By Arti Dawar
Over the past decade, there have been umpteen conversations on the changing nature of education: spurred by the pandemic, the advent of LLMs, and the visible effects of climate change. Policies have been reshaped, and priorities reimagined to prepare education for an ‘uncertain’ future. Multiple approaches have centered the teacher as the conduit of that change: as the one who can nurture future-ready children through education. Many words have been written about how teachers should be trained, developed, managed and monitored to ensure we are ready for this unpredictable future.
While the teacher is at the core of educational systems, institutions need to reflect on their own adaptability through contemporary challenges. To nurture future-ready children, we must upgrade the institutions. When educational ecosystems evolve to grant teachers true professional autonomy, sustained collaborative development, and leadership agency, transformative student learning inevitably follows. History gives us insight into how successful education movements borne of uncertain times used the moment of change as an impetus for reform.
What history teaches us about educational change
Post-World War II, Italy was emerging from conflict and dictatorship. From this rubble came the Reggio Emilia municipal preschools in the 1960s, where parents and teachers collectively designed educational content, eventually leading to the Hundred Languages of Children exhibition, co-created by children, teachers and pedagogical coordinators. Today, the schools and the approach led by Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia approach, are renowned for championing child rights. Involving teachers as co-designers of the education system meant that children’s needs were always prioritized while allowing policy and practice to evolve with changing realities rather than leaving classrooms with prescriptive rules.
In another part of the world around the same time, through the 1960s to the 90s, Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire pronounced that the ‘banking’ system of education was failing students and teachers, with schools becoming spaces for enforcing compliance and control, and teachers as mere executors of a standardized curriculum. Through his decades of work, Freire championed educational institutions as democratic spaces, fostering a culture of care and transparency that enables teachers to nurture critical thinkers.
These examples underline that uncertain times are not new – even if the nature of the uncertainty is. Indian education thinkers like Tagore, Krishnamurti, Phule – writing through periods of colonial rule and unrest – echoed the call for education to be a space of critical thinking, reflexive practice and character building. Today, policy frameworks like India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 explicitly recognise this need, calling for continuous professional development, peer mentorship networks, and a shift away from rigid compliance toward institutional trust.
The institution must evolve alongside the teacher
Schools must prioritise the teacher as a core part of their educational philosophy. This means creating the conditions for teachers to exercise professional autonomy and agency, while providing sustained opportunities for learning, collaboration and growth.
Teachers do not carry the weight of societal resilience, adaptability and transformation alone. Just as a village raises a child, it takes a school, a community and a nation to create an environment where teachers can thrive. They need tools and the agency to lead their students with creativity, critical thinking, adaptability and problem-solving. To build a culture of democracy, accountability, and transparency, here are five organisational shifts for school leadership:
- From rigid standardisation to contextual flexibility: Allowing teachers the autonomy and professional development opportunities to contextually navigate the curriculum and adopt emerging tools.
- From administrative hierarchies to dynamic leadership: Positioning teachers as leaders and co-designers of the institution’s vision, with opportunities for peer learning and mentorship with leaders.
- From siloed classrooms to collaborative practice: Building dedicated time for teachers to co-design, observe, and learn together, to nurture co-created novel pedagogical approaches which respond to classroom needs.
- From one-off training to continuous embedded growth: Moving away from episodic workshops toward legitimising dedicated time for learning and continuous professional development.
- From managing burnout to nurturing well-being: Designing institutional systems that prioritise teacher capacity, workload balance, and emotional resilience as prerequisites for student success.
Only when teachers feel institutionally supported and empowered to respond to their students’ needs can they prepare young minds to lead in an ever-changing world.
Arti Dawar serves as the CEO of Shiv Nadar School.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETEDUCATION does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETEDUCATION will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.
