individuals need to have a set of skills that can be adapted to the multiple and various roles they will have throughout their lives. Curricula that respond to emerging labor market demands and support interdisciplinary and flexible approaches to learning will ensure reskilling and upskilling opportunities are accessible to everyone. For individuals often excluded from the workforce, such as women, young people, and other underrepresented groups, lifelong learning can open the doors to skills development. This benefits individuals as well as countries, creating agile and full-strength workforces.

 

In Kyrgyzstan, ADB is supporting the rollout of a new 12-year curriculum that combines STEM competencies (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) with digital skills, problem-solving, and team-based approaches. The School Education Reform Sector Development Program will strengthen a network of schools focused on innovation, while training nearly 10,000 teachers to improve the quality of teaching and learning. This program moves away from a traditional one-size-fits-all structure by adopting a flexible approach to subject combinations and pathways. This ensures that courses align more closely with the needs of tertiary education and the labor market.

 

Georgia’s Modern Skills for Better Jobs Sector Development Program exemplifies ADB’s support to help lifelong learning become mainstream. The redesign of the vocational education system to incorporate modular training programs helps young learners and mid-career workers reskill quickly in line with the changing needs of industries. New skills hubs are supporting interdisciplinary training programs that combine ICT with business, engineering with design, and healthcare with team-building skills, reflecting the integrated nature of the today’s workplace. 

 

Teachers at the heart of transformation

 

No education system can be future-ready without teachers who are confident and highly skilled.

 

In Bangladesh, the Second Teaching Quality Improvement in Secondary Education Project highlights the positive impacts of modern teacher training methods. By prioritizing the use of ICT-enabled training facilities, the project helped more than 60,000 educators learn how to integrate digital tools into their lessons, creating a classroom experience that was more interactive and learner-centred. The set up of a new National Teacher Education Council helped teachers upgrade their qualifications, enhancing professionalism across the system.

 

Pilot projects are also important and help inform the tools and programs that can support teachers’ digital skills development. Through the Technology-Enabled Innovation in Education in Southeast Asia (TIESEA) initiative, the Teacher Digital Competency pilot, conducted in Cambodia and Uzbekistan, has helped educators assess their own digital capabilities, identify knowledge gaps, and plan targeted professional development. The results of these pilots are helping shape national strategies to support teachers as the role of technology in education continues to grow.

 

When teachers are empowered, the positive impacts extend across the system. Innovation hubs in  Kyrgyzstan and Georgia are helping build peer-learning networks where teachers share new approaches and test future-focused methodologies. These communities create a culture of collaboration and improvement, helping to accelerate system-wide changes.

 

Towards a future-shaped education landscape

 

The stories from Timor-Leste, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, and other countries across the region show that future-readiness is not achieved through standalone reforms or any single technology. It takes interconnected ecosystems to anticipate change, develop solutions, and respond in a cohesive way.

 

By investing in education and skills development, ADB is helping ensure that every learner, at every stage of their learning journey, has the tools to participate in and contribute to sustainable and inclusive economies. The future is full of challenges and opportunities, and although there is no certainty as to what will happen next, ADB is helping the region get future-ready.